If Spain goes bankrupt out of the blue, everything goes down for a while and there will be consolidations around the way but yes, they’re gonna print more money. Either the world economy is going to get better and commodity is going to go up because of shortages or they’re going to print more money and throughout history when they printed a lot of money, you protect yourself by owning real assets.

I always buy the Renmimbi when I can. You can’t just pick up the phone and buy a lot of Renmimbi. You have to do it when circumstances allow it.

If you want to buy the Euro, you can buy the Swiss Franc because the two are tied together right now. I am not buying either. Some day that’s going to break and then the Swiss franc will pop a lot. Likewise, if you want to buy the US Dollar, you could buy the Hong Kong Dollar. They too are tied together and the Hong Kong Dollar is going to break free someday. These are imminent trades by any stretch of imagination but if there are people interested in buying the Swiss Franc or the euro the best way is to buy the Swiss franc and likewise with the HK dollar.

- Jim Rogers. Money News Interview.

Depressed Commodities

When I want to invest in commodities, I start by looking at the things that are the more depressed. Soy beans have been making all time high or near all time highs. I do not like to buy things making all time high. I prefer to look at things that are still haven’t moved. Sugar, for instance, is 65~70 percent below its all time high. I am not suggesting you buy sugar. I am just suggesting if I were an investor looking to invest in agriculture or any commodity, I would start by looking at the things that are still depressed. Sugar is down 65~70 percent from where it was 38 years ago that’s astonishing.

- Jim Rogers. CNBC India.

Agriculture Powerhouse

Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region have all the ingredients needed to become the world’s agriculture powerhouse.

- Jim Rogers. The Wall Street Journal blog.

The commodity market rally will eventually come to an end some day. Not at all, it (the commodity super cycle) will be over eventually. It will be over some day. All bull markets have come to an end but it won’t come to an end until a lot of supply comes on stream right now. For instance, in agriculture, the world inventories & stocks are near historic lows. We have been running out of farmers in most parts of the world, so until the supply comes on stream, the bull market is not over.

- Jim Rogers.

These guys have been saying the same old garbage for a long time. It’s not a game-changer – it’s good for the market for maybe a month. The debt keeps going higher and higher and eventually we’ll all going to pay a terrible price.

It’s not an opportunity to make money for me. This is not good for the market and it’s not going to last. Every three or four months they have a summit and they say: Ok guys, everything is ok now. The market goes up. But we’re getting a little tired of this and the market is getting a little tired of this.

- Jim Rogers. CNBC.

Well I have no idea what’s going to happen at Jackson Hole. I do know that the Federal Reserve is going to continue to print more money, whether they announce it or not because that’s all they know to do, it’s the wrong thing to do for all of us - for the world, but they don’t know any better. So whether they announce it or whether they call it something different, who knows. Until the world economy gets better these guys don’t know anything else to do so they’re going to print more money.

No, no this is nothing more than a blip. The BHP Billiton action is just one of the reasons that the commodity bull market is going to continue for a while. The bull market will continue until a lot of supply comes on stream and the problems since 2008 ensure not a lot of supply is coming on stream. After eight or nine years into a bull market, usually people start thinking about new supply, but anybody thinking about new supply suddenly got hit by 2008. BHP Billiton got hit by 2012, so all these guys are delaying or suspending or cancelling new supply which is bullish. Until the supply comes we’re not going to have an end to the bull market and, certainly in agriculture, my goodness, inventories are near historic lows, we have serious shortages of everything in agriculture developing, including farmers. The average age of farmers in America is 58 - I can go on and on with statistics in other countries… the highest rate of suicide in the UK has been in agriculture. Farming has been a horrible business for 30 years. Normally when you have a year like this when a lot of prices go higher, usually you would start seeing big production increases and attempts to rebuild inventory, but unfortunately we don’t have so many farmers. Next year the farmers are going to be 59, and in five years from now the ones that are still alive will be 63, so the world’s going to have serious problems as far as supply of agriculture is concerned.

GEOFF CANDY: There’s been talk over the last few days about the fact that the Republican Party put the potential for a return to the gold standard on their party document. It seems unlikely that that would actually happen. Is this purely a political ploy, do you think, or would we likely see perhaps a changed role for gold, should we see a change in the White House?

JIM ROGERS: No there’s zero chance of that happening - let’s say the Republicans win in 2012, zero chance it’s going to happen in the next four or five years. It’s a sop to Ron Paul and to some of the disgruntled members of the Republican Party - zero chance.

Silver is about 40% below its all-time high, and gold is 10% or 15% below its all-time high.

