I was able to reconnect for an interview with legendary Quantum Fund manager and commodities bull, Jim Rogers. This was an especially groundbreaking interview, as Jim shared thoughts on what governments around the world will be taking next, and what he’s doing right now to protect his personal bank accounts following the Cyprus collapse.

Speaking towards the frightening implications of the Cyprus banking collapse, Jim said that, “It’s been condoned [now] by the IMF, the European union, and everybody else in sight; that a government in need,can take assets. We all knew they could tax us…but this is the first time that I’m aware of, that they’ve gone inand taken bank accounts. They took gold from people in the U.S. in the 1930′s…but I’ve never heard of them taking bank accounts. [Now] they’re doing it. So be careful [because], now they can take your bank account under this precedent.“

When asked if bank account confiscation will be going worldwide, Jim said, ”Well, it’s now in their bag of tricks, but yes, they can do anything they want too now. I for one am worried andI’m taking preparations. Who knows if I’m right or not, but I’d rather be safe than sorry as all of thosepeople who had money in Cyprus have learned. They thought they had a normal bank account… but now it’s been [taken] with the sanctions of many governments and institutions.”

Jim also urged that, “If people have money in any account, anywhere in the world…cut it down to under the guaranteed amount. They might take that too someday when things get desperate, because the precedent has been set, but that’s where I would start if I had money in the bank anywhere in the world.”

With respect to which assets governments will likely be coming for next, Jim said, ”401k plans, IRA’s, and pensions plans which the government knows about [may be next]…They’re rationale would be, ‘Well most people haven’t been doing well in their IRAs and pension plans for the past several years, so we’re going to help you. We’re going to take your pension plan and give you government bonds so that you have a guaranteed return.”

Jim further added that, ”That’s how they’ll rationalize taking our money. They know where all the pensionplans are because we have to report it, so they’re easily accessible by governments. They know where they are, what they are, and they’ll be able to snatch them away. Who knows what they’ll do, but they’ll certainly find some way to take our money when things get worse, they always have.”

As a final chilling comment to end the interview, Jim noted that, “Anything they know about—they might easily take.”

This was another powerful interview, conducted with an absolute legend of our time. It is required listening for serious investors and market students.

To listen to the interview, left click the following link and/or right click and “save target as” or “save link as” to to your desktop:

Interview with Jim Rogers (MP3)

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers decries the growing uncertainty and recklessness of global central planners as the world enters unchartered financial markets:

For the first time in recorded history, we have nearly every central bank printing money and trying to debase their currency. This has never happened before. How it’s going to work out, I don’t know. It just depends on which one goes down the most and first, and they take turns. When one says a currency is going down, the question is against what? because they are all trying to debase themselves. It’s a peculiar time in world history.

I own the dollar, not because I have any confidence in the dollar and not because it’s sound – it’s a terribly flawed currency – but I expect more currency turmoil, more financial turmoil. During periods like that, people, for whatever reason, flee to the U.S. dollar as a safe haven. It is not a safe haven, but it is perceived that way by some people. That’s why the dollar is going up. That’s why I own it. Will I own it in five years, ten years? I don’t know.

It makes it extremely difficult for the investor looking for acceptable risk/reward, or the saver looking to protect their purchasing power; as in Rogers’ view, all options have their problems:

I own gold and silver and precious metals. I own all commodities, which is a better way to play as they debase currencies. I own more agriculture than just about anything else in real assets because of the reasons we discussed before. We were talking before about the risk-free or worry-free investment. Even gold: the Indian politicians are talking about coming down hard on gold, and India is the largest buyer of gold in the world. If Indian politicians do something – whether it’s foolish or not is irrelevant – if they do something, gold could go down a lot. So I own it. I’m not selling it. But everything has problems.

To Rogers, the bigger danger that concerns him is the hollowing out of the ‘saving class’ resulting from this situation. Central planners’ policies are punishing the prudent in favor of rescuing the irresponsible. This has happened before in world history, and the aftermath has always had grievous economic, social – and often human – costs:

Throughout our history – any country’s history – the people who save their money and invest for their future are the ones that you build an economy, a society, and a nation on.

In America, many people saved their money, put it aside, and didn’t buy four or five houses with no job and no money down. They did what most people would consider the right thing, and what historically has been the right thing. But now, unfortunately, those people are being wiped out, because they are getting 0% return, or virtually no return, on their savings and their investments. We’re wiping them out at the expense of people who went deeply into debt, people who did what most people would consider the wrong thing at the expense of people who did the right thing. This, long-term, has terrible consequences for any nation, any society, any economy.

If you go back in history, you’ll see what happed to the Germans when they wiped out their savings class in the 1920s. It didn’t lead to good things down the road for Germany. It didn’t lead to good things for Italy, which did the same thing. There were plenty of countries where it wiped out the people who saved and invested for their future. It’s usually a serious, political reaction, desperation in some cases, and looking for a savior and easy answers is usually what happens when you destroy the people who save and invest for the future.

Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Jim Rogers (18m:59s):

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Investing legend Jim Rogers says it doesn’t matter who wins Election 2012.

In his view, both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney are equally bad.

"I repeat Shakespeare: A pox on both their houses as far as I’m concerned," Rogers said in a Breakout interview this week. "These are the guys who got us into this problem, so why does anybody think they will get us out?"

The "problem" to which Jim Rogers is referring to is the sluggish U.S. economy, dragged down by the huge $16 trillion federal debt and annual budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion.

Rogers predicted that regardless of who wins Election 2012, things won’t get better.

"If Mr. Obama wins, his friends are gonna get more money. If Mr. Romney wins, his friends are gonna get more money. But you and I, and everybody watching this show are gonna be worse off because the debt’s going to go higher, and the turmoil is gonna get worse."

Rogers blames both major parties for the nation’s economic ills.

"All of them have gotten us into this situation," Rogers said. "Look at the last 50 years of American history. Republicans, Democrats, Republicans, Democrats …. It’s not doing us any good. None of us are benefiting by what’s been going on in Washington."

Jim Rogers is so down on U.S. politicians that he has absolutely no preference as to who wins the White House.

"I will vote the protest vote. I nearly always vote the protest vote," Rogers said without specifying which third-party might get his support.

In Rogers’s view, a vote for either major party just perpetuates the problem.

"If they keep sending us turkeys, and we keep voting for turkeys, they’ll send us more turkeys," he said.

Jim Rogers Takes Grim View of Fiscal Cliff

Rogers holds out little hope for a bipartisan solution – or any solution for that matter – to the so-called fiscal cliff.

The fiscal cliff is political shorthand for the economically lethal combination of spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to hit Jan. 1, 2013. It’s the result of the expiration of the President Bush-era tax cuts combined with $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions in federal spending made last summer as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling.

"I think they’re going to delay it again," Rogers said. "That’s what they do. That’s all they know how to do down there. But it’s not going to help us at all."

But no matter what Washington does, Rogers doesn’t see any easy escape from the fiscal cliff.

"If they raise taxes, that’s bad. If they delay everything, that’s bad," he said. "None of this is good for us. Do you understand that the United States is at least in relative decline? They don’t understand down there [in Washington]. All they want to do is get re-elected."

Even if Washington had the political will to do something about the fiscal cliff, Rogers said, it would make no difference.

"Let’s say there’s a fiscal cliff or not a fiscal cliff. We’re gonna have serious problems next year and the year after," Rogers said. "For 2013 and 2014 you should be very worried, and you should prepare yourself."

Reprinted with permission from Money Morning.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers, a top global investor and co-founder of the Quantum hedge fund, yesterday said he is skeptical about the reported improvement in the US job market and that the latest round of quantitative easing will not fix the US economy.

The US jobless rate dropped to 7.8 percent last month, the lowest since US President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, according to a report released on Friday by the US Department of Labor.

The labor agency also revised previous numbers to show the US economy created 86,000 more jobs in July and August than first estimated.

“I have learned not to take advice from the government, especially the US government, which frequently misleads its citizens,” Rogers said in a media briefing in Taipei.

There is an election coming in the US and the administration wants to win, he said, adding that most other institutes believe US unemployment remains worse than the official statistics suggest.

In its quarterly update of the World Economic Outlook, a survey of the global economy, the IMF yesterday raised the US’ growth forecast slightly to 2.2 percent this year from 2 percent, but put growth in the world’s largest economy at 2.1 percent next year, down from the 2.3 percent it had predicted in July.

Rogers, who is based in Singapore after selling his New York apartment in 2007, said that even if the reported drop in the US’ unemployment rate is true, it has nothing to do with the US Federal Reserve’s third round of quantitative easing that was initiated last month.

“Printing money has never worked [in stimulating economic recovery] throughout history,” he said. “Sometimes it worked in the short term, but it’s never worked in the medium or long term.”

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Megastar investor and notorious Russia bear Jim Rogers appears to have had a change of heart and taken a job as an advisor to the agricultural fund run by Russian state-owned banking giant VTB Capital.

"Russia and the [Commonwealth of Independent States] region have all the ingredients needed to become the world’s agriculture powerhouse. It seems that everything may now be coming together under VTB Capital to make this happen, so I am keen to participate," Rogers, who is also chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, said in a statement, issued by the bank on Tuesday, September 19.

Best known for co-founding the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s that "broke" the Bank of England, forcing the UK out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, Rogers recently had an epiphany and said in an interview with CNBC in August: "I do not invest in Russia now, but for the first time in my life I have started considering it."

Since it was founded in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, VTB Capital has quickly grown to become Russia’s leading investment bank, dominating the equity, fixed income, and mergers and acquisition business in terms of volumes of deals, according to Dealogic.

