Half a dozen little 2021 predictions about life after COVID-19

Six hundred and seventy-five thousand Americans died of the Spanish Flu in 1918, back when the total population of the United States was 103 million. In the current pandemic, American deaths are already above 540,000 (remember when a projection of 160,000 deaths seemed crazy?) but our population is now 331 million. While COVID-19 will undoubtedly kill more Americans than did the Spanish flu, the percentage of the population dying will be much lower than the 0.65 percent death rate in 1918. But the numbers are close enough that one might guess the long-term impact of this pandemic could be very similar to that one.

I don’t think it will be. I think this pandemic […]

Looking back at 2018 predictions, Bob was somehow 70 percent correct

I can’t put this off any longer, so here are the tech predictions I made a year ago for 2018. We have to see how well or poorly I did before we can move on to my predictions for 2019 and beyond. These old predictions have been edited for length, but not to avoid embarrassment.

I try to never avoid embarrassment.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that my predictions get longer and longer (this column, alone, is 4329 words — my second longest, ever) as they have drifted from new products to explaining new strategies. This sometimes works against the prediction since it is often easier to […]

Prediction #4 — Bitcoin stays crazy until traders learn it is not a currency

2017 was a wild ride for cryptocurrencies and for Bitcoin in particular, rising in price at one point above $19,000 only to drop back to a bit over half of that number now. But which number is correct? If only the market can tell for sure — and these numbers are coming straight from the market, remember — what the heck does it all mean? It means Bitcoin isn’t a currency at all but traders are pretending that it is. 2018 will see investors finally figure this out.

Confusion abounds, so let’s cut through the crap with an analogy. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and a ton […]

How to Get Rich Trading Bitcoin

Bitcoin_accepted_hereAs an observer of the Bitcoin market as long as this original cryptocurrency has existed, it never made much sense to me from an investment perspective. Bitcoin prices were too volatile and the volatility seemed too random. Volatility can be a good thing for traders, mind you, but only if you think you have an idea why the price goes up and down the way it does. Otherwise it is just a good way to lose all your money. But a couple of recent events have changed my view of Bitcoin. I now think I can explain its volatility and predict it well enough for profitable trading. And the best part is […]

Four more predictions for 2017

2016-17Last week a reader told me that six predictions for 2017 weren’t enough and that I owed him four more, so here they are.

Prediction #7 — Not the demise of Bitcoin, but finally an acceptance of what the crypto currency is (and isn’t). My son Cole, who is 12 (and now taller than me), was for awhile a Bitcoin miner. We bought a used Ant Miner last year on eBay, equipped it with a proper power supply and set it going 24/7 in the Man Cave, where most boyish things happen around here. The rig was incredibly loud and — after the first electric bill arrived — totally uneconomic. We were […]