John T. Reed’s news blog

In the last five months, I needed to find a safe deposit box key and a marriage license. In each case, not being able to find either had the potential to cost me hundreds of dollars in the case of the SDB key and thousands of dollars in the case of the marriage license. .Apparently, if my wife predeceases me, one of her former government employers pays me a partial pension or some such. But that former employer noted that we have different last names and demanded to see the marriage license. So I decided to research this whole situation...

I have the strong impression that China thinks it can win wars without firing a shot by intimidation. They are increasing military spending . But their military is still paltry and obsolete with many surface navy ships. Their total military spending is $232B Ours is like $800 B. They probably have lower salaries so they get more bang for the buck than we do. . Also what war did they ever fight in let alone win? Japan easily defeated them in WW II.we saved them---from 5,000 miles away. . They invaded North Vietnam in the 1970s and were promptly thrown...

I am watching a documentary about the Battle of Okinawa. I do not understand why they keep charging into well entrenched Japanese caves. . Back off to just outside the range of their weapons and wait for them to run out of water or food. In WW II, whenever the Japanese felt they were in desperate straits, they did a banzai charge screaming and got mowed down by .30 cal machine guns. .One of the reasons we wanted it was a place for damaged B-29s to land. They started landing in the first days of the battle before it had...

Today's WSJ says, "With interest rates likely to fall, now is the time to lock in rates above 5%." . Ha! . One of Reed's Rules of finance is that interest rates are totally unpredictable. I am the Reed referenced there. . So the "likely to fall" phrase there is total BS. . No one knows. . If you lock in current yields, and market rates rise, you are screwed. If you do not lock them in, you can escape if rates rise. Or your rate will rise without your doing anything. . The smartest bond guy in the universe...

An investment article in today’s WSJ uses the present participle as part of investment analysis. That is a frequent BS twisting of words to mischaracterize the meaning of investment data..The present participle refers to verbs ending in “ing.” It signals a CONTINUOUS tense. Buy is present tense. Bought is past tense and now over. Will buy is future tense, not yet happened. Continuous tense buying suggests something that was going on, is still going on, and will go on in the future. .The offending sentence in the Journal is .“History suggests that being uninvested [in the stock market] when rates...