The bank is also moving into private equity, which had been an ad-hoc business at the bank. The Russian government has targeted agriculture as a strategic sector and is pouring billions of dollars into its development. Rogers joins the agricultural division that is managed by VTB’s private equity department, where he "will provide regular advice and insights into global commodity markets and investment trends," VTB said.

"VTB Capital sees high potential in Russian agricultural market and plans to attract from $500mn to $1bn of the investments into the sector based on its phased development strategy. Russia and the broader CIS region is developing into a global agriculture superpower with its proximity to China, Middle East and North Africa resulting in it taking a leading role in the export of key agricultural commodities such as wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil," the bank said.

The move is quite a turnabout for Rogers, who is known for his bearish stance on Russia. He once famously told an audience at Harvard Business School that the country was a kleptoracy and that he would never invest there. His speech was so outspoken that one of the MBA students, a young Russian investment banker called Dmitry Alimov, stood up after the presentation to take issue with several of Rogers’ more controversial statements.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

If legendary investor Jim Rogers is right, not only is Recession 2013 unavoidable, it’s going to be a doozy.

In recent interviews, Rogers has been predicting a 2013 recession, bowled over by a potential blowout in Europe and unsustainable spending by the U.S. government.

"Be very worried about 2013 and be very worried about 2014, because that’s when the next slowdown comes," Rogers told Reuters.

And while Rogers sees no true safe havens out there, a few investments can provide some comfort – specifically, commodities in the form of agriculture, gold, and silver.

Rogers’ statements usually get lots of attention, mainly because he has an uncanny tendency to be right.

Together with George Soros, he founded the Quantum Fund in the 1970s and posted returns of 4,200% over 10 years. Rogers retired in 1980 at the age of 37, but remains active as a private investor.

Back in 1999, Rogers recommended gold when it was trading at $252 and silver at $4.

We all know what happened after that.

Here’s the Jim Rogers take on the economy and how to survive Recession 2013.

Elections Will End Good Times

Rogers sees the coming elections as the end of a joy ride for both Europe and the United States.

"President Obama wants to get reelected. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to get reelected," Rogers said. That means they’ll both be spending lots of public money to keep voters happy until the elections are over.

The ECB’s controversial decision to purchase unlimited quantities of bonds from struggling Eurozone members indicates Merkel is ready to pull out all the stops to save the euro – and her job.

In fact, Merkel has made a sharp about face and now wants to stop Athens from leaving the Eurozone at all costs.

"For [Merkel], it is essential to avoid the consequences of a Grexit before national elections next year," influential German news magazine Der Spiegel said recently.

But the EU rescue will "absolutely not" work, Rogers says. He expects the Greeks to be the first to exit the EU.

What’s more, Greece will be merely the first domino to fall.

"You have got countries that are essentially bankrupt. The solution to too much debt is not more. I suspect that the euro will not survive," he said.

Eventually the entire EU may be restructured with a core group of countries like Finland, the Netherlands, and Austria joining Germany and perhaps France in a new monetary union.

Debt to Bring Recession 2013

Meanwhile, Rogers doesn’t think it matters much who wins the U.S. elections.

The crushing amount of debt that has piled up will soon put an end to the feeble economic recovery and bring on Recession 2013.

"We had a recession in 2002, and it was worse in 2007-08 because the debt was so much higher," Rogers said.

"Next time is going to be a whole lot worse because the amount of debt is staggering," he added. "We’ve shot our bullets. What more can they do…quadruple the debt again?"

U.S. sovereign debt has skyrocketed since the global financial crisis began in 2008 andrecently sped past the $16 trillion mark. The deficit for fiscal 2012 is expected to reach $1.6 trillion, up ten-fold from 2007.

On Sept. 13, the Federal Reserve announced yet another round of fiscal spending to stimulate the economy. Although investors cheered the news, a new set of Fed programs will add even more debt to the pile.

In order to break the pattern the U.S. needs to cut spending and taxes "with a chainsaw," Rogers said.

Jim Rogers: Commodities to Rule

A tripling of the Fed’s balance sheet won’t be the only damage to the U.S. economy, according to Rogers.

Fed money printing will eventually set off a firestorm of consumer price inflation that will crush the U.S. dollar.

"I’m very pessimistic about the U.S. dollar" over the long-term, Rogers said. "It’s going the way of pound sterling when it lost its status as the world’s reserve currency."

Rogers said he’s betting onforeign currencies, gold,silverand agricultural commodities as the winners for the remainder of the decade.

For currencies, he likes the Japanese yen and the Chinese renminbi.

He prefers the white metal over gold right now because silver prices are about 40% below their highs, while gold prices are 10% or 15% below all-time highs.

"But I’m not selling any gold. If it goes down I hope I’m smart enough to buy more. If it goes down a lot I hope I’m smart enough to buy a lot," Rogers said.

Reprinted with permission from Money Morning.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Veteran US investor Jim Rogers believes the Federal Reserve has already launched a third round of quantitative easing, despite chairman Ben Bernanke failing to mention stimulus measures in his Jackson Hole speech last week.

Mr Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, believes that America’s central bank is secretly printing money to avoid "getting egg on their face again" after previous attempts to kickstart the faltering economy with $2 trillion of QE failed.

"I do not know if they [the Fed] will announce it," he told India’s Economic Times. "I know they are going to print more money. They already are. If you look at their balance sheets, you will see that something is happening, assets are building on their balance sheets and they are not coming from the tooth fairy.

"They are a little bit embarrassed because they announced QE1 and QE2, and it did not work. So they may try to discuss it. They may just continue to do it without getting egg on their face again, but they are going to print money, they are all going to print money. It is the wrong thing to do, but that is all they know how to do."

He told the Daily Telegraph: "They probably have learned how to do things off balance sheet. I have nothing to confirm this but everyone else has learned how, so they probably have too. This is just a comment on human nature."

Mr Bernanke said in his annual speech at Jackson Hole on Friday that the country’s high level of unemployment – it climbed to 8.3pc in July – is a "grave concern" and that the "economic situation remains far from satisfactory".

The US’s plight is echoed across the Western world as the eurozone grapples with its own debt crisis that threatens to see Greece leave the single currency. Spain and Italy are also struggling with recession as austerity measures championed by Germany eat away at growth.

And Mr Rogers believes there is no end in sight to the eurozone’s problems.

"There are going to be more problems coming out of Europe," he said. "You have got countries that are essentially bankrupt. Nobody is dealing with the problems in Europe. You look at everyone out there. They all have higher debts and all of their projections, maybe Bulgaria and one or two more countries do not have higher debts in their projections, but everybody has got increasing debt. The solution to too much debt is not more debt."

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers is out with fresh salvos in the latest investing tiff over the future of China.

Two of the foremost bears are wrong about the country’s prospects, says investor Jim Rogers, known for starting the Quantum Fund with George Soros, and as one the foremost China bulls.

Rogers took aim at Albert Edwards at Societe Generale and Hugh Hendry of Eclecticaica in an interview with Investment News early this week.

“Albert has been bearish on everything for a long time,” Rogers told Investment News. “So if you are telling me he is bearish on China and bullish on everything else that would be different. But no, he is bearish on everything, including you, me and Mother Teresa.”

Rogers added that Hendry has been “dead” wrong about China for three years.

Earlier this month, Edwards warned of the dangers of China “lurching into a deep downturn, unleashing cheap goods on world markets and spawning deflation.

For his part, Hendry wrote in his 2012 outlook about the potential for bad bank debts and an increasing chance that China’s efforts to steer a soft economic landing could fail.

Rogers is very aware of a slowdown in the Chinese economy. He knows that China last reported GDP growth of 7.6%, its slowest since 2009. It may slow to 7.4% this quarter.

A wave of negative economic headlines appears to be building in recent days. A member of the People’s Bank of China just warned that falling producer prices and rising inflation threaten investment returns of the country’s manufacturers, perhaps limiting their expansion.

Last week, Premier Wen Jiabao warned China’s economy has yet to rebound, and that economic hardship may continue, increasing concerns that the government may need to take more stimulus measures.

Yet Rogers notes that China has purposely been trying to slow down the country’s red-hot economy now for three years. And it is succeeding.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

World markets appear to be hovering over a precipice as Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, slowdowns in India and China and further bank downgrades threaten to send stocks and commodities down even further. Falling oil and gas prices may offer some respite to consumers but are they enough to help the economy or are they a symptom of deeper problems?

To help Oilprice.com look at these issues and more we are joined by the well known investor, adventurer and author Jim Rogers. Jim is the creator of the Rogers International Commodity Index, he also recently completed a book called: A Gift to my Children – which helps people learn from their triumphs and mistakes in order to achieve a prosperous, well-lived life.

In the interview Jim talks about the following:

• Why recent oil price falls are a good buying opportunity
• Why oil prices could fall to $40 a barrel
• Why he is optimistic about Nuclear energy
• Why agriculture offers good opportunities to investors
• Why Myanmar is the best investment opportunity in the world right now
• Why there could be further unrest in the Middle East
• Why we should let Greece fail Interview conducted by James Stafford of Oilprice.com

Oilprice.com: Jim, thanks for taking the time to join us today.

Jim Rogers: I’m delighted to be here, James. My pleasure.

Oilprice.com: It’s been an interesting period in the energy world as we’ve seen oil prices steadily decline over the past few months and with the problems in Europe and slowdowns in India and China do you expect this trend to continue?

