John T. Reed’s news blog

Big article in the WSJ today about the median home prices of east-of-Colorado homes going up while median home prices in and west of CO went down. Who says so? Black Knight, Inc. Who are they? I don't know. Never heard of them. But one of the names sports writers have used to describe the football team of my alma Mater West Point is the Black Knights of the Hudson. And indeed, the chairman emeritus of Black Knights is a West Point grad..Internet says they are a home ownership software and data analytics company. I still never heard of them....

The National Housing Council sent me a news release that I think is incorrect by incompleteness. https://nhc.org/the-pitfalls-of-cash-out-refinancing-in-a-rising-interest-rate-environment/.They are basically unhappy about the interest expense on a new first mortgage being much greater than the rate on their existing first mortgage. They prefer that you get a home equity second mortgage thereby preserving a likely lower interest rate of about 3% on your existing first mortgage..They acknowledge that the rate on home equity loans is higher than on new firsts. They also admit the term is shorter like ten years instead of 30. They did NOT mention that HELOCs often have...

I am trying to come up with plans A, B, and C for both home needs usually provided by grid electric and/or natural gas and communication, i.e., internet, phone, and TV. . Complicated. . If you lose grid electric, you can use natural gas for things like hot water, cooking if you have a gas stove, and heat although nowadays, most gas appliances and systems need electricity for ignition and controlling. . I can plug my tankless hot water heater into an extension cord to my portable propane generator. But my furnace is hard wired so I do not know...

Laymen are quick to joke about making money by shorting some asset that is in trouble. In reality, shorts are quite complicated and surprisingly risky. For one thing, the max profit you could make is limited—becasue the asset you are shorting can only go to zero, not below. But the amount you can LOSE is unlimited. . Selling an asset short has transaction costs. And you’d better make sure your counterparty will pay if he loses. Finally, shorts, are, well, short-term. You not only have to be right about the asset falling in value, you also have to know when....

My son Mike Had me watch me watch this debate: Matt Taibi & Douglas Murray v. Malcolm Gladwell & Michelle Somebody from the NY Times. Topic is “Can the Mainstream media be trusted?” . https://youtu.be/HdPQV6xDdcc . In 2020, I came out with a book titled How to Spot Dishonest Arguments and keep your own thinking straight. Debates like this are a great place to see stuff that I talked about in that book. . https://johntreed.com/.../how-to-spot-dishonest-arguments... . In this particular debate, you do not see much variety of dishonest tactics. Malcolm Gladwell uses the straw-man tactic incessantly. He also uses a...