John T. Reed’s news blog
How your upcoming or recent graduate can succeed in the real world
Posted by John Reed on
When my sons were in elementary school, I thought I need to write a book for them that tells them what I have learned about succeeding in life—in the real world. . When our oldest son Dan hit high school, I got to work on it. That book is called Succeeding, now in its third edition. . Most, maybe all, of the other such books, are nothing but pep rally, rah rah, everyone can achieve any goal to which they set their mind. Success, or lack thereof, all comes from how you think about it and how you think about...
Open letter to Steve Forbes about his wanting to return to a gold standard
Posted by John Reed on
An open letter to Steve Forbes about gold . Steve Forbes is the Editor in Chief of Forbes magazine and a big advocate for the United States to return to the gold standard. He wrote an editorial about it in the April/May 2023 issue. . Hello again, Steve We have met a number of times at FreedomFest where I spoke for about ten years. I also sent you a copy of the first edition of my book How to Protect Your Life Savings From Hyperinflation & Depression in 2010. The second edition of that book came out in 2012....
Opinion polls about abstract policy questions are not reliable predictors of elections.
Posted by John Reed on
WSJ op-ed says voters want limited government. . You know what? That is obvious nonsense. Yeah they have some opinion polls. Try looking at the last election for the answer to what voters were looking for, instead of opinion polls/ . Females even those who cannot get pregnant, want abortion. Some blacks want candidates who are the same color as them. A Chicago talk radio host recently said that the radical black teachers union guy who just won Chicago mayor because of affluent white female voters presumably voting ideology. In 2020 few voted FOR Biden. Many voted AGAINST Trump. ....
Elon Musk devastates BBC accuser with an antidote i prescribed in my How to Spot Dishonest Arguments book
Posted by John Reed on
Elon Musk recently made a fool of a BBC journalist, just by asking for one example of hate speech accusations the journalist was making, and pointing out repeatedly that the BBC BS artist could not do it. Musk then drew the conclusion that the BBC BS guy “did not know what he was talking about.” Actually, I think that was inaccurate. The whole truth was that the BBC guy has never cared about knowing what he was talking about and his hate speech statements were therefore lies as defined in the Times v. Sullivan “actual malice” standard..My 2020 book How...
WSJ says gold near record. No. Still about $500 away from the record.
Posted by John Reed on
WSJ headline say gold near record price—and since gold is little more than a hedge against inflation, you must adjust for inflation. The record was in February, 1980 if you adjust for inflation: $2,541.61. It's now $2,055 an ounce. . The actual story is how it has moved so little since 1980. Some inflation hedge. . Here is the adjusted-for-inflation chart—the only one that matters when the price of the commodity is almost entirely dependent on its hedge-agasint-inflation image: . https://www.macrotrends.net/.../historical-gold-prices...? . https://johntreed.com/.../60940227-disadvantages-of-gold...