John T. Reed’s news blog

I finished the 20th edition of Aggressive Tax Avoidance for Real Estate Investors. It mainly includes the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. That book has sold over 100,000 copies since it first came out in 1981. I am currently getting bids to create the hard-copy paperback version. That will take about a month. In the meantime, any orders we get for it will be printed and bound as a comb-bound book with my very own hands in my home office. A comb-bound book has 19 rectangular holes on the left side and a cylindrical plastic comb the teeth of...

On the Broward County tactics in Parkland: I was reluctant to call the on-campus deputy a coward initially. I needed more info. We now have a lot more.   I still do not care for the word cowardice here. In both the military and tackle football, you have to teach the people what to do and drill them so it becomes a Pavlovian habit. Untrained people do not charge at men who are shooting at them. Just putting on a police uniform or a military uniform does not make you a guy who does that.   You have to say,...

A tariff is a tax on certain imports to a country levied by that country on those who purchase the targeted imports. All tariffs are corrupt. They allow the protected industry or company to raise their prices up to the world cost of the import plus the amount of the tariff. Politicians vote for tariffs, or in the case of the President, put them into effect by executive order pursuant to statute, in return for campaign contributions and votes from the leaders and workers of the companies that are protected from normal international competition by the tariff. Put crudely, the...

I have a sense that readers think I am exaggerating how bad hyperinflation is. Venezuela, which is the main hyperinflation in the world today, has seen its GDP fall 40% since 2013. The people are starving literally. 64% of respondents to a survey there said they lost 25 pounds in 2017.This is why I say you must get out of a hyperinflated country if you find yourself in one. That requires a little preparation before the ’flation hits the fan. Preparation that is quite easy if you do it in time. But near impossible if you wait too long..Is America Venezuela?...

Trump needs to be impeached immediately to head off the trade war he has declared. His appointees who support that trade war, namely Commerce Secretary Ross and Trade Representative Lighthizer, should be fired immediately.I am not trying to punish him, I am trying to stop the trade war. He has turned himself into a colossal mistake made by American voters in 2016. I don’t care whether he goes to the Leavenworth Penitentiary or Mar-a-Lago. I voted for Gary Johnson.The foreign leaders who have threatened retaliation for this should also be impeached or whatever it’s called in their countries. There is...