Every time that the Chinese have begun to pop the real estate bubble in the past, once things start getting tough they get a lot of phone calls and they start loosening up again. In my view, China has loosened up too early every time in the last decade, which is why the real estate bubble has continued and it’s gotten worse. So it looks as though China is going to loosen up again and in my view they’re going to loosen up again too early this time around, and you’ll probably have a continuation of the same old thing - more inflation and perhaps excesses in real estate again.

Well it’s the result of higher prices, full stop. Whenever prices go up if people are buying jewellery they stop and have second thoughts. Now are the Indians and Chinese going to continue to buy gold, yes I’m sure they are, but the Indians have been buying gold for a long, long time. The Chinese on the other hand have only been buying gold for a few years and they’re certainly not saturated. I don’t know if the Indians are saturated, but the Indians essentially have all the gold they need but I know that the Chinese are not saturated - the Chinese will buy a lot more gold over the next decade. Whether they’re going to buy this year, I don’t have a clue.

- Jim Rogers. Mineweb.

The United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. Our debts are skyrocketing every year and nobody’s doing anything about it. Every country in history that’s gotten into this situation has had a crisis or a semi-crisis, or both. In 2002, we had an economic slowdown, which was fairly serious, and then in 2007 and 2008, we had another one, which was worse because the debt was so, so, so much higher. The next time around the debt is going to be that much more catastrophic.

As far as I’m concerned, the election is irrelevant. One [candidate] happens to be from Boston and one from Chicago, and whoever wins, their friends are going to do well, but other than that America is not going to do well. There’s very little difference in any of these guys. None of them understands the problem. These are the guys that got us into trouble. You expect them to get us out?”

On a historic basis, agriculture is still cheaper than others. But I own them all. I own more agriculture than I own of the others, but I own them all.

TFT: Have you been putting more money to work in commodities or in other areas?

Jim Rogers : Not recently. I’ve been watching. I’ve got my positions. I’ve bought a few more Myanmar shares recently, but other than that I haven’t done anything. - in the fiscal times

I’m a little surprised anybody says anything about China. China has publicly announced for three years they’ve been trying to slow their economy down. They’ve announced almost every month or every quarter they were trying to slow things down, so anybody who isn’t aware of this either hasn’t been paying attention or doesn’t know what they’re doing. China is slowing down, by design, properly, if you ask me. Some parts of [that] economy are going to have problems, such as property and real estate. Other parts are going to continue to do well. But anybody who deals with the West in China is certainly going to know something’s wrong. Anybody who deals with property in China is going to know something’s wrong. But part of that was by design – and proper design.

TFT: You’ve given money to Ron Paul’s campaign. Would he have done a better job?

Jim Rogers : I suspect he would have. He would have had the problem of dealing with a Congress that is not in sync with his views, but he certainly would have pushed us in a better direction than these guys will.

Investors should be investing in and owning things they know about. If you don’t know what you’re doing or don’t have something you think is going to be a good investment, you should do nothing. The problem these days is even if you put your money in cash, what kind of cash? Some cash is better than others. But even if you don’t know any better, just put your money in U.S. dollars in the bank and wait until you find something you know a lot about. I happen to be invested in commodities and especially agriculture – and I own currencies and I’ve sold short stocks. But people – if they can’t spell commodities, they shouldn’t be listening to me. They should be doing what they understand.

As far as I’m concerned, the election is irrelevant. One [candidate] happens to be from Boston and one from Chicago, and whoever wins, their friends are going to do well, but other than that America is not going to do well. There’s very little difference in any of these guys. None of them understands the problem. These are the guys that got us into trouble. You expect them to get us out?

Nearly every year, the world always has a problem somewhere with weather or something, since the beginning of time, and I suspect we will continue to. The problem now is it’s going to be more and more difficult to recover because of two things. One, we’ve consumed more than we’ve produced nearly every year over the last decade, so inventories are very low. But more importantly, we’re running out of farmers. The average age of farmers in America is 58. More people study public relations than study agriculture. We don’t have anybody going into agriculture. Something’s got to happen, such as much higher prices, or we’re not going to have any food at any price… We’ve got to do something to get farmers back into the field.We produce 200,000 MBAs in the U.S. every year. Some human being has to go into the field. Yeah, things are more automated, but still, somebody has got to get his hands dirty.

- Jim Rogers. Thefiscaltimes.com.

Buy a Farm in Australia

I’d urge anyone to buy a farm. It’s the farmers, the producers who are going to be in the captain’s seat when the prices go through the roof. The shortages are going to get worse and the prices for land will go higher. We have shortages of everything from oil to food and on top of that we have governments printing more money. Put the two together and you have some serious inflation coming down the road. Governments will eventually put in place price controls but if you tell someone they can only make so much money, he is going to stop producing. The Chinese are seeing this and that’s why they are out looking to buy assets. They are down here [in Australia] trying to buy up more. I applaud them. We don’t have enough farmers or enough capital. So if somebody doesn’t buy those farms, then we are not going to have any food.

