John T. Reed’s news blog

 Soft-peddle headline in the WSJ reveals monster money printing by fed..There is one agency of the Federal government that is responsible to prevent inflation or deflation: the Federal Reserve Bank. No other agency has any authority, tools, or responsibility for the stability of the US dollar..The headline is “Fed Breaks Its Taboos To Prop Up The Economy.” Google it to read it..The proper role of a central bank was established by Walter Bagehot. Walter Bagehot ( 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was a British journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race....

Is it possible that some of the stuff we are not buying these days is stuff we should not have been buying?.When I was a kid, we ate at a restaurant about twice a year. All other meals were at home or a bag lunch at school. Fast food restaurants did not exist then, but I lived in Wildwood, NJ and our parents would sometimes buy us a hot dog and a Coke on the boardwalk in summer..Now, before the shutdown, I probably ate an average 1.5 meals per day in restaurants. My wife was complaining about the total when...

Trump’s suggestion of using disinfectant inside the body was idiotic. His statement that he was being sarcastic is a lie..His suggestion that UV light inside the body might be safe and effective is being considered by the medical profession, but it is a matter for the doctors on his covid 19 panel, not him, to discuss..Trump went nuts over one of his covid 19 panel doctors being misquoted by the Washington Post about the Covid 19 virus returning in the fall like the seasonal flu does. The doctor said he was not misquoted in the body of the story, but...

Pennies and nickels I have already discussed US pennies and nickels at length. They are made of copper and nickel and zinc so inflation causes the metal to rise in dollar value. Deflation can cause the metal in the coins to fall in value, but from a financial standpoint, the coins cannot fall in value below the face value amount engraved on them.   Mortgaged real estate How about mortgaged real estate? In inflation, the dollar value of a house or other property rises in value. In deflation, it falls in value. But suppose you have a mortgage?   You...

I am reading an article on army ranger school today. They get 2,500 calories a day. We got one C-ration a day. Each ration were 1,200 calories. You can look it up. And they say the rangers today are hungry all the time. Wimps. . https://www.outsideonline.com/2411895/army-ranger-school?utm_source=pocket-newtab . The reporter says, “Why do they voluntarily subject themselves to this?” . Voluntarily my ass. For my West Point class (’68), if you chose a combat arm as your branch, you had to go to the damned ranger school. I wrote here recently about a recently deceased classmate of mine who deliberately flunked...