Jim Rogers’ Most Dire Warning, “Please Get Worried”

From ETF Daily News

“Be very worried about 2013 and be very worried about 2014, because that’s when the next slowdown comes,” Rogers stated.  “In 2002 we had a recession and in 2008, it was worse because the debt was so much higher.”

He added, “The next time is going to be even worse because the debt is so staggeringly high now. So if you are not worried about 2013, please — get worried.”...

...During the U.S. collapse, stocks will drop and currency markets will be in turmoil, according to Rogers.  However, like a tsunami, the tide back into the U.S. dollar could be strong during the worst of the collapse, as it had been during the kickoff to the crisis with the fall of Lehman Brothers (from USDX 72 to 88), but the epicenter of a global currency crisis will come back to the shores of the U.S.

That’s the time when interest rates on U.S. sovereign debt could skyrocket, leading to a flight of the U.S. dollar and financial Armageddon predicted by some notable and respected analysts and economists.

Taking into account that 61 percent of global central bank reserves are held in U.S. dollars (28 percent held in euros), the extent of the damage to living standards in the U.S. and across the globe could be dramatic and sudden, according to Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff and ShadowStats economist John Williams.

Greece’s less-than-two-percent weighting of the eurozone is equivalent to the weighting of the impact of America’s state of Maryland upon the U.S. dollar, so the fallout of a Greenback in free-fall, globally, has no precedent, no yardstick and no shape, giving rise to the notion that the purpose of FEMA facilities built throughout the U.S. during the past decade has been the result of preparations for a Greek-like moment of global financial history, with riotous crowds and mayhem on American soil 100 times more problematic than that of Greece’s.

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Jim Rogers: Dollar will be debased gold and silver to hit new highs

From India Info Line


Daily Bell: What about the wars America is prosecuting and its military stance generally? Affordable? Supportable?

Jim Rogers: Well it is certainly not affordable. America has got troops in over 100 countries and it is just making enemies and not helping America's standing in the world. As for supportable of course not! How can anybody justify America now getting involved in Libya? I mean if America is going to support opposition to everybody in the world we don't like, America is soon going to be totally bankrupt, even more bankrupt. Why are we supporting the guy in Yemen and not the guy in Libya? I can see absolutely no intellectual, philosophical, or even political justification for what we are doing.

Daily Bell: Can the US sustain the war in Afghanistan for another three years? Will it have success in Westernizing that country?

Jim Rogers: No, look at the size of Afghanistan; I don't think the guys in Washington have a clue how big it is. Sure, we can stay there for three years and spend huge amounts of money, human lives, and we are making our situation worse not better. So we can stay there, but it is only driving us further and further into problems.

Daily Bell: Is Pakistan being destabilized as a result?

Jim Rogers: It's been destabilized. We are making more and more enemies in Pakistan every day and this is giving more psychological support to the enemies. They have someone else to rail against, more reasons to rail against the US. Pakistan seems to be more and more unstable. They have nuclear weapons; they have a lot of people who don't like the US, and they have a lot of people who don't like India.

Pakistan is one of the ten largest countries in the world population wise, and it's in a very strategic area, I hope it's not going to happen; I hope they're not going to destabilize further, but this is how big wars start. People aren't worried, and then all of a sudden, everybody's in over their head.

Daily Bell: Some say the US is trying to surround China. Is there more military tension between the US and China these days? Is that a bad thing?

Jim Rogers: I don't know there's more military tension between China and the US these days. The US is in Pakistan, but the Pakistanis have been allies of the Chinese for a long time. If Pakistan is becoming more destabilized, then they are not going to be an ally of the US against China I assure you. No one in Pakistan is going to say, let's support the US against China.

Everybody knows the US is becoming weaker and weaker geo-politically and militarily. If Venezuela and Colombia went to war tomorrow, there's nothing the US could do. We're over-extended in every way. I think our real position is even weaker than it appears. We may be talking a good game, but China is developing on it's own, and since I don't see that they are doing anything that threatens the US militarily, I am perplexed with this question.

Politicians may be railing more and more about China, but that's a verbal encirclement of China, not a military one. China is the richest country in the world now and we are the largest debtors in the world. That accounts for verbal attacks. Pressuring China militarily won't change the equation.

Daily Bell: Where is gold headed? Silver?