- Jim Rogers. The Australian Financial Review.

Great societies and great economies throughout history were based on saving and investing. Look at the countries that have been doing very well in Asia in the past 30 or 40 years. They are countries with very high saving rates. People saved and invested and put their money into productive capacity. They built for the future. That’s how countries became great and successful nations. You don’t become a great and successful nation based on consumption. You may have a wonderful time. You may love to go to the disco every Saturday night and the beach but that’s not the way to go a successful economy for the long term, even Karl Marx said to build asset you have to build capital.

- Jim Rogers. RSBF 2012.

Bubble Movie: Jim Rogers Feature

It is ludicrous that you have these people in Washington who are quote saving the world but these are the people who few of them saw the problems coming. Few of the people running Wall Street companies saw the problem coming and yet they all walked away with tens of millions of dollars.

The guy who ruined Merrill Lynch is now extremely wealthy man.
The man who ruined Citibank is now an extremely wealthy man.
The guy who was the head of US Stock Exchange walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s absolutely outrageous what these people got away with and now they are still turning around. I mean you go down to Washington. The people who caused the problem, Bernanke, Greenspan… the guys at the federal reserve are now supposedly saving us from the problems, they are making the situation worse. They never saw it coming in the first place. They didn’t understand it. They don’t understand it and now they are making it worse.

Everybody is in favor of prosperity a chicken in every pot. Everybody should be a homeowner. All politicians do whatever they can to make sure we all own a house. Unfortunately, if you get somebody who has to pay for this, usually when they forget that somebody has to pay for it, we all end up having to pay for it and in this particular case, we all end up having to pay a lot for their foolishness.

- Jim Rogers. The Bubble Movie.

It’s very difficult for foreigners to do business in India because India doesn’t like foreigners and keeps them away. For instance, Walmart has many stores in China, but not a single fully-owned Walmart store in India simply because India doesn’t like overseas businessmen. India needs to change its regulations, especially in areas such as agriculture. In India, a farmer can own only five hectares, which makes it difficult for him to make a lot of money. How can an Indian farmer who can buy only five hectares compete with a Brazilian farmer who can have 25,000 hectares? India is strangling itself with regulations and controls, which discourage capital formation.

India has a huge bureaucracy and the government is against foreign capital, but also because India has a very high debt-to-GDP ratio and it’s difficult for a country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio to grow in a dynamic manner. India’s debt is growing higher and that means inflation is getting worse. All in all, India is badly managed these days. There are too many other problems. India must make the changes I have highlighted above because foreign direct investment is difficult in India. The government can make India more attractive by removing the restrictions and controls, but, so far, it doesn’t want to remove them. India is a wonderful country, but the government makes it difficult for investors.  

The United States has now the largest debt in the history of the world and the debt in Europe means many countries in that continent are bankrupt because they have too much debt.
The debt in the West will continue to cause more problems as we go along. I am not optimistic about the West. Asia is on the rise and the West on decline.

The most promising country at the moment is Myanmar. In 1962, Myanmar was the richest nation in Asia, but then it closed its walls to the outside world and is now the poorest country in the region. But Myanmar is now opening up to the outside world. And what makes it more exciting is that its neighbors are China, Thailand and India.

It has huge natural resources and cheap, disciplined labour force. In 1978, China started opening up and became a very exciting country for the next 35 years and the same is about to happen in Myanmar. I am also excited about North Korea because I expect the same thing to happen to North Korea in the next few years.

- Jim Rogers. rediff.

The 30% gains since last October have been largely driven by one catalyst - the Fed. The Federal Reserve is pumping huge amounts of money into the market. This is a Federal Reserve rally. The money has to go somewhere and its going into the stock market and the commodity market. It’s going to end terribly.

Just because now you have a way to get them (the banks) to borrow even more money, this is not solving the problem, this is making the problem worse. People need to stop spending money they don’t have. The solution to too much debt is not more debt. All this little agreement does is give them (banks) a chance to have even more debt for a while longer. What would make me very excited is if a few people went bankrupt or a few people started paying off their debt. We are going to have financial Armageddon anyways, when the rest of the world is not going to give these people any more money. What are you going to do in two, three, four years when the market suddenly says ‘no more money’ and the Germans don’t have more money and the American debt has gone through the roof.

- Jim Rogers. CNBC.

ET Now: Nothing big has come out from the Jackson Hole meeting, but do you still expect FED to announce a QE3?

Jim Rogers: I do not know if they will announce it. 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. So I do not know whether they will announce it or not. 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 to do.- in ET Now Sept 2nd 2012.

ET Now: What about sugar? Given the way how we have got poor monsoon in Brazil and India, are you hot on sugar as well?

