John T. Reed’s news blog

This is an email I got today from a U.S. Marine:.Dear Mr. Reed, At some point in the past I emailed you about me wanting to enlist. Despite your warnings I did it anyways. One of THE worst mistakes of my life. I can not even express the level of stupidity in the training, leadership, and daily life of the Marine Corps. Wish I had heeded your words. I count down the days till I am free of this misery. Hopefully I don’t pay the price on deployment. I don’t get why civilians worship the military. They don’t know the...

Below is a video by my son Dan and me discussing my new book Aggressive Tax Avoidance for Real Estate Investors, 20th edition.

On melting circulating U.S. coins with a high “face value to melt value” ratio.When I was researching my book How to Protect Your Life Savings From Hyperinflation & Depression, the light bulb went on in my head. It occurred to me that it would be really neat if somewhere in the world there was a circulating coin with a high melt-value-to-face-value ratio. So I googled that phrase. There are two Turned out there were two, and they were right here in the U.S.: the penny and the nickel. I learned about them at the coinflation.com web site. And it is great that...

“Gold Prices Soar on Trade-War Fears” That is the headline in a small article in today’s Wall Street Journal.One of the reasons I do not recommend gold is its price is partially influenced by people known a “gold bugs.” A better word would be kooks.This headline is further evidence of that. The bugs think gold is good because it’s gold.No. It is a hedge against inflation. And not because it’s gold but because it is a commodity and a hard asset. ALL durable commodities and hard assets are hedges against inflation. Is gold a better hedge against inflation than other...