Jim Rogers Lets Loose On CNBC
Jim Rogers appeared on CNBC early this morning and talked about a number of issues, including:
Possibility Of Recession
Recessions are like forest fires. Forest fires clean out the underbrush, they clean out things so that the forest can come out with a solid foundation and start with a new burst of growth. That’s what recessions are for. This is just like forest fires.
Keynesian-Type Stimulus Plan
Keynes has been pretty much disproven by most people, except maybe at CNBC…
Well, we will see what happens with this new stimulus package from Japan and from the United States. If you ask me, it’s the same mistake that America made in the seventies, they refused to let anybody fail, they kept propping things up with band-aids, and America had one of its worst decades its had in its 200 years of history. Likewise with the Japanese in the 1990s, they had their lost decade. I’m afraid we’re just extending things out, and we too, are going to have a lost decade.
U.S. Presidential Candidates
On Senator Barack Obama:
Well, he’s talking about spending a lot of money. Yes, I don’t consider that very good, going deeper into debt. The United States is already the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. I’m not sure that that’s going to solve anything.
On Senators Obama and McCain:
Neither one of these guys understand what’s going on. They don’t understand currency markets, economies, they don’t understand the world. You know, both of them will cause us more problems than they’re going to solve. If you happen to be friends with whoever wins, sure, you’re going to have a better time in the next four years. But the rest of us, the 300 million Americans, are all going to be worse off in the next four years. In fact, the world will be worse off.
Wall Street Bail Out
They’re bailing out Wall Street because all their friends are on Wall Street. When Ben Bernanke gets a phone call from the head of Lehman Brothers, he takes the call. But if some poor school teacher in Oklahoma calls Ben Bernanke, he doesn’t take the call. You know, he’s dealing with his friends on Wall Street, trying to save them, when in fact he should let them fail. And that would be a better solution. At least for 300 million Americans.
Letting Financial Institutions Fail
We’ve been having investment bankers go bankrupt for a few hundred years. Are you suddenly telling me that if investment banks on Wall Street go down the tubes, that the world’s going to come to an end? Listen now, a lot of 29-year-olds out there are driving Maseratis. Let them turn in their Maseratis. Let some of the rest of the people in America have a good time rather than people on Wall Street…
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Bailout
Why should the 300 million Americans take on the $6 trillion of debt that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac incurred? We didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s not our responsibility that a bunch of incompetents and crooks went out and ran up $6 trillion of debt. Why should we pay for it? It’s bad enough when the incompetents and crooks in Congress run up huge debts. But when people who aren’t even elected run up debts, why should Americans have to pay off that debt?
Inflation
Inflation’s going to get worse.
Commodities
I have not sold any commodities, and I’ve bought some more agriculture recently.
Emerging Markets
The ones that are in businesses which will not be affected by recession are going to do fine. Agriculture farmers around the world are finally going to be a lot better off. Maybe in ten years we’ll have 29-year-old farmers driving Maseratis instead of 29-year-old stockbrokers riding around in Maseratis. If you’re in the right areas, you’re going to do fine. But everybody’s going to be affected when large economies go into recession…
I’ve sold out of nearly all emerging markets because they were very over-exploited in the last two or three years. So I don’t really own shares in any emerging markets except of course China and Taiwan, which I still own. But other than that, I’m basically out of emerging markets around the world. Too many people around the world are flying around looking for hot emerging markets. That’s not a time to be investing in them.
Europe
Taxes are much too high in Europe. Nobody wants to invest in Europe with a high tax rate.
You can watch the entire 13 minute 3 second segment here.
Source:
Jim Rogers Interview
CNBC, August 29, 2008
