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John T. Reed’s news blog

Comments on the movie The Big Short

Posted by John Reed on

I saw the movie The Big Short last night. I recommend it, although the book was far better.  Good explanations of the technical aspects They had an interesting approach to explaining the technical aspects of the sub prime crisis. Namely, they would essentially, stop the movie, and have the actors and celebrity experts in other fields speak directly to the audience using analogies to explain mortgage bundles, credit default swaps (insurance against bond defaults including mortgage bonds), side bets on the mortgage bundles, etc. Written by Michael Lewis The Big Short book by Michael Lewis (who also wrote Blindside and...

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Profiling should not be illegal

Posted by John Reed on

Profiling based on statistics, not bigotry, is legit Racial profiling is considered taboo in the U.S. The nation was too quick to make that change. They should undo it. Furthermore, only racial profiling was taboo, not any other kind of profiling. Americans have unconsciously grafted onto racial profiling the whole litany of race, creed, color, religion, sexual preference, and so on. The U.S. Supreme Court actually approved racial profiling under certain circumstances in the 1996 Armstrong case. We have had laws that discriminate against foreign Muslims since 2002: men over sixteen years old who enter the country from twenty-five Middle Eastern countries and North Korea are...

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Comments on the New York Times gun-control editorial

Posted by John Reed on

Here is an excerpt from the NY Times anti-gun editorial:“ They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did. “But at least those countries are trying.”In other words, it’s good to implement a plan to stop gun violence even if it doesn’t work. What’s that? About second-grade logic?I have written a couple of web articles claiming that the left, and the military who would not claim to be on the left but who work for the government more intimately than civilian government employees, think their...

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My book that is most popular as a Christmas gift

Posted by John T. Reed on

’Tis the season. I write how-to books for a living. Never figured when I started that I was in the Christmas gift business. My readers told me that I was. We see an uptick in sales during Christmas especially for my Succeeding book. Some people buy multiple copies and mention they are gifts when asking about delivery speed. We ship by Priority Mail or First Class if it’s too light for Priority. Pretty quick. Go where your strengths are valued and avoid where your weaknesses are fatal Succeeding is a real-world explanation of how to succeed in life in general, mainly by...

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On trying to hurt the feelings of public figures

Posted by John Reed on

January 30th, 2011 Copyright by John T. Reed A public figure is someone who is famous: movie and TV stars, radio stars, college presidents, columnists, book authors, CEOs of big corporations, professional and college athletes, elected officials, etc. Sorry, no time to answer I am a public figure, albeit a lesser one. We public figures get letters (mostly emails nowadays). We get lots and lots of letters. We do not answer most. The persons who write them think that’s rude in many cases. No. It’s just that we are busy and the volume of the mail is so great that we...

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