Jim Rogers: Well, there is certainly a correction going on for various reasons. I think Saudi Arabia’s trying to help re-elect Mr. Obama. There are also stories that JP Morgan has problems in its London office with a lot of unauthorized positions they’re having to liquidate. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that corrections are normal in the industrial world. There’s nothing unusual about it. If it continues, there’s an opportunity to buy more.

Oilprice.com: I read a report by the Economist Phil Verleger who thinks that the Saudi’s massive increase in oil production along with other economic problems could cause oil prices crash to $40 a barrel oil and $2 a gallon gasoline by November. Do you think this is a reasonable forecast and we could see oil at these levels?

Jim Rogers: We could see anything. We certainly saw lower prices than that back in 2008 when there was a collapse. When things are collapsing, all sorts of strange things happen. We found that out in 2008 and we will probably find out in the future, as well. If oil does go to $40, that means it’ll just be setting up an even more bullish scenario for the duration of the bull market.

Oilprice.com: How do you see the energy markets reacting to the Iranian sanctions, which are going to be coming into effect on the first of July?

Jim Rogers: Oh, I don’t see that having much effect at all. Everybody already knows about that – nothing new to the markets. They have long since adjusted to this news, whether it be stock markets, smuggling, etc. The Iranian sanctions are a non-event as far as I’m concerned. Now, an attack on Iran would not be a non-event, but this is just more noise.

Oilprice.com: The Middle East Petocracy’s, along with Venezuela and Russia must be nervously watching the price of oil. Can you see potential problems developing in these countries and other oil producing nations if prices continue to fall?

Jim Rogers: That’s part of what I was saying before. The lower prices go for the fundamentals, the price of fundamentals improve, but for these countries the money they have available to buy peace is running out and there are going to be problems, because a lot of people have been lead to believe that the government can solve their problems and if the government runs out of money, it makes people upset.

Oilprice.com: Crude oil has dropped from $108 a barrel in February to $84 today. Do you think low oil prices could provide an economic stimulus?

Jim Rogers: Certainly, it’s an economic stimulus for everybody who buys oil. There’s no question about that. On the other hand, for people who produce oil, it’s a negative. Now obviously more of us buy oil than produce oil, but it’s important to remember it does cut both ways.

Oilprice.com: Less than 0.1% of U.S. cars and trucks run on natural gas and with falling natural gas prices and America’s dependence on oil and vulnerability to oil price shocks – I was hoping to get your thoughts on natural gas usage for transportation?

Jim Rogers: Well, If natural gas stays this low compared to oil prices, it does give an incentive to develop natural gas powered vehicles and I think we are going to see more and more developments here. Is it going to end the use of oil, combustion engines? Probably not any time soon. Someday it could, but someday is a long way away.

Oilprice.com: Do you believe natural gas prices are near to a bottom, or do you think they have further to fall?

Jim Rogers: U.S. natural gas is somewhere near its bottom, in my view. The problem is I expect to see serious economic problems in 2013 and 2014 in the U.S. If and when that happens, we’re going to see a final panic in the markets and the economy and everything will have a crescendo and a selling climax.

We’re certainly a lot closer than we were. Although, when you have a selling climax in markets, you go to levels much lower than most people believe possible and that may happen. Whatever that bottom is, it’s not too far from the recent lows in natural gas. Natural gas in many other places such as the UK are much, much higher than they are in the U.S.

Oilprice.com: The Arab Spring shook energy markets in 2011 – are there any potential geopolitical events taking place apart from the Iranian situation that could cause oil prices to skyrocket?

Jim Rogers: There are always geo-political possibilities. If oil goes down, Saudi Arabia’s going to have more trouble buying peace. Any country’s going to have more problems buying peace.

Iraq is being driven into the arms of Iran. America has spent staggering amounts of money in this region, and what we’re getting for it is a possible alliance between Iran and Iraq. All sorts of things could happen in the future, especially if Iran and Iraq get closer together. That’s going to put America in a terrible situation, the world in a terrible situation. The good news is the world is always changing dramatically. The bad news is, the world is always changing dramatically.

Oilprice.com: The media has gotten behind shale gas and it’s being promoted as a worldwide energy saviour. What are your thoughts on shale gas? Do you think it’s been oversold or it really is the cheap and plentiful oil extender we have been hoping for?

Jim Rogers: I don’t know how cheap it is. The technology’s getting better, apparently. The cost too because the environmentalists and politicians are getting worried about it. But I don’t know enough about the technology to know for sure. I do have confidence in mankind and someday we will have the technology and expertise to fully exploit these resources.

Someday’s still a long way away though, and in my case, I don’t know how long life the fields are. If these are short-lived fields and short-lived wells this is nothing more than a flash in a pan, which may last for a few years.

Oilprice.com: Moving away from fossil fuels – I was hoping to get your opinion on renewable energy. Do you see this as a sector investors should be avoiding – or are there opportunities here in the future?

Jim Rogers: That is your premise, if oil stays high alternatives become more competitive. Most alternative energy is not competitive at this moment in time but that could change. If oil prices go down and stay down the subsidies for alternatives are going to have to be pretty massive to make it even viable. However, having said that, if you can find competent companies that can make money in the field, they’ll make a fortune. Find the right companies and you’ll do well.

Oilprice.com: Are there any alternative sectors you’re more bullish on than others? Say solar, wind, geothermal, hydro?

Jim Rogers: No, no. They all have pluses and minuses. I’d be most optimistic about the ones that are economically competitive. I guess atomic energy is most economically competitive.

Oilprice.com: What are your thoughts on nuclear energy? Is there a future for this power source or due to public safety perceptions is it something politicians will feel forced to abandon or sideline?

Jim Rogers: I don’t think people will abandon atomic energy. It is competitive, it is economic, it is very clean if controlled. If it’s not controlled it’s a disaster of course. I suspect you’re going to see another revival of atomic energy. The French, the Koreans, the Chinese, many countries are going forward with their nuclear power development plans.

Oilprice.com: I’ve seen in other interviews that you’ve predicted that 2013 and 2014 will be bad years for the economy. What is an investor to do? Are there any commodities, stock or instrument people can go to for safety and capital preservation?

Jim Rogers: No such thing as safe when you talk about it. Even if you put your money in cash, if you put your money in the wrong cash, you lose a lot of money. As the people in Iceland have found out, as the people in Europe on the Euro have found out. So, no such thing as safe.

What I have done is I own commodities on the theory that if the world economy gets better, I’ll make money because of shortages. If the world economy does not get better, people will print money. The best way to save yourself when money printing is going on is to own commodities. It does not mean between here and there, they can’t go down in a panic. In the meantime, commodities will be the thing to rally once that happens, but they can go down. Therefore, I have also short stocks as a hedge against myself. If the world economy doesn’t get better, you’re going to be losing a lot of money in stocks.

Oilprice.com: Now are there any commodities you’re particularly bullish on at this moment in time?

Jim Rogers: I’m more optimistic about agriculture than anything else, just because of the price. Most agriculture, I feel very depressed on the risk side basis. Sugar is 75% below where it was 38 years ago. There’s not much in the world that’s as depressed as agricultural current prices. So, I would say agriculture.

Oilprice.com: You’ve owned gold for 11 years now and the price is currently correcting. Do you see this as a buying opportunity or would you wait a little longer?

Jim Rogers: I’ve actually owned gold for longer than 11 years. I’m not buying now. Gold went up 11 years in a row, which is extremely unusual for any asset. I don’t know of any asset in history that’s gone up 11 years in a row without a correction.

Corrections are normal and are the way things should work, the way things do work. Having said that, I don’t know when the correction will stop. It’s normal in my experience for corrections to go down 30 or 40%. It’s just the way markets work. Gold has not gone down that much. It’s only gone down that much once in the past 11 years, and even then it ended the year up. I’m not buying gold at the moment. If it goes down a lot, I hope I’m smart enough to buy a lot more. I’m certainly not selling my gold, because I suspect gold will be much, much, much higher over the next decade.

Oilprice.com: You’ve mentioned in the past that you’re bullish on Asia. Where do you see the best opportunities for investors in this region at present?

Jim Rogers: Probably the best investment opportunity in the world right now is Myanmar. In 1962, Myanmar was the richest country in Asia. They closed off in 1962, and now it’s the poorest country in Asia. I see enormous opportunities there because they’re now opening up. It’s like when China opened up in 1978. There were unbelievable opportunities going forward. The same is true in Myanmar now in my view. North Korea, I expect to see the same sorts of developments.

Oilprice.com: You’ve mentioned previously that the 21st century belongs to China. But China has some serious internal problems as its political stability depends heavily on rapid economic growth. We are also seeing increasing tensions between the wealthy coastal regions and the poor interior. My question is do you think the internal forces building up in China can be managed as China is held together by money not ideology?

Jim Rogers: What you just said about China’s true of every country in the world, more so in places like America and Europe than in China. China does have internal problems. But their economy’s much stronger than the western economies. You had riots in the streets in the U.K., what, last summer. Terrible instability, and there’s going to be much more in the west. Greece, Spain, Portugal, these countries have staggering instability.

In America in the 1930s we certainly had all sorts of political problems and yet survived, partly because America was a very large credit nation and had the assets to see us through. America came out of that and became the most successful country in the 20th century. China’s going to have plenty of problems. Plenty. I’d still rather invest in China than in other places.

Oilprice.com: You mentioned that with Spain and Greece we should just let them go bankrupt – what do you really see the implications of this being. Will it be as bad as we have been led to believe?

Jim Rogers: Might be worse. The good news is we’ll get their problems behind us. The way the system is supposed to work is when people fail, they fail. Then you come in, you reorganize. Competent people come in, reorganize, and start over with a sound base. This has been going on for thousands of years.

