We can get rid of central banks.. it has happened in the world many times

Jim Rogers is a smart investor who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1973. By 1983 the fund gained more than 4000 percent.

History shows the most unlikely time to invest was actually the best time to buy

The lessons of history are very, very, very clear. Pick any year in history, whatever we think is true, that year, 1900, 15 years later, it's a whole entirely different world. And we all know in 1900 how the world is, and we should be saying to ourselves, find me a weird guy. Find me a strange guy to tell me how this is going to change. 1950, 15 years later, everything we knew, everything we knew was totally wrong.

So I, at least, have learned that, that lesson of history. And perhaps that's why I'm more-- not interested, more I'm excited when I start looking at the way the world is today and what we all know. Because I know what we all know is not going to be true in 15 years, no matter what it is. And my problem is how do I figure it out. How do I figure it out? Whatever we know today, no matter what it is is not going to be true in 15 years.

I've learned over my career, not just my career, but reading about the world, the stranger it sounds, the more you should say, wait a minute. That sounds really strange. Let me look at it. Let me hear what's going on. Because I have certainly learned that over my life, not just my life. You read history. You read anything. As I said before, the lesson of history is that most people don't learn the lesson of history. They ignore the lesson of history. Now, we all know that if we'd invested in China 1981, we'd be the richest people in the room right now. And yet, in 1981, including me, we would have said what's wrong with you? Don't you know about Mao Zedong? Doesn't he know about the Great Leap Forward? Doesn't he know about all this stuff, what "Chinese" is?

Or Japan: Don't you know about the disaster of what this country was? If you'd said Japan, don't you know about Hiroshima? The atomic bomb? You don't know about the dictator, the emperor? How could you  invest there? They're little, bitty yellow people who must be dishonest and cruel. But those are the lessons of history. 

Why you might want to short the US

You have to be short and most markets are already down. There are very few markets that aren't down already in the world, except the averages in New York. Now, you can certainly short Europe, because it's going to get worse. You can certainly short the UK, because it's going to get worse. 

But the things that are still high, I'm sure your parents taught you to buy low and sell high. Well, the things that are high still happen to be the US, more than anything else....  You should be short the US. That's the market that's still the highest. It hasn't gone down yet. One can have shorts in any place you want, but the Japanese market is down 70%, 75% from its all-time. The Russian market -  who wants to short Russia? I'm long Russia. I mean, where are you going to short? Everything's collapsed. I'm not buying India. There was a recent remarkable development in India, but it's not enough to make me buy India. 


Jim Rogers is a smart investor who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1973. By 1983 the fund gained more than 4000 percent.

Timing the markets is not easy

I'm a hopeless trader, fortunately, I'm not going to worry about margin calls, because I'm not rushing out and buying a lot of sugar on 5% margin or something. There was a time in my life when I did that, but that was a long, long time ago. 

Now I'm doing other things. I'm the single worst market timer in the world. I'm the worst trader. I know that about myself. I've learned it over the years that when I say, now's the time, I should wait another year or two. The problem is I do. I wait another year or two and I should wait another year or two, because I'm so hopeless and so early at most things. But fortunately, as I say, I'm not so leveraged or in such margin that I have to worry about most things.

Russians want to cut oil production

The Saudis have made it clear they don’t want to cut production and they are right, in my view. I am not Saudi Arabian so I can’t tell them what to do. 

The Russians want to cut production, that’s not what I would do. I would let the market play itself out. It is taking a while but the high cost producers are closing down and going out of business. You are forcing the high cost exploration to stop. There is no exploration. Exploration budgets are cut by ninety percent. This eventually means no oil supply, and the price goes through the roof again. Why would you sell your oil down at these prices if you could wait and sell it later?

How bear markets start

The way bear markets work is something happens. It's a shock. People get over it. Then something else, and you know. In 2007, Iceland went bankrupt.  Iceland? Who's Iceland? What do you-- who cares? Then Ireland went bankrupt and the next thing you know, Lehman's going bankrupt. But that's the way these things always work. They start on an outlier, a marginal company, marginal country, and then it leads, and then everybody says, oh, well, we knew that. We knew it was a bear market coming. Well, they usually don't. They shake it off until it's too late.