John T. Reed’s news blog

I have long noted that Uber and Lyft are unprofitable and unable to ever be profitable. Their business model does not work. . But I and others have thought that maybe delivering THINGS rather than humans could be profitable because you can cram more into the same space, they are ready when the delivery driver needs and can be delivered almost any time. . Apparently not. Today’s WSJ says Instacart—hot start-up—is booming in terms of gross revenue. I do not know if Instacart makes a profit. In typical hot start-up fashion, the Journal did not deem that a material fact....

I am starting the parking chapter of my new book. This is parking for your principal residence which you own. . When I lived in a triplex I owned in Collingswood, NJ, they had a stupid rule that cars could not be parked on the street between something like 10PM and 6AM. I knew about it because the same rule applied to my mom’s house. But a buyer from out-of-town could have been screwed. . So I am asking readers here if they have ever had a problem with parking at your owner-occupied home. It could stem from a rule...

I am currently working on my new book working title: Your Principal Residence is the Only Real Estate Investment You’ll Ever Need. It is my 21st real estate investment book. It has two subjects I have not had to address before: the skyrocketing cost of electricity and the greatly increased lack of reliability of grid electricity and grid telecommunications. Environmentalists driving up cost and driving down reliability Environmentalists used to love natural gas as a “transitional” fuel to their true love wind and solar. But Obama told them to hate natural gas, too, and they promptly have. They are, by...

I have not run any Black Friday or Cyber Monday specials, but I still got a big boost in sale since Thanksgiving anyway. I think all the people hyping those two days have created such a buying urge that it runneth over to everybody selling almost anything. Thanks, whoever you are. By the way, I also have a surge in sales of my Succeeding book before Christmas and before graduations in May. I think people who know the book are buying it as a gift to young people. Good idea. I was inspired to write the book when my oldest...

I am fascinated by languages, Got A+ in four of them in school. Here are some thoughts on them:. I have described the written Japanese, Chinese, and Korean languages as idiotic. I have studied Spanish, French, English, Vietnamese, Russian, a little Japanese, Italian, and Chinese, and Esperanto. . The irregularities of English are stupid. I think English-speaking countries are the only ones with spelling bees—which are contests to see who can survive the irregularities of English. Our oldest son was the champ of his school, then lost at the regional on the word “martyr” which he spelled marter. . By...