It’s a little bit like a forest fire. When you have a forest fire, it’s terrible, terrible, but it cleans out the underbrush, cleans out the dead wood. The forest, when it’s all over, is much stronger and has much better growth. Same with financial problems and bankruptcies. You start over and things are better.

Oilprice.com: Now, moving away from the markets, I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about your book, A Gift to my Children, the inspiration behind writing it and what you hope it achieves.

Jim Rogers: Well, I came into parenthood late and I never wanted to have children. I thought children were a terrible waste of time and money and energy. I felt sorry for friends who had children. Then I had some.

I’ve had some failures in my life, I’ve had a few triumphs. I started writing down the things I learned. I wanted to make sure my children knew all of these things. That turned into a magazine article, and the next thing you know it turned into a little book. Grownups get a lot more out of it than children do because it’s really a book for grownups.

Oilprice.com: What are lessons within the book? Why would I go out and buy the book? What am I going to learn?

Jim Rogers: I hope you’ll learn to be famous, happy, rich and successful. Being happy, that’s the main thing I’m trying to help with. If you’re happy, not much else matters in life, at least in my experience. There’s various ways to be happy, of course. I’m trying to tell people the things that I have learned. I’m trying to teach them to be curious, independent. It’s very hard to think independently, as you probably know. Extremely hard. Most people are not very curious, If they see it on TV, that’s what they accept instead of thinking, what’s really going on here? I’m teaching readers to be curious, skeptical, independent thinkers.

Oilprice.com: Fantastic. Jim, thank you ever so much for taking the time to speak with us. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Jim Rogers: My pleasure

Reprinted from OilPrice.com.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Financial author, hedge-fund manager and commodities guru Jim Rogers says that he’s waiting for this current drop in the price to cut deeper before he’ll be ready to increase his position by Buying Gold.

Co-founder with Hungarian speculator George Soros of the Quantum Fund in the 1970s, and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index in 1998, Jim Rogers spoke about his Gold Buying strategy on CNBC on Monday. "In December you told me gold would consolidate," said anchor Maria Bartiromo. "It has certainly consolidated."

"I will add [to my position] somewhere along the line, but not for a while," explained Rogers. "Gold has been up 11 years running, that’s very unusual. Things should correct. "If gold went down 35% or 40% it would go to $1200…But that’s normal, markets correct.

"That’s the way things are supposed to work, and that would be good for gold in the long run."

Jim Rogers’ view contrasts with that of Frank Holmes, CEO of the $2 billion US Global Investors fund management group, who last week outlined 5 reasons why this price drop offers a good chance to start Buying Gold.

1. Developed-world government debt has doubled in 3 years to $8 trillion;
2. Real interest rates are below zero – and "historically, when the inflationary rate is greater than the current short-term interest rate, gold prices rose;"
3. Emerging-market central banks are Buying Gold in greater quantities;
4. China is overtaking India as the world’s #1 gold consumer market;
5. India has reversed this year’s new excise duty on gold jewelry, responding to a sector-wide strike and so encouraging Indian households to Buy Gold.

"[But] now things are happening," counters Jim Rogers, pointing to India’s sharply higher Gold Bullion import duty – "strict measures to kill demand for gold" – because New Delhi fears India’s yawning trade deficit, and blames gold imports for widening it.

Also, "Some of the European countries may have to sell their gold too," Rogers adds. Such events "could surprise us all, even me, who’s looking for a correction."

Thinking about Buying Gold today…?

Reprinted from Bullion Vault Gold News.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers, Chairman, Rogers Holdings, in an interview with ET Now, speaks about the global markets and Indian economy with a special reference to rupee. Excerpts:

ET Now: Let me first start with the very basic question. How do you view the current situation in Europe given the fact that how Spanish bond yields of late have expanded and it is evident that austerity versus growth in the near term, it is growth which is clearly moving around?

Jim Rogers: No, nobody in the West is managing their problems with their austerity problems very well. Just look at the numbers, every single one of those has higher and higher debt. Even Greece which theoretically wrote off a lot of debt, the debt is going higher. This probably has not been solved. This problem is being pushed down the road. It is going to come back and it is going to come back worst next time around. Be very careful.

ET Now: So would you say that the markets are more news driven than reacting to fundamentals currently?

Jim Rogers: The news has an affect for maybe an hour, a day or so, maybe even a week but no, markets basically always are reacting to the fundamentals. There is noise in the markets partly because of so much of news on TV these days but no, in the end even in the medium term, markets rely to fundamentals, not on the short term news.

ET Now: So how would you look at 2012 in terms of growth? Would you say that liquidity stimulus in countries is the main reason why economic data of late has been strong but the real concerns are far from over?

Jim Rogers: No, of course central banks around the world have been printing staggering amounts of money over the past 4 years. So, no, all of this is out of issue. It is based on huge amounts of money that are being printed and huge amounts of money which are being spent. There are 40 elections around the world this year and all of those politicians want to be re-elected. Some of them are big countries, France, America. We have some big countries with big elections and next year the Germans will have elections. So you are going to see a lot of money being spent, a lot of good news for the people who get that money. For the rest, the situation continues to deteriorate.

ET Now: In the emerging markets, where do you see a faster and more sustainable growth number coming in, which region?

Jim Rogers: The faster the numbers that will be better in economies which are well managed and which have commodities because commodities are in a bull market. Indonesia is doing much better this decade than they did in the 1990s because there was a commodity bear market in those days. Australia is going to do better than Belgium. Canada is going to do better than the United States. So you look for well managed countries which have a lot of commodities and you will probably make a huge amount of money. I am not putting money in the Congo which has a lot of commodities because this is not well managed. I would look at well managed commodity countries.

Read the rest of the article

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2012 The Economic Times

The Best of Jim Rogers

Gold’s London AM fix this morning was USD 1,622.50, EUR 1,239.21, and GBP 1,022.82 per ounce. Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,631.75, EUR 1,239.65 and GBP 1,027.75 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $31.36/oz, €24.00/oz and £19.80/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,595.75/oz, palladium at $635.80/oz and rhodium at $1,350/oz. 

Cross Currency Table – (Bloomberg)

Gold fell $27.90 or 1.69% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,618.40/oz. Gold ticked higher in Asia prior to further slight gains in Europe.

Gold dropped to its lowest level since January but remains higher on the year. It is poised for its first lower weekly close since mid March adding to the poor technical picture.

The very poor Spanish debt auction and renewed concerns about the euro zone debt crisis has led to another sharp bout of risk off in global markets. Euro zone concerns and concerns that cheap money and QE policies may end saw world stocks (MSCI World) fall 1.9% while gold fell 1.7% yesterday.

European indices are lower again today on renewed risk aversion. 

Commodities fell too yesterday. Platinum for July delivery fell $61.90, or 3.7%, to $1,598.60/oz. Palladium for June delivery fell $26.85, or 4.1%, to $632.75/oz and copper for May delivery fell 12.85 cents to $3.7905 a pound.  U.S. crude oil fell $2.54, or 2.4%, to finish at $101.47 a barrel in New York. 

Comments from ECB President Mario Draghi that the euro zone’s growth economic outlook is subject to downside risks related to the debt crisis and inflation upside risks were gold bullish. 

It sounded if the ECB President is concerned about and warning about stagflation in the Eurozone.

This and concerns about the possible abandonment of QE led to hedge funds, traders and more speculative players selling many of their positions and again piling into the perceived safety of US Treasuries and the US dollar.

Gold 1 Year Chart – (Bloomberg)

Gold’s short term correlation with equities and commodities has been seen frequently in recent months and years with gold falling in unison with riskier assets in the initial stages of sell offs and at intermediate stock market highs. However, what has happened subsequently is that gold has fallen less than equity and commodity markets and then recovers faster and rises again soon after short periods of correction and consolidation.

We expect this pattern to be seen again. While gold’s sell off has been sharp, the charts below put them into context and should help create perspective.

Gold, Silver, S&P, DJIA, US 10 Year — YTD

The GoldCore trading desk was unusually busy yesterday with a large percentage of clients selling their bullion holdings including some quite large sell orders. It could be indicative of a bottom as there has been capitulation by weak hands concerned about the recent price fall.

Despite a recent decrease in physical demand both from Asia and in western markets, the fundamentals driving the market have not changed and will be supportive. Demand has abated after the record levels of demand seen at the height of the Greek debt crisis in November and December.

However, this demand will likely return in the coming months when Spain, Italy and potentially the UK, Japan and US all experience similar debt crises.

Gold, Silver, S&P, DJIA, US 10 Year – 1 Year

Risk adverse investors and the prudent should maintain a "buy and hold" strategy and should continue to accumulate on the dip.

Jim Rogers "I Will Buy More" Gold – Still Long Term Bullish

The smart money continues to accumulate gold and silver on the dip.

Investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said he remains bullish on gold and silver in the long term and he "will buy more" on price weakness.

Rogers predicted a global commodities rally and the gold and silver bull markets in 1999. He also predicted much of what has transpired in financial markets in recent months and years and has consistently warned about the risks posed to the US dollar and other fiat currencies.

In the short term he is not so optimistic about gold and silver prices. "I expect the price to decline and when that happens I will buy more," Rogers said at a conference in Bucharest yesterday.

He recently said that he would buy gold at $1,600/oz and would increase position by even more at $1,500/oz – reiterating that gold is going much higher in the coming decade.

Rogers did not elaborate, nor was he asked, how much higher, but he said in November 2011 that gold "will easily go to $2,000 but it will reach $2,400 over the course of the bull run, which has years to run."

For breaking news and commentary on financial markets and gold, follow us on Twitter.

