John T. Reed’s news blog

I had great expectations for Michel Lewis’s new book: The Premonition. It’s about the pandemic. . I just finished it. . It says government at all levels is congenitally incompetent at managing a pandemic. Risks must be taken. Outcomes are uncertain. Politicians are at the top of the chain of command. All they care about is taking credit for everything good and blaming their opponents for everything bad. It is a disaster. . He identifies a collection of smart people some inside the bureaucracy, most outside in informal groups of people who are good at diagnosing the problem and know...

Jonathan Lansner, a business columnist for the East Bay Times, called for a government ban on building new stores. He wants housing instead. America has what are called free markets. They are Old Testament harsh. If you build an unneeded store, you will have to pay an unpayable mortgage with rent that you could not find. The market punishes vacant building developers. He says cities prefer stores because they “control” sales tax revenue. The average Californian pays $997 a year in sales tax and the average home pays $7,266 in property taxes. The average unneeded vacant store pays $0 in...

• Home prices are soaring. • Car prices and rental rates are soaring. • Gold and silver prices are soaring. • Oil and gas prices are soaring. • Groceries are soaring. • Lumber prices are soaring. • Paper prices are soaring. • In April 2021, the consumer price index went up at an annual rate of 11%. • The year-over-year increase for the 12 months ending in April 2021 was 4.2%, the highest in 13 years..Here is a great graph that shows the problem that the politicians and their media allies are trying to say this graph has no significance..https://www.justfacts.com/images/nationaldebt/debt_gdp-full.png?fbclid=IwAR0SZ9ZXToyyLIAf0KqRtQ08FfmtkaTft9AI3r7BQiF_rAdapTqaL-Ge-_w...

A reader just told me he has a lease option that expires tomorrow and he has a great bargain price. The seller says he will renege. That is ILLEGAL. It is also irrelevant. . HOWEVER, the lessee/optionee must exercise the option by tendering the money. I told him to get a lawyer TODAY and make sure he exercises the option according to its terms before the deadline which he said was 5/31/21. . If you do not tender the money because the guy said he would renege, he wins. You have to ignore his words and tender the money. ....

Jason Zweig says I bonds are super investments. The I stands for inflation. You can only buy $10,000 a year, although you can get more per year by overpaying your estimated taxes and taking your tax refund in the form of I bonds. He says they yield more than 3.5% and they are nearly risk free. They are federally guaranteed government bonds. I will give credit for one thing: Only $46.4 billion are outstanding. That is analogous to, although much larger than, the number of Forever stamps outstanding. The interest from these bonds is exempt from state and local income...