First Adopter

Jim Rogers was interviewed on Bloomberg. Sadly for us, most of the things he’s been predicting about government incompetence the past year has been coming true.

-This is a bear market rally that can last days, weeks, even months
-There are more bankruptcies to come
-Government is spending money on the wrong things. Most of these projects are “make work”
-He is worried about government debt market. In a few months, they have quintupled government debt
-Massive short squeeze on the U.S. dollar from forced liquidation. It’s an artificial rally
-He owns the yen and the dollar, not sure where to put the money. Maybe real assets
-The only asset class that has fundamentals improving are raw materials and commodities
-He owns some gold, but thinks there is more money to be made in agriculture and silver. IMF is trying to sell their gold, which me hurt it for a while
-Central bank is trying to keep interest rates down, but eventually it will backfire and rate will go through the roof
-If you write-off everything in sight, sure you can show a profit [talking about C, BAC, and JPM saying they are profitable in January and February 2009]
-He is short J.P. Morgan and covered his Citigroup. He thinks they have gigantic derivatives and off balance sheet exposure, also large credit card division which will be bad
-No position in insurance companies
-Best economic sector in the world next 10-20 years is agriculture and farming. Low inventories and tons of shortages