This past week my wife and I celebrated our 32nd year of living in Ottawa. When we first moved to Ottawa in 1986 I was sure we would be here for only a year or two. All our friends and my wife’s family are near Toronto, so I was sure we would decide to move back, at some point. The problem was that decision was never made, so by not making that decision, we decided to stay in Ottawa. In life not making decisions, is still a decision (and some folks never quite figure out that philosophical point). Keep this in mind when you cannot decide things financially, your lack of decisiveness is a decision.
For those unaware Michael James (friend of this site), knows his algebra, computers and cryptography, so I have waited for him to write about Bitcoin, and write he did this week. As usual his article is pointed, and excruciatingly on the mark for those who want to dabble in Cryptocurrencies. Yes, I have called you an idiot for investing in Bitcoins, but now you are hearing from someone who is an expert in the area, he thinks you are an idiot too. No he doesn’t call you an idiot, but you can plainly read that is his sentiment.
The Bank of Canada says Inflation has returned (given gas is $1.35 a litre in Ottawa, I tend to agree with that statement). Even though they held their overnight rate at 1.25% they also warned that Inflation is here and they will need to react to it soon (in a separate statement):
Assuming our forecast remains on track, it is Governing Council’s view that interest rates will need to move higher over time to keep inflation on target.
Does this mean that Interest Rates will be going up soon? The Magic 8-Ball of Personal Finance replies, “Signs point to yes”.
My Recent Writings
Does a Credit Card Appear Out of Nowhere? That is the question that came to mind when my daughter told me about a credit card that appeared on her on-line banking page, but she never did apply for one. How is that possible? Best read and see how that happened.
Micro Blogging for Motivation
John Young and I were at the University of Waterloo at the same time, we caroused a few times together, and he is even somewhat related to me (he is my wife’s cousin), but the fact that he ran the Boston Marathon is amazing. The fact he is going to then run many more marathons this year, is even more amazing. What does John normally do? He is a Math Teacher.
I truly believe this picture by @JK_Photog captures my emotion the moment I crossed the finish line at @bostonmarathon #BetheHammer #GoAchilles pic.twitter.com/hNvTGtk1yC
— John Y #BetheHammer 💙 (@dwarfparatri) April 17, 2018
Financial Decisions
The Spring in Ottawa may be here (for a day, then Summer will start), but while it is here, let us enjoy it.
- CSE (your Government Cyber-protection agency) says,”it is highly probable that cyber threat activity against democratic processes worldwide will increase in quantity and sophistication over the next year, and perhaps beyond that.”, which should mean that the Ontario Election could even be more interesting than it currently is!
- Tom Drake points out Why Tax Refunds Are a Bad Thing (and How You Can Avoid Them). You are loaning the government money for a short-term loan but you are not being paid back like it is a PayDay loan, keep that in mind.
- How the Blunt Bean Counter has time to write during tax season, I don’t know, but he gives us another interesting one, Confessions of a Tax Season Accountant – Determining the Adjusted Cost Base of Your U.S.Securities.
Finance is Personal
Kerry from Squawkfox chats on a very interesting show called Finance is Personal.
Retirement Spending Explained
If you need help on how your retirement spending will work, allow me to offer you this simple example.
The New 2018 Random Thoughts
- Stock Picking Update, Crypto Credit, and #MoneyTalk (April 13the)
- RDSP, Easter, Thanks Rusty and #MoneyTalk (March 29th)
- Facebook, Spring is here and #MoneyTalk (March 23rd)
- Still Financially Crazy after 13 Years (March 16th)
- Steady Interest Rates, Spring Forward and #MoneyTalk (March 8th)
- Budgets, Phoenix Death, Inflation and #MoneyTalk (March 2nd)
- Potholes, Tuition Increases, and #MoneyTalk (February 23rd)
- RRSP, Lent, Happy Year of the Dog and #MoneyTalk (February 16th)
- Roller Coaster Markets , Olympics and #Moneytalk (February 9th)
- Superb Owls, RDSP Deposit and #MoneyTalk (February 2nd)
- OHIP Overload, Doomsday minus 2 minutes, and #MoneyTalk (January 26th)
- Tighter Money, Best Investment, Go North! and #MoneyTalk (January 19th)
- Paper Delivery, Bitcoin and #MoneyTalk (January 12th)
- Polar Vortexes, Minimum Wage and #MoneyTalk (January 4th)
My RSS feed is available.
I stopped taking interest in Bitcoins when it felt like I was gambling more than investing. There is absolutely no way to predict where the trend will go and even if you study the past few months’ trends, it’s completely whimsical. I even read a recent report by Bloomberg, which further makes me skeptical about investing in crypto coins.
I agree with that.
My brother’s point was that he wanted to push block chain forward, and that is what he is investing in.
I worry about the whole Block Chain hype as well. Is a distributed ledger really that important? Maybe, I don’t know, but I keep wondering whether it solves all the solutions folks claim it does.
I agree that buying Bitcoin (to try to make money) is speculating.
But my brother has convinced me he is, ‘investing’. Not in the sense of making money, but in the sense that he believes in the theory behind the purpose of Bitcoin and what Bitcoin is trying to do. He is putting money into his beliefs. [He’s not putting all his money into it, so I left it at that.]
Random note: our discussion ended with this (philosophical?) question.
If the dot-com bubble didn’t happen .. would the internet be as important as it is today?
Without the Dot Com bubble, no, as with most bubbles there was a foundation that was building, unfortunately there was a great deal of fluff too (Pets dot com?).
Buying Bitcoins is definitely speculating rather than investing. Kind of like roulette.
But I hear you can make money on roulette, if you have a system 🙂