I was able to reconnect with Jim Rogers this morning out of Spain, legendary co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros, author of Hot Commodities, and chairman of the private Beeland Holdings.
It was an especially powerful interview, as Jim spoke towards the relentless downward pressure on gold, the upward explosion in interest rates, central bank money printing, and how to protect yourself ahead of the disastrous times he sees coming.
When asked if we’re seeing forced liquidation leading the smash down in gold this morning, Jim said, “We certainly are. There are a lot of leveraged players who are now being forced to sell. Usually when you have this kind of forced liquidation, you’re getting closer to a bottom, maybe not the final bottom, but certainly close to a bottom. I even bought a little bit [today].”
With regard to the intense bearish news stories being published on gold, Jim suggested investors shouldn’t ”Pay [much] attention to other people. I pay attention to what’s going on…Obviously with gold collapsing I know about that—but I don’t listen to other people.”
Over the last few years Jim has spoken extensively on shorting government bonds, and more recently, the 10-year U.S. treasury yield has rocketed higher (with a corresponding collapse in value). When asked if now is a good time to be covering those short bond positions, he explained that, “I’m grappling with that question as we speak…I’m not short government bonds, [but rather] I’m short junk bonds on the theory that they will suffer the most when the bond market finally breaks. The junk bonds will go first, [along with] emerging market bonds. So I’m trying to figure out what to do, but I am not covering my shorts [just yet].”
Commenting on the Fed’s historical ability to control the bond market, Jim said, “We’re getting to that point where either one of two things are going to happen; either central banks are going to stop all this [money printing], or the market is going to force them to stop it. It looks like we may be having a juncture of both…where the Fed is getting worried…and at the same time, the market is jumping in and saying, ‘Yes, it’s insane what you’re doing, and this has to end.’ So we may have a healthy convergence of both. And if it’s not ending now, it’s going to end sometime in the next year, because this cannot go on—it’s too insane.”
When asked about the explosive riots occurring in Brazil, Jim warned to prepare for much more, in that, “This is the first time in history where you’ve had all the central banks in the world printing money at the same time. Europe, Japan, America, and the UK, all, are frantically trying to debase their currencies…I’m afraid that in the end, we’re all going to suffer perhaps, worse then we ever have, with inflation, currency turmoil, and higher interest rates. As I say, this has never happened before, it’s never been a good policy in the long run, so I’m afraid we’re all going to suffer for the rest of this decade from this crazy, crazy money printing.”
As a final comment to investors looking to protect themselves from these impending disasters, Jim said, “The way to protect yourself is to own real assets…because that’s the only thing which will protect you as currencies debase.”
“If you have money in the financial system and the financial system collapses,” he added, “even though you may have done nothing wrong—you may suffer because somebody else did something wrong. So you need to be very careful about where your assets are in the financial system, or have strict control over them yourself, so that you’re not going to lose them.
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