OTHER NEWS

(Bloomberg) – Jim Rogers Plans to Buy More Gold, Silver, Sees Falling Prices

Investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said he’s "not so optimistic" about gold and silver prices.

"I expect the price to decline and when that happens I will buy more," Rogers said at a conference in Bucharest today.

Silver dropped as much as 4.2 percent today and gold declined 2 percent after the Federal Reserve signalled it may refrain from more monetary stimulus. The dollar rose as much as 0.6 percent against a basket of six currencies, curbing demand for precious metals as an alternative investment.

Today’s declines pared gold’s gain for this year to 3.4 percent and silver’s advance to 13 percent. Rogers predicted a global commodities rally in 1999.

(Bloomberg) – Ex-Official Vavilov to Form Russia’s First Gold ETF, RBC Reports

Russia’s former Deputy Finance Minister Andrei Vavilov may become the country’s first businessman to create an exchange-traded fund backed by physical gold supplies, RBC Daily said.

Vavilov plans to deposit gold bullion in Zurich or London banks and trade the derivatives on them on the Irish stock exchange and Moscow’s Micex-RTS exchange, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people familiar with the plan.

(Bloomberg) – Top 10 Gold-Mining Countries in 2011, According to CRU (Table)

Following is a table of the world’s 10 biggest gold-producing countries ranked by 2011 output, compiled by London-based metals-consulting company CRU. Figures are in metric tons.

Country 2011 Output 2010 Output 1.  China 380 341 2.  Australia 272 260 3.  U.S. 243 236 4.  South Africa 221 209 5.  Russia 205 197 6.  Peru 156 163 7.  Ghana 102 92 8.  Canada 101 91 9.  Indonesia 97 128 10. Mexico 82 72 World Production 2,789 2,638

(Bloomberg) – Vietnam State "Monopoly" on Gold Trade to Enter Force May 25

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved a regulation giving the state a "monopoly" on the trade and production of gold bullion from May 25, according to a statement posted on the government’s website today.

Under circular 24, dated April 3, domestic gold businesses will only be able to produce and sell jewelry, and will have to re-register with the central bank in the next six to 12 months.

Reprinted with permission from GoldCore.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2012 GoldCore

The Best of Jim Rogers

It’s looking to be a legendary election year, with recent polling putting incumbent Barack Obama behind his Republican rivals. If the current commander-in-chief can clench re-election, however, the result could be rough for the rest of America.

Discussing the damage a second Obama term could have on America, legendary investor Jim Roger tells CNBS that the economically oblivious incumbent could crush whatever is left of the faltering US financial system. The first Obama term has suggested that the president has no problem letting the Federal Reserve print a plethora of money America doesn’t have. As if the consequences haven’t been colossal already, Rogers says another four years of Obama could very well ruin America by the time a second term is in full swing.

"This year’s fine. Worry about 2013.Be panicked about 2014.This year, a lot of good news is coming out,” Rogers tells CNBS’s The Kudlow Report.

Rogers goes on to warn that Obama is currently polling strong enough to make a second term a real reality; in regards to whether or not that would be good news for Americans, Rogers says that , if you ask him, it absolutely is not.

“I would tell you that Obama is going to win. I don’t want him to win. It’s not good for America,” adds Rogers.

Rogers adds, “It’s hard to defeat a sitting president and he’s spending a lot of money.” A presidential tracking poll released on Monday by Rasmussen Reports suggests that a two-person race between either Barack Obama and Mitt Romney or Ron Paul could be a close one for Obama – with the latest results suggesting he could even lose to either candidate – but with unemployment figures finally starting to stabilize, Obama may momentarily be winning back Americans. The pumping of money into the economy might be a short-term solution, suggests Rogers, but there will be trouble down the road.

Speaking to RT last year, Rogers said that bickering in Washington, regardless of under Obama’s watch or not, would be detrimental to the future of the dollar. “We are all going to continue to get deeper and deeper into debt,” Rogers predicted in July as Congress came close to making a move to solve the debt-ceiling dilemma. “You think that problems are bad now, you wait until we don’t have any more credit,” added Rogers, who predicted social unrest as interest rates and inflation skyrocket.

“Prepare for another lost decade or more,” cautioned Rogers.

Speaking from the campaign trail on Tuesday night, presidential hopeful and Texas Congressman Ron Paul attacked Obama for letting the Federal Reserve continue to authorize the creation of money America can’t afford. Speaking only a few miles from downtown Washington, Paul told supporters he was considering crossing the Potomac on Wednesday to ask Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to explain his reasoning, as the central bank head was expected to appear Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee.

Reprinted from Russia Today.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

In an Interview with ET Now, Jim Rogers, chairman, Rogers Holdings, gives his views on gold, crude and other commodities. Excerpts:

With continuous monetary easing from China, how much support do you see going in for commodities and liquidity eases with the biggest commodity consumer?

Throughout history when you have people printing money and debasing currency, the way to protect yourself and to make money is to own real assets. Silver, rice, natural gas, and those are not specific recommendations. I am just saying those are natural resources. You now have the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, America, the Chinese apparently are loosening up. Everybody is now loosening the money supply, printing money. That’s good for real assets.

It has been few good days for the base metal prices as well. They are seeing strength on China easing and strong economic data as well. How do you forecast base metals from here?

If the world economy gets better, the shortages of nearly all commodities are developing and I am going to make money in the commodities. If the world economy does not get better, they are going to print a lot more money. The place to be is in real assets, including base metals. I do not own as many base metals as I own precious metals, but I own them all.

Read the rest of the article

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2012 The Economic Times

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers, who received the Mises Institute’s Schlarbaum Prize for the lifetime defense of liberty in 2010, proved today that he deserved the award.

“If you listen to governments, then you are not going to make a lot of money. Governments lie, distort and make mistakes,” he said this morning on CNBC.

And, he clearly recognizes the near-global money printing now being conducted by central banks.

“My way of playing this is to own real assets like commodities,” he said “You now have the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve printing money. The way to protect yourself at a time like this is to own assets.”

Rogers also added that he thinks silver looks more attractive than gold at the moment because of the sustained rise in the gold price. This is the same thing that Ron Paul told me when I met with him. The thinking is that as price inflation heats up and more people look to the precious metals for protection, the high price of gold in terms of dollars will make it prohibitive for many to buy gold and will result in their buying silver. So while, gold and silver will both continue to climb in price, the gains, percentagewise will be greater for silver.

Here’s the video:

Reprinted with permission from Economic Policy Journal.

2012 Economic Policy Journal

The Best of Robert Wenzel

Billionaire investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers believes that no country will exit the euro zone this year.

“I don’t think we’ll see anybody will leave the euro zone in 2012, there are 40 elections in 2012 there will be more problems this year. Governments everywhere will do their best to make sure we get through elections. Maybe in 2013 you should panic and certainly by 2014 you should be panicked but 2012 will be better,” Rogers told CNBC Monday.

Rogers, who calls the monetization of the EU debt a “horrible mistake”, added that he remains short on European equities.

“I would love for [Europe's policymakers] to say that ok it’s a disaster and for banks and shareholders to say they will take big losses. Everything would collapse and I would buy all the euros I could and all the stocks I could, but I don’t think that is going to happen,” Rogers said.

Full Rogers clip [starts minute 4:17]

Reprinted with permission from Wall Street Pit.

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2012 Wall Street Pit

The Best of Jim Rogers

European markets have not let the massive ratings downgrade cast a shadow over trading on Monday, with only a slight fall.

The announcement of the ratings giant Standard & Poor’s that it slashed the scores of nine EU nations, including the Triple-A scores of France and Austria, came after Europe’s markets closed on Friday.

European leaders have been quick to criticize credit ratings agencies for having a negative impact on the 17-nation monetary union at the very time it is attempting to avert a crisis.

It has been a tense weekend for financiers, but financial commentator and co-founder of Quantum Hedge Fund Jim Rogers explained to RT why the markets are calm on Monday. It is simply because the US-based agencies are becoming obsolete.

“It means that you should not bother to pay any attention to the rating agencies. Everything they have done in the past 15 or 20 years has been wrong,” he raged. “I stopped bothering about them long ago. Everybody knows that France is no longer Triple-A, everybody knows that Italy is no longer as highly-rated as it used to be. The market knows all about this. This is not news. I know you have to report something, but this is not news to people in the market.”

Meanwhile another ratings agency, Moody’s, says on Monday it is keeping France’s AAA credit rating for now, despite rival S&P’s downgrade. This forced S&P to promise it would update its position on France later this quarter.

Responding to the major European credit rating cut, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said late Sunday Europe needs to create independent credit rating agencies and stop relying solely on leading US-based agencies.

Jim Rogers agreed with the proposal, but says the agency simply must be competent, regardless of its origin.

“Whether it is European or not is irrelevant, the fact is that you do need somebody competent and somebody who can examine and decide who is solvent and who is not solvent,” he said. “Until a few months ago that they had the US as a Triple-A credit. The US is the largest debt nation in the history of the world. It is absurd that it was Triple A. Europe needs somebody competent who can go in there. It does not matter whether it is Russian, or Australian or American, or European, just so you have somebody competent. And these guys in S&P and Moody’s have had a semi-monopoly for decades. They have gotten corroded and lazy and sloppy and they are no longer competent.”

And he shared his view on the European crisis and how to get out of it.

“The best way to get out of it is to go ahead and to let people go bankrupt, let the people who made mistakes take their losses, the banks who made the bad loans, the people who invested in the bad banks – they should take their losses and start over,” he suggested.

