John T. Reed’s news blog

A Reddit reader is trying to do what is called BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat). That “strategy” is idiotic, but that is another topic. The would-be BRRRRer complains: . “The problem is, we have talked to many different lenders and have not found what we wanted. Listening to all of these influencer/investors on social media they all say “You can do this with $0 of your own money” referring to hard money loans. “Every hard money lender we’ve talked to is either asking for a huge down payment or seems very sketchy with little to no reviews.” . The...

I and many others keep trying to alert Americans to impending financial disaster from deficit spending. . Here is another attempt using a different set of numbers and projections. . https://www.heritage.org/.../american-taxpayers-are-now.... . Read my lips, and those of the U.S Treasury. We now collect $4.7T in taxes annually. .https://www.usdebtclock.org/ .Interest on the national debt, which is the cumulative deficits since around 1992, is now 40% of that $4.7 T. It has been worse. The worst it ever got was when Reagan and Bush I were presidents. The best it has been since then was during the Clinton administration, because of...

In the last five months, I needed to find a safe deposit box key and a marriage license. In each case, not being able to find either had the potential to cost me hundreds of dollars in the case of the SDB key and thousands of dollars in the case of the marriage license. .Apparently, if my wife predeceases me, one of her former government employers pays me a partial pension or some such. But that former employer noted that we have different last names and demanded to see the marriage license. So I decided to research this whole situation...

I have the strong impression that China thinks it can win wars without firing a shot by intimidation. They are increasing military spending . But their military is still paltry and obsolete with many surface navy ships. Their total military spending is $232B Ours is like $800 B. They probably have lower salaries so they get more bang for the buck than we do. . Also what war did they ever fight in let alone win? Japan easily defeated them in WW II.we saved them---from 5,000 miles away. . They invaded North Vietnam in the 1970s and were promptly thrown...

I am watching a documentary about the Battle of Okinawa. I do not understand why they keep charging into well entrenched Japanese caves. . Back off to just outside the range of their weapons and wait for them to run out of water or food. In WW II, whenever the Japanese felt they were in desperate straits, they did a banzai charge screaming and got mowed down by .30 cal machine guns. .One of the reasons we wanted it was a place for damaged B-29s to land. They started landing in the first days of the battle before it had...