Jim Rogers : I have no idea what is going to happen in 2012, but again sugar is going to be much higher over the course of next decade or so. Sugar is down about 70% or 75% from its all-time high. Sugar has been amazingly depressed in the past three-four decades. So sugar is going to go much much higher before this bull market is over. I do not have a clue for what happens this year.  

ET Now: Are you bullish on commodities overall and what makes you still bullish given the gloomy economic outlook as well?

Jim Rogers: The commodity bull market is going to on until there is a lot of new supply. You do not have much new supply in most commodities. Commodities are determined by supply and demand. You will certainly have corrections. You will have corrections in all bull markets, and you had several corrections in stocks which went up from 1982 until 2000. In 1987, stocks went down 40% to 80%. It was at the end of the bull market and you will certainly have corrections in commodities, but we are going to have shortages. If the world economy gets better, you will have big shortages. If the world economy does not get better, governments and central banks will print more money. It is a wrong thing to do, but that is what they do and that of course when currencies are being debased, the best way to protect yourself is with real assets. 

ET Now: There are three key classifications for commodities — precious, industrial and agri. So out of the three groups I mentioned, which is one group you are bullish on?

Jim Rogers: I own more agriculture than most other commodities because the prices are still astonishingly low and in some cases agriculture has been in a terrible situation for 30 years now. Agriculture prices would be the best performers, I think.

ET Now: Are you bullish on commodities overall and what makes you still bullish given the gloomy economic outlook as well?

Jim Rogers: The commodity bull market is going to on until there is a lot of new supply. You do not have much new supply in most commodities. Commodities are determined by supply and demand. You will certainly have corrections. You will have corrections in all bull markets, and you had several corrections in stocks which went up from 1982 until 2000. In 1987, stocks went down 40% to 80%. It was at the end of the bull market and you will certainly have corrections in commodities, but we are going to have shortages. If the world economy gets better, you will have big shortages. If the world economy does not get better, governments and central banks will print more money. It is a wrong thing to do, but that is what they do and that of course when currencies are being debased, the best way to protect yourself is with real assets. 

The surprise with oil is going to be how high it stays and how high it goes. We are running out of known reserves of oil. There may be a lot of oil in the world. If there is, we just don’t know where it is. So prices are going to stay high and go much higher. If America goes to war with Iran, they are going to skyrocket. If there is a big surprise, if Spain suddenly goes bankrupt out of the blue, then oil prices will collapse. If the prices collapse, I would suggest you to buy more. If there is anything that makes it go down, I would suggest buying it because until we find a lot of oil, prices will stay high and go much higher.  

Collapse. If we could see the stock markets around the world collapse, then I have to get more interested. But at the moment, some stock markets, like the United States stock market is within striking distance of all-time highs. That is not a time to get very excited about things, but if and when some big stock markets around the world collapse, I would have to start getting more interested. Japan, for instance, is down nearly 80% from its all-time high. So I am looking around Japan. Certainly we have to look at Japan than at other places.

Worst may be behind us for this week but no, there are going to be more problems coming out of Europe. 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. So now you are going to have plenty more problems coming out of Europe.

ET Now: What impact do you see high crude prices will have on Asian economy, especially economies like India and China which are dependent on crude imports?

Jim Rogers: India has inflation for its own reasons, now because of the price of crude, although the price of crude certainly contributes to inflation everywhere. Any countries which have to import energy suffer when the price of energy goes to the roof. On the other hand, countries which sell energy benefit when the price of energy goes higher. Just depends on whether you are a buyer or a seller. That determines whether you are going well or are suffering.

Unfortunately all central banks know to do is to print money. Most of them will anyway, and you are going to see more money printing, more debasement of currency and therefore, the price of gold will go much higher over the course of the decade. Whether it goes up this year or not, I do not know. The situation with gold is that it has been up 11 years in a row without a down year, which is extremely unusual. I do not know of any asset that has been up 11 years without a down year. So gold is correcting. It would be normal for gold to continue to correct and have a down year. Such markets are supposed to do so. Whether it is going to do, that I do not know, but I do know that gold is going to be much higher over the decade. 

I doubt it. India for some reasons gets better press in the reality. I still have not quite figured out the Indian press. The debt to GDP in India is now over 90%. Study shows that when you get that high debt ratio, it is very difficult to grow in a dynamic way. I am not a fan of India. In fact, I am short on India. So I do not think you are going to see a lot of good news coming out of India. 

- Jim Rogers. India Economic Times.

I think they’re a mistake and there’s still inflation in China. Yes, the property bubble has popped and prices have started coming down but not enough in my view. The most recent statistics show that Chinese property market is starting to recover.

- Jim Roger. CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box”.

Dramatic Global Changes - Both Good & Bad

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.

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.

- Jim Rogers. Oil Price.