John T. Reed’s news blog

What is junk silver? In the process of working on my brother-in-law’s estate, we found 1,200 quarters and 500 half dollar coins minted before 1965 buried in the yard. They are now in our CA safe deposit box.Those denominations minted then contained 90% silver. At the time we found them, those coins were worth $7,095. Overpriced? I have rejected such “junk silver” on a number of grounds including that it is overpriced. http://www.johntreed.com/…/60940227-disadvantages-of-gold-a…However, I just redid the calculations on that. The historical average price of silver in 2016 dollars, since 1965, adjusted for inflation is $15.81 per ounce. Today’s market...

Trump should have no role in decisions to prosecute or not prosecute Hillary. It was improper for Obama to protect her. It is no less improper for Trump to protect her. Obama can pardon her and take the heat for it. So Trump is not only pardoning Hillary, he is pardoning Obama for doing that by letting him off the hook.Trump is also reneging on a number of campaign promises like the one about draining the swamp. His reason—I don’t want to hurt the Clintons—is childlike and irrelevant. The Constitution requires that he ensure that the laws are faithfully executed,...

I like much of what Trump has done since the election, but none of it will matter if he starts a trade war that results in Great Depression 2.0. Here is the pertinent part of the Wikipedia article:“In May 1930, a petition was signed by 1,028 economists in the U.S. asking President Hoover to veto the legislation, organized by Paul Douglas, Irving Fisher, James TFG Wood, Frank Graham, Ernest Patterson, Henry Seager, Frank Taussig, and Clair Wilcox.“Automobile executive Henry Ford spent an evening at the White House trying to convince Hoover to veto the bill, calling it "an economic stupidity."...

In the Spring of 2015, I said Trump was not going to run. I was wrong.During the primaries I said repeatedly that he was sabotaging his own campaign with stupid statements and being tricked into going down a dozen rabbit holes that had nothing to do with the election. I was right about those behaviors being wrong, but I was wrong about their being fatal to his campaign.I believed the pollsters in 2008, 2012, and 2016. I was right on the first two and wrong on the third.I said all candidates have advantages and disadvantages and strengths and weaknesses and...

Readers often thank me for recommending books and articles to read. One subscriber to my Real Estate Investor’s Monthly said the occasional book reviews alone and the books they led him to were worth the cost of the subscription ($125). I am one of the few book authors who still generally puts bibliographies into his books (not to mention indexes). Other authors and their publishers do not want the expense of the extra pages or of compiling and organizing the information. They also do not want to alert you to where they got their information or to the existence of...