John T. Reed’s news blog

An open letter to Steve Forbes about gold . Steve Forbes is the Editor in Chief of Forbes magazine and a big advocate for the United States to return to the gold standard. He wrote an editorial about it in the April/May 2023 issue. . Hello again, Steve   We have met a number of times at FreedomFest where I spoke for about ten years. I also sent you a copy of the first edition of my book How to Protect Your Life Savings From Hyperinflation & Depression in 2010. The second edition of that book came out in 2012....

WSJ op-ed says voters want limited government. . You know what? That is obvious nonsense. Yeah they have some opinion polls. Try looking at the last election for the answer to what voters were looking for, instead of opinion polls/ . Females even those who cannot get pregnant, want abortion. Some blacks want candidates who are the same color as them. A Chicago talk radio host recently said that the radical black teachers union guy who just won Chicago mayor because of affluent white female voters presumably voting ideology. In 2020 few voted FOR Biden. Many voted AGAINST Trump. ....

Elon Musk recently made a fool of a BBC journalist, just by asking for one example of hate speech accusations the journalist was making, and pointing out repeatedly that the BBC BS artist could not do it. Musk then drew the conclusion that the BBC BS guy “did not know what he was talking about.” Actually, I think that was inaccurate. The whole truth was that the BBC guy has never cared about knowing what he was talking about and his hate speech statements were therefore lies as defined in the Times v. Sullivan “actual malice” standard..My 2020 book How...

WSJ headline say gold near record price—and since gold is little more than a hedge against inflation, you must adjust for inflation. The record was in February, 1980 if you adjust for inflation: $2,541.61. It's now $2,055 an ounce. . The actual story is how it has moved so little since 1980. Some inflation hedge. . Here is the adjusted-for-inflation chart—the only one that matters when the price of the commodity is almost entirely dependent on its hedge-agasint-inflation image: . https://www.macrotrends.net/.../historical-gold-prices...? . https://johntreed.com/.../60940227-disadvantages-of-gold...

Another WSJ article today lauding the “woundrous” 60-40 strategy. 60% stocks and 40% bonds. It is supposed to do better than any other type of investment portfolio. I think continued belief in this nonsense is “wondrous.”1. Does it generate commissions to securities dealers? Initially I guess, if you buy it then leave it alone to avoid management fees and gains taxes.2. Decisions and forecasts must be judged by what the investor knew at the time, not what the results were in the retrospectoscope.3. Bonds in 2023 are an entirely different animal than they were before the Great Depression. In 1933,...