“It looks as though the EU is about to make some of them take some losses and that will be good. That way we can start over and go forward. The problem is they are not doing enough. They are not taking enough losses. They are hoping that they can get through the next election or two and then everything will be OK. This is not going to solve the problem, it will delay the problem a bit longer, it does not solve the problem,” he stated.

Author and financial analyst F. William Engdahl told RT that Standard and Poor’s move to lower France’s credit ratings will be “water off a duck’s back” because the move was widely anticipated in the markets – but what it has inadvertently revealed is S&P’s own bias.

“S&P has played a rather blatant and aggressive role in the whole unravelling of the European euro crisis since December 2009, so people here are beginning to get used to it, and if anyone loses in the end, it’s going to be the credibility of institutions like Standard and Poor’s, or Moody’s, who are going to be seen as political agents,” Engdahl said.

He also told RT that many people in Europe believe American ratings agencies are being used as political tools. “The role that the US-based rating agencies have played since the Greek crisis erupted in December 09 has been what many people here see as a brazenly political role. I don’t think they’re the independent agencies that they portray themselves to be,” Engdahl said.

“Many times when it comes to the interests of the Wall Street banks, the so-called “Gods of Money” banks, like Goldman Sachs or others, they tend to be rather lenient. And when it comes to the interests of European institutions they tend to be rather aggressive, which leads many Europeans that I’ve talked with to think that the rating agencies are simply an extension of the US political apparatus.”

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers has been talking about his 2012 predictions.

In a nutshell, he is neither too optimistic about the stock market for 2012 nor about what’s going to happen in the world in the next two or three years.

Speaking to Australia Financial News Network (AFNN) December 23, Rogers said: "The problems are going to continue to get worse until someone solves the basic underlying problem of too much spending and too much debt."

He sees the biggest risk to global growth in 2012 as "too much debt…too much consumption…and the central bank in the US which keeps printing money."

Rogers, seen as one of the world’s most successful investors, highlighted the scale of the problem to his host: The problem is that the measures America needs [to solve the crisis] would cause huge pain for a while, but, if we don’t take our pain now, and we wait until the market forces the pain on us, then it’s going to be systemic collapse."

Refusing to get drawn into US politics, Rogers nevertheless provided a tacit endorsement: "Gary Johnson and Ron Paul seem to understand the problems that are facing America," he said.

So what is his prediction for stock markets in 2012?

"I am short stocks around the world. I’m short American technology stocks, I’m short emerging market stocks, and I’m short European stocks," Rogers told AFNN.

"I’m not optimistic for the most part about stock markets. I don’t own many stocks anywhere in the world. The only offset for the caveat for me is that there is an election in the US, and in France, so wherever there are elections coming, and governments spend spend spend, and throw money out the window to buy votes, so some people are going to be much better off in 2012," he added.

Speaking to the BBC’s Martin Webber December 26, Rogers reiterated his opposition to printing money as a solution to too much spending and too much debt: " You can debase currency, and history is replete with governments that have debased their own currency and ruined their own currency for hundreds of – well for thousands of years."

"You can do that and everything is okay for a while, but eventually you have inflation, you have high interest rates, you have currency turmoil, you have people no longer trusting each other to invest with each other, and then you have the end of the system, and we have chaos, and it starts over again," he added.

Social unrest, civil war and…a huge mess

Asked if it was right that government owned institutions [nationalized banks] were effectively buying government bonds, the investment guru said: "It is a recipe for disaster… It’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a fraud, it’s a sham and we are all going to have to – we are already starting to pay for it."

"Eventually one of two things has to happen. We have to get together now and ring-fence the problem and figure out how we are going to survive and start over. Or, in a year or two or three, the market is going to say, no more money, we won’t put up any more money. And then the whole system collapses, then you have gigantic chaos, social unrest, governments failing, civil war – huge mess," Rogers predicted.

It’s not the euro

Going against mainstream investment thinking, Rogers denied this was a ‘euro crisis.’

"It’s not the euro. The world needs the euro or something like it to compete with the US dollar. We need another sound currency. The eurozone as a whole is not a big debtor nation. The eurozone has some debtor problems, some debtor nations, debtor states, but it’s not a big, big problem. The euro is good for the world. It needs to work," he told the BBC.

But is it a euro crisis?

Rogers, nonetheless is having "serious questions" on what to do about the Euro. "It certainly won’t continue in its current form in 10 years," he told AFNN.

Monetary unions work by automatic transfers from productive regions to less productive ones. This is true in the US as it is true in every single nation with regional variations. No single currency has ever survived without some form of debt ‘mutualization’. Only Germany can reverse the dynamic of a European decay,” billionaire investor George Soros wrote in August in Handelsblatt, the Dusseldorf-based newspaper. “Germany and other countries with an AAA rating have to approve some sort of Eurobond regime. Otherwise, the euro will implode.”

The eurozone, in its current form, is beyond repair. The euro was an idealistic idea dreamed up by politicians. The idea was flawed and could not have worked without swift fiscal and political union. Even Jacques Delors, the architect of the euro, accepted this fact in a recent interview with the Telegraph.

Bankers keep their Lamborghinis

Rogers also expressed limited sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I do have sympathy with the fact that they are saying, we shouldn’t have bailed out the banks. I would have let all those banks go bankrupt, as you’ve heard me say before, but beyond that, I don’t have too much sympathy with them" he told the BBC’s Webber.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Transcription of Finance News Network interview with American investor and author, Jim Rogers.

Lelde Smits: Hello I’m Lelde Smits for Australia’s Finance News Network and joining me today from Singapore is American investor and author, Jim Rogers. Jim, welcome to FNN and thanks so much for your time. Now for the benefit of our Australian audience, why did you choose to leave your homeland and set up in Singapore?

Jim Rogers: The main reason Lelde is that I’ve got two children who I want to grow up speaking perfect Mandarin. In my view the 21stcentury will be the century of China. I couldn’t keep up the Mandarin in New York, as much as I wanted to. You know, many parents do strange things for their children, they move near football coaches or music teachers or good schools. We moved to Singapore to maintain the Mandarin.

Lelde Smits: And why Singapore when you had all of Asia to choose from?

Jim Rogers: We looked at the Chinese speaking cities in China but the problem was the ones where we wanted to live are too polluted. I love Shanghai, I love Hong Kong, but the pollution is just too horrible. Singapore is the best of all worlds.

Lelde Smits: Well you’re clearly an investor with your eyes on global horizons, but what’s your outlook for global growth stepping into next year?

Jim Rogers: Well Lelde, I’m not too optimistic about what’s going to be happening in the world in the next two or three years, and maybe even longer. We have serious problems in the United States. You know, in 2002 we had an economic slowdown, 2008 was even worse because the debt was so much higher. The next time around the debt is going to be staggeringly higher. So, the problems are going to continue to get worse until somebody solves the basic underlying problem of too much spending and too much debt.

Lelde Smits: Could you elaborate on that Jim; If you believe problems are going to get worse because of too much spending and debt, what do you believe is the biggest risk to global growth in 2012?

Jim Rogers: Well definitely too much debt is, in a nutshell yes – I mean the biggest risk of course is the Central Bank in the US which keeps printing money. But they’re printing all that money as a result of the debt. So we have big problems of money printing, debt, too much consumption – be careful.

Lelde Smits: You recently returned from the States, how are folks there feeling about the economy?

Jim Rogers: I was surprised at how much optimism there is. Everybody still seems to think everything is still going to be OK. I guess they’ve been thinking that we’ve all been brought up that everything would be OK in next year or two, and it has been OK for the past 20 or 30 years. Unfortunately I think that’s false optimism and I would have been more impressed if I’d seen a lot of depressed people, but I see optimistic people.

Lelde Smits: So if everyone is optimistic, what concerns you about that state of American’s fiscal affairs?

Jim Rogers: Well the Central Bank, I mean the Central Bank controls monetary affairs but the Central Bank keeps buying government debt and the Congress keeps spending government money. So the combination of the Federal Government including the Central Bank, really scare me.

Lelde Smits: But if the Central Bank isn’t fixing things, who is responsible for fixing this dilemma?

Jim Rogers: Well first of all, you could either abolish the Central Bank or put somebody in there who wouldn’t print money, or the Congress could just stop spending money. Unfortunately Lelde that’s not the way politicians work. They just worry about the next election, they want to get through the next election and they hope they can make everything all right until after the next election. So it’s Congress in the end, it’s the President in the end, but are they going to do something – no. They’re not going to do anything until there’s a serious crisis or semi-crisis.

Lelde Smits: Well what’s holding them back then if we have the threat of an imminent crisis, as you say?

Jim Rogers: It would horribly painful to do what’s necessary. The problem Lelde is that the measures that America needs and not just America, many countries but especially America needs, would cause huge pain for a while. But, Lelde, if we don’t take our pain now and we wait until the market forces the pain on us, then it’s going to be you know a systemic collapse.

It’s going to be very, very serious pain; you’re going to see riots in the street. You’re going to see serious, serious problems, maybe perhaps war even. It’s better to go ahead and take the pain now, while it would be terrible for two or three or four years, at least we’d get it behind us and start over.

Lelde Smits: OK, so we need to take the pain and we all know the way out of debt isn’t more debt. So what’s printing money going to fix and why is this even an option?

Jim Rogers: Printing money does nothing more than bide time. Throughout history governments have tried to debase their currency in the hope that they would somehow get better down the road, but it’s always gotten out of control. The debt has gotten higher, the money printing makes people feel better for a while but in the end its higher inflation, higher interest rates and then you have serious, serious problems. Once inflation starts rising and gets out of control, it’s very hard to kill it. At this time we can still solve our problems, if you wait until inflation’s out of control then it’s very hard to solve your problems.

