Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers commented on the recent move by the University of Texas to take delivery of $1 billion in gold, saying the decision is long overdue, and has only occurred because everyone else is now buying thereby taking metal out of circulation. He adds: "But where were these guys five, ten years ago? That’s when they should have been doing all of this." Indeed the momentum chasers never show up until it's too late. Then Rogers had some words of caution for silver bulls: "If silver continues to go up like it has been over the past 2 or 3 weeks, yes, then it would get to triple digits this year. And then we’ll have to worry. It’s not parabolic yet. I hope something stops it going up in the foreseeable future and we have a correction. " There is one caveat: "maybe the US dollar is going to become confetti in 2011, and if that’s the case and silver goes to $150, then obviously I wouldn’t sell my silver. It would be the US dollar which is collapsing. But if silver goes up the way you’re talking about without currency collapse, I would be very worried." So as usual, those long Precious Metals should not hate the Chairsatan but to urge him on to continue doing what he is doing so well: converting that once valuable combination of 75% cotton and 25% linen into "confetti."

Jim Rogers joins Zero Hedge in being highly skeptical about just how credible Saudi's call for a 1MM + boost in its oil supply is: "Saudi Arabia has been lying about the reserves for decades. Saudi Arabia the last two times said they are going to increase production and they couldn't increase production. Don't fall for that. The reason oil is going up is the world is running out of known reserves of oil." Of course, then there is the question of do we trust the Quantum fund creator who retired at 37, or do we go with the sellside lemming brigade of monkeys with typewriters who will groupthink anything and everything to death, just to get paid another completely unwarranted bonus. As to those who are concerned that the commodity "bubble" is about to pop, Rogers says: "It's still years away." And some reinforcement for the gold and silver bulls: "Gold will certainly go over $2,000 by the end of the decade, and silver will pass $50." And as a hedge to his great commodity bull market call, Rogers continues to be short Nasdaq stocks. His thesis: "If the economy gets better I am going to make money in commodities, if it doesn't get better, I am going to make money in commodities cause they are going to print huge amounts of money." Call it the adjusted Tepper call.

Jim Rogers, in his latest interview, cuts right to the chase: "I don't own many equities, because I don't know what is going to happen in the world economy. I expect more currency turmoil, more social unrest, more governments collapsing. So I am investing in currencies and commodities rather than stocks." Pretty much like everyone else, as we have been suggesting for quite a while. Rogers snaps at the trademark CNBC question of what he would be investing in: "I have been explaining to everybody on CNBC for a year and half or two now that food prices are going to go through the roof, they're going to explode. We have serious shortage of everything developing, including shortages of farmers... The average age of farmers in one major agricultural state is 58 years old. In 10 years it will be 68 years old. In parts of Japan they have no farmers... It takes 7 years for a coffee tree to mature. Orange trees, palm trees: you don't just suddenly snap your fingers and suddenly get some more palm oil. All of this takes time." So all those who believe that the surge in people rushing to fill the ag arbitrage holes will produce immediate results, may need to wait 3-7 years, dependant on access to manure.

It’s the perfect set up for any investment: dwindling supplies and growing demand. The inflationary holocaust will only be adding gasoline to the fire, pushing agricultural commodities to record highs. As Jim Rogers puts it, “God knows how high the price of agriculture is going to go, so that's where I'm putting more of my money now than in other things… I think I'm going to make more money in agriculture than I make in precious metals.''

"I see more inflation and more currency turmoil as we go forward. There are huge debt imbalances in the world. U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world and all the assets are in Asia. The largest creditors in the world are China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore – this is where the assets are and the debts are in the West. Those imbalances have to be resolved. They frequently lead to more currency turmoil. We’ll see more inflation, we’ll see more governments fall. We just saw Tunisia fall – more are coming because the world is going to continue to have these problems, and especially inflation that is going to cause more social unrest."

During a presentation in Chicago yesterday, Jim Rogers may have well laid the foundation for the next bubble predicted by Zero Hedge in October, namely rice. His comments may have also spooked some of the weaker hands in gold, which has tumbled by $20 today, primarily on concerns what Chinese tightening may do to demand for the precious metal. Of course, how tightening is bad for commodities and good for stocks is one of those questions that can only be explained by the Fed's third mandate. From Bloomberg: "While gold “may go down for awhile,” the metal is “going to go over $2,000 in this decade,” Rogers, who owns gold, silver and rice, said today during a presentation to business executives in Chicago. Gold touched a record $1,432.50 an ounce in New York on Dec. 7. The price closed today at $1,387. “I’d rather own rice,” Rogers said. “I’d rather own something that’s more depressed than gold.”"

In this interview with the RT, Jim Rogers says what everyone except a few bankers and corrupt politicians know to be the case: namely, that Ireland should go bankrupt. Instead, the government is forcing the country into a tough spot, where social tensions are flaring, and could erupt into an all out social conflict, confirming that the interests of its people is the last thing the Irish government cares about, and is only concerned about preserving what is now virtually proven to be a failed model (even JPM said so), and prevent losses at all major German and English banks. Quote Rogers: "It would teach everybody a good lesson, and in the end Europe would be stronger for it, and the EUR would be stronger... You can not spend staggering amounts of money that you don't have of other people's money that you don't have because somebody has to pay the piper. This is ludicrous. This will cripple the Irish economy for years to come. In the future Ireland will be crippled because everything they earn will go to pay off old debt. There is no reason why taxpayers around Europe or in Ireland should pay for other people's mistakes. The bondholders and the stockholders of banks should lose money"... So simple, yet so irrelevant when dealing with a dying economic model.

