John T. Reed’s news blog

Most people would not know how to spend sums like several million wiselyMay 01, 2024 . Forbes and me on how to protect yourself from inflationApr 24, 2024.Tump NYC judge worried that $175M cash may fall in value!?Apr 24, 2024. Can Detroit come back real-estate-wise?Apr 24, 2024. The bullet at Baldwin’s movie setApr 16, 2024. Malkiel’s stock recommendation: 82% top 50 US and 18% top 50 internationalApr 16, 2024. Should you buy Costco gold or solver bars? No. Here’s why.Apr 08, 2024. Wall Street Journal article article on retirement finances leaves out home equityApr 03, 2024. Staging and fixing houses...

I endorsed Ben Carson recently, which I never do. But I just heard Richard Dawkins speak yesterday. He debated Carson on God once. He said that Carson believes the universe is 5,000 or 6,000 years old and that Satan affected Darwin when he wrote Origin of the Species. I tried to confirm that Carson said those things on the Net. The web sites saying that generally seemed to be liberal. Although some had his own words in YouTubes. He scoffed at the Big Bang Theory. I don’t believe he used the word Satan. Rather, he said “adversary,” which may be...

Copyright John T. Reed The public never seems to have figured out that terrorism is a publicity stunt. The goal of publicity stuntmen is publicity. Did al Qaeda get publicity as a result of 9/11? It may have been the most publicity anyone ever got for anything in the history of the world. Al Qaeda’s paymasters, ultimately, were the media and the folks who watched the videos of the planes going into the WTC. Did the media broadcast those images? Sure. So we can blame the media? No. Any media outlet that did not show those images would have seen...

Should we get all excited about Putin putting military in Syria and bombing some of the Muslims fighting there? Nope. Does Syria have a strategic location? Not unless you consider a land bridge between Lebanon, Israel and Jordan on the one hand and Turkey on the other important. I don’t. Is their oil strategic? Not much. They rank 68th in the world in oil. Are their people strategic? Nope. 18 million quarrelsome tribes and religions. Their border was drawn by France. Their civil war is arguably the biggest human disaster on earth at present. Now that he can no longer...

Copyright John T. Reed 2014 I recently read four books that changed my world view greatly. I recommend them highly. They are: • Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper by Robert Bryce (recent and near future innovation) • Inventing Freedom by Daniel Hannan (subtitled “How the English Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World”) • The Accidental Super Power by Peter Zeihan (how geography and demographics determines national destiny)• The End of Doom by Ronald Bailey (Environmental renewal in the Twenty-first Century) The first and third books are very uplifting for Americans. The second is a very interesting revelation about our history with...