Jim Rogers says leave the market alone, abolish the Fed and cut spending
Source: BI-ME , Author: BI-ME staff
Posted: Fri August 13, 2010 12:44 am
INTERNATIONAL. Legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers believes the US is driving business away to creditor nations in Asia by over interfering in the market.
In a recent interview with Campaign for Liberty, Rogers said: " There's a transition now from the US to Asia in the financial world and the economic world.
"Ten years ago, most of the large IPOs in the world were done in New York," Rogers said, adding "now very few of them are. America's driving the business out in many, many ways, and that's going to continue."
Explaining the reasons this is happening, Rogers said: "In America, the government and the central bank especially, have interfered with the market several times".
Rogers insinuated that countries that are doing better than the US are leaving the market alone.
"Rather than letting the market do what the market's supposed to do, which is let bankrupts go bankrupt, clean out the system, start over, Greenspan stepped in and said, 'No, no, no, we don't want the market to work. We want to determine who wins, who loses, and what's going to happen in the world.' He bailed out the market when long-term capital management came. he bailed out after the dot-com."
"Unfortunately, we are all now paying the price. Bernanke is of the same yolk, he's been doing the same sorts of things," Rogers added.
Asked what he would do if the was President, the legendary investor said: I would abolish the Federal Reserve. I would cut taxes. I would cut spending in a draconian manner. A very draconian manner. The idea that you can solve a problem of too much debt and too much consumption, with more debt and more consumption, defies comprehension".
Stressing the depth of the debt crisis and putting a timeline on its effect, Rogers told Campaign for Liberty: "Oh, our poor grandchildren! Look at all this debt!" No, no, no, it's not our poor grandchildren, it's us!"
"This is a current problem! This is a problem, even our parents, if they're still alive, forget our grandchildren; our parents are going to be suffering, and our grandparents if they're still alive," he added.
This is a current disaster for all of us, Rogers stressed.
What should investors do in order to protect their financial assets?
"Throughout history, when people have printed money, it's led to debasing of currencies. And the way to protect yourself and even to make money has always been that you'll use real assets," Rogers said.
"Whether that's silver, or natural gas, or cotton, or rice".
And the dollar?
"As you know, more countries are worried about the dollar. More countries are starting to use other things to settle their debts. This is a process which is underway and will continue, there's no question," the legendary investor said.
"The US is not just the larger debtor nation in the world, it's the largest debtor nation in the history of the world".
Rogers expects the staggering amount of printed money will eventually lead to serious problems down the road.
In some of his recent most memorable 'rants' he was quoted as saying:"How can the solution for debt and consumption be more debt and more consumption? How can that be the solution to our problems?"
"What we're doing now is we're taking the assets away from the competent people and giving them to incompetent people and telling them 'now you can compete with competent people with their money."
"We're going to have zombie capitalism for the next 15-20 years. How long are you going to let the bureaucrats run the thing so we can't have a clean system?"
Rogers has spent a career being one step ahead of mainstream investment thinking. He rose to fame after co-founding the now-closed Quantum Fund with George Soros nearly four decades ago. During his ten years with the fund, the portfolio gained more than 4,000%, while the S&P rose less than 50%
The Quantum Fund shot to fame after making more than US$1 billion betting against the British Pound in early 1990s.
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