Jim Rogers: Everything I have told the world about gold and silver is going to continue to happen. Eventually gold will be a couple of thousand dollars an ounce, and probably much higher, as currencies become more debased, who knows how high. Silver will definitely reach new highs. As I have said, the US dollar is in serious trouble, and will be debased a great deal in the future, and eventually will be problematical itself. So gold and silver will be measured by the US dollar but I hope there will still be some sound currencies no matter what happens.

Jim Rogers: “We’re at a moment of truth for the dollar."

From Beacon Equity


“We’re at a moment of truth for the dollar,” Rogers continued. “If the dollar breaks and keeps going down now . . . there’s a lot of good news for the dollar: the Middle East is erupting–supposed good news for the dollar. All of these people are supposed to be fleeing to the U.S. dollar as a currency for safety. But it’s not happening. When you start seeing good news for something and it goes down, it’s usually a good sign that you better get out fast.”

The dollar’s next move is critical, he said, as a break down to near the all-time lows for the currency at approximately 71 on the USDX achieved just prior to the Bear Stearns meltdown of March 2008 will turn him into a seller of the dollar.

“If it [dollar] keeps going down, I’m going to have to dump the rest of my dollars, and then it’s all over for the dollar.”

However, if the Greenback stops sliding from its present 75.60 level on the USDX, Rogers will consider buying dollars again for what he sees could be another significant rally.

“I am thinking about buying it [dollar], because if it doesn’t keep going down, then it’s going to have a big rally,” he offered. “If it holds here, it probably could go up 10% or 12%–no, maybe 20%.”

But on the downside, Rogers put the dollar on a short leash, “If it goes down 3% or 4% from here, I would have to sell and get out and hope I’m still solvent. Then it’s going to, you know, multi-decade new lows.”

“Somewhere along the line we’re going to have a tipping point for the dollar, then, it’s all over,” he concluded. “I thought it would happen in a few years; maybe it’s going to happen in a few weeks.”

US Must Stop Printing Money, Copy Europe: Rogers

From CNBC.


"I'd rather have the Europeans running the U.S. central bank than the people running the U.S. central bank, least they know how to try to build for the future," Rogers told CNBC Monday.

“In America, Bernanke just says we'll print more money, we'll spend more money, even though the United States is now the largest debtor nation in the history of the world."

Rogers reiterated that economies in trouble should be allowed to go under, like bad companies.

"The things that have worked in the past... will be you go bankrupt then you re-organize and you start over. You have a painful period for awhile, and then you start over. This has been done in the past 3 or 4 thousand years, and that's the way you do it," said Rogers.

"Trying to push the problem out to the future, and printing money, we just had another example here in the U.S., it didn't work and it's not going to work."

Rogers said that with central banks "flooding the world with money", the only place to invest right now is in real assets, whether it's in "silver, or rice or natural gas".

"Paper money is not going to do it for you," he added.

No Bubble in Gold, Currencies are ‘Difficult'

He disagrees that that there's a bubble brewing in the gold market right now, although he doesn't rule that out in the future.

"I expect there to be hysteria in the precious metals markets in 5 to 10 years. Right now, very few people own gold, and I can hardly call something a bubble when very few people own it," he said.

Rogers also revealed that he is bullish on the agricultural commodity space.

"There are 3 billion people in Asia, and most of them had not had a very good standard of living in the past 100 or 200 years. That's changing and changing very rapidly. They're going to eat more, they're going to wear more clothes…so agriculture is going to do very well."

He pointed out that cocoa stands to do very well.

On currencies, he said it's a difficult asset class to invest in right now, as he expects "a lot more currency turmoil over the next 2- 3 years because of the huge imbalances that exist in the world."

"I would prefer the euro, perhaps with the yen second. Because there are many technical reasons that I'm optimistic about the yen," he concluded.

Jim Rogers: "America is out of control...My Little Girls Have European Bank Accounts"

Jim Rogers: "UK Pound is on the Brink of Collapse"

Riding in the wake of the news of Buffet business partner Charlie Munger claiming that "it's basically over" for the United States economy, we now have billionaire Jim Rogers foreseeing a possible collapse of the UK pound in the near future. It looks to be an interesting year.


Update: He now claims he didn't quite say what was reported.

Jim Rogers: 'I Would Abolish the Federal Reserve and Resign.'

That was his answer when asked what he would do if he was in Mr. Bernanke's seat tomorrow morning.