While we approach the topic of Paul Krugman with the same eagerness one approaches a clogged up, never cleaned, bathroom at a frat party that is about 50 years past its due date, (pretty much like Keynesianism) this one just put us over the top. In his latest pointless drivel on the economy, instead of reverting to his usual mode of praying to John Keynes, bitching at those who dare call for accountability and the punishment of all those, such as Krugman, responsible for what is now a $4 trillion taxpayer monetary bailout tab, and begging for trillions, then quadrillions, then quintillions, then an infinite amount of money, the Op-Ed writer has instead decided to start a mudslinging campaign against none other than Jim Rogers, the co-founder of George Soros' Quantum Fund, who has been pretty much spot on with his calls for decades.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC on Monday, Oct. 4, Jim Rogers talks about commodities, bond and the currency market.

A "cheeky" Jim Rogers appeared earlier on CNBC Europe (which
incidentally is orders of magnitude better than its US equivalent), and
confirmed the depths to which the once relevant and informative TV
station has now fallen. In a discussion over the European Stress BS,
the topic turned to the role of PR agencies when it comes to shaping
popular perceptions, at which point this slipped: "The whole purpose of
PR is to make stocks go higher. That's what CNBC and many many PR agencies are all about. Yes,
they make things look better for a while. Are they really better? No."
Propaganda, in other words. And in the corporatist circle jerk world,
advertisers still flock to it, even as the broader public reaches
levels of skepticism never before seen courtesy precisely of such
blatantly fraudulent media contraptions, and vacates the GE soon to be
spin off in unprecedented quantities. The American public may be lazy,
but it sure is getting more intelligent, and wiser to the tricks of the
media propaganda trade.

On one hand you have BNP revising their mid-term EURUSD forecast to 0.98, on the other you have such pessimists as Jim Rogers saying to buy the Euro. Who to trust anymore? Granted, Rogers' thesis is only predicated on a a relief rally, pretty much the same as what we suggested when we saw the Goldman downgrade of the EURUSD, and immediately beckoned readers to get right back in. We consider the +50,000 pips picked in the ensuing week a direct gift from god (or at least his favorite worker). At this point the relief rally has likely fizzled, and the direction now is indeed down, at least until the next time the CFTC notes the net EUR shorts have hit a fresh record. Back to Rogers: in the long-term, Jim is just as bearish as always: "The European governments are not getting their act together, not at all. All paper money is flawed, nearly every currency in the world."

Themis Trading's Joe Saluzzi, who still has oddly not be asked to discuss his perspectives on the flaws in not only HFT but broader market structure and topology issues before a congressional commission, is interviewed by Bloomberg (and amusingly Carol Massar, after mocking him the last time around, finally gives him props for having been right all along). Fans of A. Joseph Cohen would be better advised to look elsewhere for their daily dose of Vitamin H_opium. The take home message"It's gonna crumble, it's just a matter of when." Alas, with gold now at $1,241 even lifelong Keynes fanatics are finally throwing in the towel. The time when we could have done something to fix the system is now long gone, courtesy of the administration's waffling for the past two years as instead of getting to the root cause of the last and future crash, it was focused on bailing out bankrupt banks. And in related news, Jim Rogers, joins the Euro death squads, and says that the $1 trillion bailout is the "Nail in the coffin for the euro." As Rogers said in discussing the now failed bailout: "I was stunned. This means that they’ve given up on the euro, they don’t particularly care if they have a sound currency, you have all these countries spending money they don’t have and it’s now going to continue. It’s a political currency and nobody is minding the economics behind the necessities to have a strong currency. I’m afraid it’s going to dissolve. They’re throwing more money at the problem and it’s going to make things worse down the road.”

A summary of two Jim Rogers interviews with Bloomberg & BNN regarding Greece, euro and how he would invest $100,000 now. Also included: a quick eruo technical analysis from yours truly.

My take on views expressed by Jim Rogers at a BBN interview on Mar. 18 about the recent currency and trade confrontation between the US and China, the Canadian loonie and the U.S. bond market.

While we are not sure how Betty Liu feels about Rogers' invitation to come eat some Wienerschnitzel, what is certain is that Greek PM Papandreou is not too happy with the commodities pundit right about now. When asked should Europe bail out Greece, Jim says: "No, of course not, they should let Greece go bankrupt. It would be good for the euro, it would be good for Greece, it would be good for everybody." Alas, more true words have rarely been spoken. And with every financial professional already on the same side of the boat as Rogers, politicians are now left on their own to do what they know best: i.e., the wrong thing...and over and over again, and if someone can be blamed (evil, evil CDS speculators come to mind), so much the better. Also, should anyone wish to take a brave foray into the political arena (which appears is now the best paying job in the world, incidentally, just after Goldman CDS traders, hehe) on the crest of the anti CDS bashing, now is the time. It appears quite a few have risen to the challenge.