Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff Rip Bernanke And The Fed

After the official announcement of QE3, a number of hot-shot analysts and experts have come out with their opinions on how the policy will impact our future. The majority have warned about the coming fiscal cliff and how this may only make that worse, while others have been a bit more brash about their distaste for actionsfrom Bernanke and the Fed. Two men in particular, Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers, have been very vocal about their hatred for this policy but they have also both touted commodities as the best way to play another massive injection of money into the economy [for more economic news and analysis subscribe to our free newsletter].

Let’s start with Schiff. Watching interviews and or reading some of his work, it is quite clear that this is a heated subject for him. In his eyes, the Fed should have let the economy fail back in 2008 and all of the QE programs have just been delaying the inevitable. He feels that Bernanke’s bold policy will actually inhibit growth and job creation. He has also stated that the Fed will never be able to produce a vibrant economy through money printing, as QE is simply a drop in a much larger bucket of issues. With his prediction of the dollar index dipping to 40 or even 20, Schiff feels that real assets like silver and gold are the best place for investors to be in the coming months.

Jim Rogers is another who has publicly ripped the Fed for their actions in recent years. He feels that Bernanke and company do not know what they are doing and that printing more money will never solve our problems. “Maybe sometimes in the short term printing money has alleviated the situation, but anybody who has studied history or economics knows that printing money in the longer term doesn’t work”says Rogers. Rogers has long been warning of a deep recession in the next few years, putting him right in line with Schiff, as both feel that we are heading for a financial crisis [see also Protect Yourself From Debased Currencies, Jim Rogers Style].

Mr. Rogers has also gone on to take a few jabs at the current presidential candidates, calling the outcome of the election irrelevant. According to the legendary commodity investor, neither candidate properly understands the deep-seeded issues of our economy and neither will be able to fix it. Working off of his predictions, Rogers has touted investments like agriculture and precious metals, although he has been very clear about stating that he feels silver is a much better investment than gold for the time being.

OIL, CHINA, LIES, BIKE LANES: Jim Rogers Tells All To Business Insider- Business Insider

Years ago, Jim Rogers started the Quantum Fund with George Soros.  Now, the commodities guru works in Singapore, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
Rogers spoke with Business Insider to discuss commodities, the global economy, his legendary career, and his life in Singapore.

What follows is the complete transcript of our interview with Jim Rogers.
Inflation, commodities and the consumer
What is feeding into oil prices at the moment?
Iran obviously, is one thing, but another is in the U.S. it’s the infrastructure problem. We have oil but it’s in the wrong places. On the east coast, they use imported oil, and imported oil is higher because of Iran. And it comes from Europe. North Sea production is in decline. There are supply-demand reasons that oil prices are high in many parts of the world. And known reserves of oil are in decline worldwide. And the IEA is going around telling people that known reserves are in a steady decline and we’re going to have a huge problem in a decade or two, a gigantic problem, unless somebody finds a lot of oil very quickly.  So underneath the supply-demand, shorter term it's infrastructure and Iran probably.
At what level do you think oil prices will break the back of the American recovery? 
We are going to have a slowdown. Such is the staggering debt that America has, it has caused more and more of a drag on our economy. I would also point out to you that every four to six years we’ve had an economic slowdown in the U.S., since the beginning of time, so by 2012, 2013, 2014, we are well overdue for an economic slowdown for whatever reason. Whether it’s caused by high oil or what, we’re going to have a slowdown in the foreseeable future.
How do you see oil prices impacting consumers in emerging markets, especially in Asia, when many of them are struggling to rein in inflation and drive growth?
Everybody is paying higher prices for oil and that obviously impacts consumption everywhere and it's not just oil, it's food and everything else that’s going up. There’s inflation everywhere, the U.S. lies about it, I mean the U.S. government lies about inflation but there’s inflation everywhere. I mean I don’t know if you go shopping, but if you do, you know prices are up. The government says they’re not, I don’t know where they shop. Everybody else’s prices are up.
If you could own / invest in just one commodity which would it be?
I guess it would have to be one of the agricultural commodities, it would depend on which is down the most but it would be agriculture I can tell you that.
You said earlier this year that if gold moved towards $1,600 you would be interested in buying more.  Are you looking at gold now?
I’m certainly watching, if it goes below $1,600 I’m sure I’ll buy more. If it goes to $1,200 I hope I’m smart enough to buy a lot more. Gold has been up 11 years in a row now, which is extremely unusual for any asset. So it would not surprise me if gold doesn’t ... continue to have a nice correction in 2012. If it does, if it does, I hope I’m smart enough to buy a lot more. I’m not selling. I’m not selling. I have not sold and will not sell until the bubble comes. There will be a bubble in gold some day but that’s ten years, I don’t know, several years from now. I hope I’m smart enough to sell when the bubble comes.

