John T. Reed’s news blog

On the subject of high inflation, I tell readers what I think is the way to protect yourself. Most other writers pontificate as if they were the president’s top economic advisors telling him how to use his power to prevent or fix hyperinflation. A waste of time given that politicians are not interested in doing the right thing. . So I was surprised to see that Steve Forbes’ Inflation book has a chapter titled ‘What about your money?” It supposedly tells you how to “preserve and even grow your assets.” . Great! Only I did not find it very useful....

I never see an American Hamas supporter interviewed on TV, so I am not sure what their real motive is. . However, I was in college—true it was West Point, not a big protest campus—during the Vietnam war. . After the war ended, one of the Chicago Seven, Abbie Hoffman I think, admitted that the whole Vietnam war protest was not about the morality of the war, as they screamed. Rather, he said the whole thing was just about parent baiting. In other words, the college kids were just trying to outrage the maximum number of grown-ups as much as...

The Judge in the Trump case said the bond posted by Trump was not good enough because it could go down in value during the trial. . The bond is secured by $175,000,000 in cash that Trump put into a Schwab account controlled by the bond company. The amount of the bond ordered by the Court is $175,000,000. The bond is 100% secured by cash. . The judge thinks cash US dollars may fall in value!!?? The purchasing power may fall due to inflation. But that is not taken into account for bond posting purposes.. Hopefully the Jury is more...

Steve Forbes book says there cannot ever be inflation if there is a gold standard. . Well, there actually was gold inflation after America was discovered. The conquistadors found lots of gold and brought it back to Europe. That jump in the supply of gold caused temporary inflation I believe. . Minor sidelight: At times in recent hyperinflation, people have used bricks, cigarettes and chocolate as money—the latter two in Germany in 1945. Bricks were used in the shattered USSR. . I have not read a book on inflation in years. Reading this one scared me more and I was...

Detroit is coming back real-estate-wise. I am not surprised. I studied it somewhat because it was an interesting case study. . In the early 1950s, Detroit was the world equivalent of Silicon Valley in the 1990s and 2000s. Booming Motown, cars being the hot industry. That was when my parents and maybe most others first became car owners, the massive transformation of the cities and suburbs. . Arguably, Detroit created the transportation revolution that destroyed it. Although, it must be admitted that it's first black mayor Cpleman Young also DEIed it to death. Other cities were not destroyed by the...