Lelde Smits: Turning to US politics now, and the US elections are coming up in November next year. Who are you endorsing Jim and why?

Jim Rogers: Well I don’t even want to get into who I’m endorsing and why because I mean after all, I’m just one voter and I would probably hurt somebody if I endorsed them. I mean in America, Gary Johnson and Ron Paul seem to understand the problems that are facing America. But I’m not in the business of endorsing political candidates – as far as I’m concerned Lelde, a pox on both of their houses.

Lelde Smits: Well if you won’t endorse a person, which policies do you favour?

Jim Rogers: Well, the only thing we can do is to cut spending with an axe – not with an axe, with a chainsaw. I mean we’ve got troops at over 100 countries around the world doing nothing but – the troops aren’t making enemies, but the presence of the American Military is making enemies. We’ve got to cut spending dramatically, we’ve got welfare programs; we’ve got entitlement programs in America that are just mind boggling. We really just have to take a chainsaw to spending of everything, across the board.

Lelde Smits: Obama just pulled troops out of Iraq, isn’t that a step in the right direction?

Jim Rogers: He pulled out most of the troops from Iraq; you know as usual, government propaganda is exactly that – government propaganda. There’re still a lot of contract people there that they’ve kept in Iraq, but yes that’s a step in the right direction. But again, we’ve had troops all over the world; it’s not doing us much good.

Lelde Smits: But Jim, can the budget be balanced by spending cuts alone. Shouldn’t policy makers also be looking at raising taxes?

Jim Rogers: Raising taxes doesn’t do any good Lelde, governments don’t create jobs. I mean have you ever seen a government create a new job? It’s people like your company that creates jobs. That’s the private sector where you create jobs. Taking money from the people who save and invest, and giving it to a bureaucrat, it’s going to give the bureaucrat a job and it’s going to give a few people jobs, but that’s not the way you solve the problems.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers expects a rough ride ahead for the economy and sees the US as a bigger problem than Europe right now. "You have to own real things if you’re going to survive," he says.

Rogers has been doing his pre-Christmas rounds this week talking to various business media in the US about his investment strategy, commodities, precious metals, the state of the economy, Europe, QE and his distrust of the Fed among other topics.

Speaking to Maria Bartiromo on CNBC‘s Mapping the Market on Wednesday, Rogers reiterated his view on the state of the economy: In 2002 we had a problem, 2008 was worst – debt was higher – in 2013, or whenever the next one is, it will be worse because the debt is going through the roof, he said.

"It’s going to get worse and worse…we’re shooting our bullets, we’re wasting money," Rogers added. The legendary investor argued that while Europe was facing problems with individual countries, "they are solvent." The EU as a whole is not a big debtor nation unlike the US which is the largest debtor nation, he said.

In his usual ‘straight to the point’ style, Rogers told CNBC: "Eventually people will say, wait a minute, we’re back where we were, things are worse than they were before.

"The problem of too much debt is not solved by more debt. This is ludicrous."

So what is his investment strategy in such an environment?

"I’m not doing anything at the moment, I’m sitting and watching," Rogers told Bartiromo. I’m short technology stocks in the US, emerging markets and European stocks and long commodities, Rogers said,

He also owns currencies including the Japanese Yen, the Swiss Franc, the Dollar and some Euros. Rogers, who often called the US dollar a "total disaster in the long term", explained that the US currency was now "beaten down a lot and, as turmoil occurs around the world, some people will flee to the dollar," before stressing that he doesn’t really think the dollar is a safe haven.

As far as the euro is concerned, " They’re [the Europeans] going to make us feel better for a while [reference to the December 9 EU summit], so the euro will rally, but be very careful," he warns.

"It’s not solving the problem, no country has announced we’re going to have less debt in a year or two or three." All are going to have higher debt, the problem is getting worse, he stressed.

"And when things don’t get better, they’re going to print a lot more money. When they print money, you have to own silver, you have to own rice, you have to own real things if you’re going to survive," Rogers argued.

Gold consolidation

Asked if Gold would break US$2,000 in 2011, he said it might, but he doubted it. "Gold has been up 11 years in a row and that’s very unusual for any asset class," he explained, before adding that it would not surprise him if gold didn’t continue to consolidate for a while.

I hope it continues to consolidate and I hope it goes down so I can buy more, he said. "I want to buy more," Rogers noted.

Gold prices fell back today to this week’s low of US$1,705 per ounce today lunchtime in London. US investors saw the gold price open New York trade 2.1% lower from last Friday’s finish of US$1,745 per ounce.

"Gold prices are still holding fairly well supported," reckons VTB Capital’s Andrey Kryuchenkov in a note, "and any negative reaction to the [European] summit today would only see limited losses in gold as opposed to other…more volatile precious metals, also suffering from growth concerns.

"On the downside [however] a break below US$1,700 would see losses to our key support at US$1,680 and the longer term January uptrend," according to Krychenkov.

QE3 in drag

In an interview with Yahoo Finance’s “Breakout” Tuesday, Rogers argued that the Fed was not telling the truth about quantitative easing.

”The Fed is “lying to us,” he stated, “One reason the markets are holding up so well is that they are printing money as fast as they can.”

Although not officially recognized, "there is QE3, the Fed is pumping money into the system," says Rogers, disputing most Fed statements over the last six months.

He argued that the Fed’s artificially low interest rates are really “something akin to QE3 in drag."

"What the Federal Reserve is doing now is ruining an entire class of investors," Rogers argued.

Prepare yourself for much higher inflation

In an interview with Newsmax.TV Tuesday, Rogers continued with the distrust theme, this time disputing the US government’s unemployment and inflation rates.

"The government lies about the numbers that they put out. Don’t take your advice from any government, or you are going to go bankrupt," Rogers told Newsmax.TV.

US unemployment sank to a 32-month low of 8.6% in November, it was announced last Friday. Official figures showed the jobless rate fell sharply from 9.0% in the previous month, as the economy created 120,000 new jobs.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers

Billionaire investor Jim Rogers spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Connell McShane and Dagen McDowell about his investment strategy given the current economic climate in the United States and European debt crisis. Rogers said “I am not short bonds yet but I plan to be short bonds. I have tried a couple of times and have lost money.” He went on to say that “buying U.S. government bonds at this stage is a terrible mistake; it is one of the few bubbles left in the world.” Excerpts from the interview can be found below, courtesy of Fox Business Network.

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

On his investment strategy:

“I am not short bonds yet but I plan to be short bonds. I have tried a couple of times and have lost money. Dr. Bernanke has more money than I do and can manipulate the market, legally. My view is buying U.S. government bonds at this stage is a terrible mistake; it is one of the few bubbles left in the world. If the world economy gets better, you are going to make money in commodities because that’s where the shortages are. If the economy doesn’t get better, they are going to print money. And when they [print money], you better own things to protect you.”

On the damage the Federal Reserve is doing to the United States by printing more money:

“They are pretty staggering amounts of money. Four years ago, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet had 800 billion dollars of government paper. Now it’s got nearly 3 trillion dollars of junk. You know who is responsible for that? You and me. Its growing. They are printing money. It’s skyrocketed this year alone. They lie and say ‘we are not having a QE3.’”

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 Wall Street Pit

The Best of Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers, CEO & Chairman of Rogers Holdings told CNBC on Wednesday that the recent decline in commodity prices have little to do with fundamentals, or concerns about the strength of the global recovery, and everything to do with the collapse of brokerage firm MF Global.

According to Rogers, the sell-off is “artificial.”

CNBC: “With MF Global going bankrupt [MF Global declared bankruptcy nearly 4 weeks ago] – which was a gigantic commodities firm – there was a lot of artificial forced liquidation of commodities. People have to sell whether they like it or not. It’s artificial selling right now,” Rogers said.

Agricultural commodities have been the hardest hit from the collapse of MF Global – with rice futures currently printing the tape at 4 1/2 month lows; falling more than 14% and wheat futures down 9% in the period.

Rogers says the recent weakness in commodity prices isn’t surprising. CNBC: “This happened before in 2008, when Lehman and AIG went bankrupt, they were both huge in commodities and everybody had to sell,” he said.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 Wall Street Pit

The Best of Jim Rogers

The veteran investor sees more trouble ahead for the world economy, and claims he is mainly holding short positions in stock markets.

Jim Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings and a famed investor, says he sees more trouble ahead for the world economy in the next few years, and is shorting shares in various markets.

"I mainly short shares around the world," says Rogers. "I have shorted American technology companies, I have shorted European stocks and shorted emerging market stocks."

Rogers made the comment while talking to China Money Podcast, a top-rated audio program focusing on investing in China.

Long known as a China Bull, Rogers turned pessimistic about China’s economic future in light of the on-going economic malaise in the U.S. and Europe. "I don’t see a resumption of the bull market in many places in the world until we have the next economic problems in the US, which will be fairly soon," says Rogers.

Having moved to Singapore in 2007 to be closer to the investment opportunities in China, Rogers warns investors to be cautious on China’s property bubble. But he also points out that investors should differentiate China’s property bubble with that of the U.S. "China’s property market has a price bubble, but not a credit bubble the US had," says Rogers.

The outspoken author of a number of best selling books, including A Gift To My Children, is a firm believer of the Chinese currency’s long-term potential. "The Renminbi will go massively higher over the next few decades," says Rogers, who goes on to warn U.S. politicians, who have repeated blasted China for manipulating the RMB, to be careful of what they wish for.