JIM ROGERS: Jim Chanos Is Wrong About China And I Said It To His Face -Business Insider

You’re a China bull. Could you tell me the one thing that you think China bears have got wrong?

Not quite sure. If you mean the people who say China is going to explode. Those guys have been saying that for three years. I guess someday they’ll be right. So far they’ve been dead wrong, for years. There will be setbacks in China along the way. In America in the19th century we had 15 depressions with a capital "D," we had no human rights, we had not much rule of law, (and we) had a horrible civil war, yet we became the most successful country in the 20th century.

China is going to have plenty of setbacks but what these guys are mainly missing is China has been in decline for three or four hundred years but started turning it around in 1978. And there’s a long history of entrepreneurship, capitalism, they have the brains, they have the know-how, there are many overseas Chinese who will bring back money and management ability. And the Chinese have a very, very high savings rate. They save over 35 percent of their income and so even if they start going off, they’ve got something to fall back on, as opposed to America and the rest of the world.

There was a housing bubble in urban, coastal real estate, which the government has popped purposely, I mean they knew what they were doing. But as far as, I mean Jim Chanos, says it’s going to be a thousand times worse than Dubai. Well that shows he doesn’t understand Dubai, and he doesn’t understand China. Now I’ve told him this to his face though, so I’m not talking behind his back. China is vastly different from Dubai, vastly. 
Could you explain how Dubai and China’s real estate property problems differ?

Dubai was building its plan, its economic plan was to build an economy based on real estate speculation. It didn’t have anything else. It didn’t have oil, natural resources, it had a small population etc. and there was gigantic real estate speculation in construction. China has huge amounts of stuff. It has a growing population. It has vast natural resources, not enough, but it’s got some. And then all those natural resources in Siberia which they can tap and they’ve got huge financial reserves. Dubai does not. Dubai has a rich big brother, but that’s all Dubai has and China has it all - resources, cheap labor, discipline, educated labor and vast markets.

China lowered their growth rate, wage inflation is worrying and it’s the year of leadership change. Do you think China is in control in terms of their property prices and economic growth…

I doubt the government planned to have a bubble. They got a bubble. I mean they’ve been trying to cool it off and they’ve done so. As far as the lower growth rates, I don’t pay attention to government growth figures because they’re all phony. Nobody knows how much China is growing, including China. I don’t pay attention to all of these figures. They’re not important to me. They’re irrelevant. China is certainly doing better than most countries and it will continue to do so. It will have setbacks. There’s nothing that says China should not have a recession. But China has a lot of money saved for a rainy day and when it rains they’re going to spend. America doesn’t have any money saved for a rainy day.  And when it rains we’re going to try to borrow it or print it, neither of which is good for America or for the world.

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Jim Rogers: The US is the Largest Debtor Nation in History - BusinessInsider

In his latest interview with The Wall Street Journal, famed Quantum Fund co-founder and investor Jim Rogers tells it like it is, as usual. Among other choice snippets, Rogers remarks that the current debt talk negotiations are simply a scam and a charade, and are just trying to get publicity. What follows are a few more, and you can view the entire video clip below.

On the US potentially losing its AAA status – The US has lost its AAA status. Anybody who knows what’s going on knows that the US is now the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. It’s only Moody’s and S&P that haven’t figured out what’s going on. The world, the investment world, the financial world knows that America is not AAA anymore. Who cares what Moody’s said? Moody’s has gotten everything wrong in the past 10 years, why do you pay attention to them?

On the US dollar – I own the US dollar because everyone is so pessimistic about it, and usually when that happens something comes along to cause a rally. Everybody sold the dollar under the current scenario, and that could well change.

On US long term bonds – I’m short United States government bonds, long term bonds. I wouldn’t lend money to the United States in US dollars for 30 years at three or four or five, or you name the interest rate.