"Manipulation is the wrong world. (China) has a managed float. Once the Chinese currency is freely convertible and freely traded, you are going to have a lot of people leaving the U.S. dollar and going into the RMB. Then the U.S. is going to lose its status as the world’s reserve currency."

Though the intellectually intense investor believes that China should allow the RMB to rise faster against the dollar, he says it is China’s currency, and China should be the one making the decisions.

"If someone called up the American government, and went into the press everyday and said to America this is what you have to do with your currency, America would be furious. America would be shrieking, yelling and probably dropping bombs on that country," says Rogers.

Listen to the podcast here

Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 China Newswire

The Best of Jim Rogers

In an interview with ET Now, Jim Rogers, Chairman, Rogers Holdings, talks about the European situation and shares his outlook for gold, silver and base metals. Excerpts:

How do you see the European situation panning out? What are the key concerns that you are monitoring at this point?

I am delighted to see it. I own the Euro, but longer term it is going to be a disaster for all of us, the whole world, especially for Europe, because this is not solving the problem. A year from now there is going to be more debt in Greece and in Europe. Two years from now, there is going to be more and more debt. Debt just keeps going up and nobody addresses the real fundamental problem.

Do you still think gold is going to go to about $2000 per ounce? How would you want to trade gold at this point in time as an asset class or even a safe haven?

I own gold. I have not sold any gold. I bought some more a week or two ago when it was down. When gold goes down, I try to act and buy more. If it goes down a lot, I would hope I would buy a lot more.

Gold would certainly go to 2000. I do not know when it is going to go to 2000, but I know it certainly would during this decade. Whether it’s an asset class or a safe haven is irrelevant, the fact that I own it is because I want it. The price would go higher.

Between gold and silver, silver of late has exhibited some resilience. So for someone who wants to pick and choose between gold and silver, which commodity would you like to endorse?

I would prefer silver because it is still depressed on a historic basis. Silver is 30% below its all-time high. Gold is 10% below its all-time high. I would prefer one just on relative value, silver is probably better. I am not buying either today, but I am certainly not selling. If they go down, I will buy more.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 The Economic Times

The Best of Jim Rogers

With the European Union heading into a tailspin as its member countries inch closer to default one by one and with the US federal deficit continuing to grow, it’s safe to say that government bonds are no longer the safe havens that they once were. What do investors turn to then? Precious metals like gold, of course.

But I’m always reminded of what my college economics professor told me: At the end of the day, whether it’s dollars or gold, you value it because it can be exchanged for a sandwich. If you’re starving, the cure for your pangs is a sandwich, not a bar of gold. So, in a stumbling global economy like ours, the hottest place to park your money might be farmland.

In America, investors in farmland have enjoyed annual returns of close to 11% in the past 20 years. Through June this year, farmland values are up 20%, a rate that surpasses that of gold or stocks, as Time reported this summer.

"I have frequently told people that one of the best investments in the world will be farmland," said legendary investor Jim Rogers of Rogers Holdings in a Bloomberg report. "You’ve got to buy in a place where it rains, and you have to have a farmer who knows what he’s doing. If you can do that, you will make a double whammy because the crops are becoming more valuable."

And as BRIC countries China and India grow their middle classes, the global demand for food will undoubtedly rise and spur the need to increase farm output and prices, since the richer you are, the more likely you are to eat energy-intensive meat.

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Jim Rogers tells it like it is.

In the EPJ Daily Alert, I have been pounding away at the fact that no new QE is required, that the money supply (M2) is exploding. Rogers correctly points to this money growth in the clip below.

Also, Larry Kudlow is correct in his view that the European Central Bank is likely to join the Fed in the money printing. If they do, it will be the first time ever that the world could face a massive global inflation.

Kudlow is correct that the stock market will skyrocket under these conditions and Rogers is correct that commodities will soar.

Prepare yourself for climbing prices like you have never seen before, to differing degrees both Rogers and Kudlow know what is coming.

Reprinted with permission from Economic Policy Journal.

2011 Economic Policy Journal

The Best of Robert Wenzel

In an interview with ET Now, Jim Rogers, Chairman, Rogers Holdings, shares his outlook on commodities and the falling rupee. Excerpts:

Gold has been down 10% in the past week and is at an 8-week low today. Given this, what is your outlook for gold prices and do you see gold near $2000 per ounce in the near to medium term?

We have discussed before that gold has been up 10 years in a row, which is very unusual in any asset class. So if it is up this year or 11 years in a row, gold is overdue for a correction and it could have a nice substantial correction given that it has been so strong.

I have no idea what is going to happen this year. I doubt if it will go to $2000 an ounce in 2011, it is more likely to have a correction which will last for several weeks, several months. It has been very strong. If it goes down some more, I would buy more gold as I have told you many times.

Silver has been one of your favourites, but that is down 24% in the past week. Are you still buying?

Not yet, but if silver continues to go down as we have discussed before, I will buy more silver too. Do not sell your silver, do not sell your gold unless you are a short-term trader, but anybody who is in this for a long term, silver and gold will both go much higher over the next few years.

Then, let’s talk about base metals. Copper has seen quite a drubbing down 30% over the last one month. Are you seeing more downside for most of these base metals?

That is a big big sell off, 30% in anything in that shorter period of time. So it is a shock, but I would expect most things to continue to correct and react because the world has got serious problems facing in the future. Base metals will be affected by reduced demand.

Other commodities will continue to do well, but base metals certainly would be affected by reduction in demand and you know what is happening in Europe, you know what is happening in America. So be careful. I am not selling any of my commodities. I am not selling my base metals, but I am not jumping in to buy either.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 The Economic Times

The Best of Jim Rogers

Sometimes Jim Rogers gets repetative since he usually pounds the same theories – which is not bad from the viewpoint he has a long term outlook, but in this interview with CNBC yesterday there are some interesting items regarding his current positions (currently long dollar even though he does not believe it to be a safe haven), and some trade/currency tensions developing. I must have missed the news about Brazilian import tariff on Chinese goods.

For those newer to trading I think his view on the dollar is important to understand from a lesson standpoint. Even if you the dollar is ‘cooked’ long term, time frame is important. For the near term, the U.S. dollar still is considered a safe haven (best house on a street full of crack homes) and in panic people flee to U.S. Treasuries and the dollar. So while Jim believes U.S. leadership (I use that word loosely) is constantly doing damage to its currency, he understands the way the other people in the market will react and will take advantage of it. (Rogers is a huge long term bear on the currency)

• The U.S. dollar is going higher “against major currencies,” well-known investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Thursday. The dollar “is going up against everything right now” for a number of reasons, said Rogers. One may be that everybody is panicking “and for some reason they’re rushing into the U.S. dollar.” “The U.S. dollar is not a safe haven, if you ask me, but I do own it,” he added.
• Also, Rogers noted he would own the U.S. dollar, or the Swiss Franc, or agriculture. “Agriculture prices [are] getting banged right now. I am kind of planning on buying Swiss francs, more dollars and agriculture.”
• In addition, he weighed in on China’s economy, saying, “They’re doing their best to cool things off … I expect them to continue to do it, and that is causing more slowdown around the world.”

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

© 2011 Wall Street Pit

The Best of Jim Rogers

The question on a lot of people’s minds is the state of the global economy. Some are predicting a return to recession and at best others believe we will see a period of stagnation.

With global stock markets taking massive hits in the last few months over fears about the eurozone and American economies, what can be done to ease these concerns?

The American investor and financial commentator Jim Rogers says the world is going through a historic shift that will see a period of slow growth. However, he is not worried.

On the BBC World Service’s Business Daily, Justin Rowlatt began by asking Mr Rogers how long he expected the US economy, the engine of global growth, to stagnate for?

Transcript of the interview:

Jim Rogers: I hope it’s only one decade of loss that we lose in America. Japan has had two lost decades now, as you probably know, and America is in much, much, much worse shape than Japan.

America is the largest debtor nation not just in the world, Justin, in the history of the world. We have serious problems. They are not addressing the problems in America. So I hope it’s only one or two decades we lose. It may be three or four.

Justin Rowlatt: So what do American politicians need to do?

Jim Rogers: First they need to get a little education about the rest of the world and about their own economic situation and then we have to change our tax code dramatically. We have to cut spending with a chainsaw; not with an axe, with a chainsaw.

We got troops stationed in over 120 countries around the world. I mean the politicians have sent them there you know, and those military establishments are making things worse for America, not better. We got to change our total way of thinking just as the British did when the British started facing reality.

Justin Rowlatt: When you say face reality, you seem to be suggesting that the age of American supremacy is over?

Jim Rogers: Absolutely, aren’t you? Listen to the BBC and you will hear what’s going on in the world. The 19th century was the century of the UK, the 20th century was the century of the US, the 21st century is the century of China, of Asia, Justin.

I mean, here is a simple fact. The largest creditor nations in the world now, Justin, are China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. Those are all Asian countries. This is where the assets are. This is where the energy is, the dynamism is. You know who the debtors are and where they are.

Justin Rowlatt: I mean the Chinese economy, for example, just to take one Asian economy, isn’t looking so healthy itself, is it? I mean, yes, it’s still growing, but there are these real concerns about inflationary pressures within the economy, which could derail Chinese growth, couldn’t they?

Jim Rogers: Extremely insightful of you. Yes, China has got some problems and they will continue to have problems. Fortunately, they realised the problem. They are trying to cut back on the inflation.

They have made some mistakes too. They should have opened their currency to make it a convertible currency. The fact that it’s not convertible and all that money trapped in China is just adding to the inflation. So yeah, they are making mistakes too. Still, I’d rather be with the creditors than with the debtors any day.

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Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.

The Best of Jim Rogers