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Jim Rogers has been fascinated by China since he drove his motorcycle across the country in the 1980s. The investing legend joins Real Vision to give his view of the rising Asian superpower and, more broadly, on rising Asia in general. Rogers provides his views on the Hong Kong crisis and the simmering trade war. He also weighs in on whether the era of US dollar primacy has passed — especially now that the United States has become, in Rogers’ view, “the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.” Filmed on September 10, 2019 in Singapore.

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You know the rest of the story, you know what happened there, but Mr. Trump is smarter than
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history so we don’t have to worry.
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Mr. Trump knows he can handle history and none of us should worry, because he’s smarter
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than history.
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Even though people say trade wars are bad, and often lead to shooting wars, don’t worry,
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I’m smarter than history.
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MATT MILSOM: He does seem to be able to just move to the next person once he’s had– go
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at somebody then it slackened off, just goes to next target is going to be Europe, once
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he’s done with China, even though nothing’s actually resolved.
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JIM ROGERS: The problem, Matt, is that when things get bad, so far the American economy
has held up well because of a lot of money printing, out of government spending, cut
taxes, everything possible to hold up the American economy has held it up.
When things get bad in America as they will, Mr. Trump is not going to say, “It’s my fault.
I got it wrong.”
Donald Trump is going to say those evil Germans, those Koreans, those Canadians, and he’s going
to come back hard with more and more whatever you want to call it.
The situation, we’re going to have the worst bear market in my lifetime.
I can tell I’m older than you, so it’s going to be the worst in your lifetime, too.
What I suggest you do is watch Real Vision, and you’ll get educated, and you will see
how bad things are.
Then you’ll get there.
Most people will turn on the internet or turn on the TV, say, “Wow, look at this.
Things are great.”
Mr. Trump tells you every day, if you watch American TV, he will explain you things are
really, really very good.
You don’t worry.
Maybe you need somebody crying wolf, maybe you need somebody saying, “Wait a minute,
guys, wait a minute.
Look at this.”
Maybe Real Vision is the last vision for all of us.
MATT MILSOM: You think he gets back in?
JIM ROGERS: Get back into what?
MATT MILSOM: Trump 2020?
JIM ROGERS: I got to respect you, what I think it’s– I know it’s very hard to dislodge a
sitting president in America for many, many reasons.
I would suspect that’s the same to this time.
Now, we got rid of Coolidge, and Hoover.
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We got rid of Hoover because the market collapsed but we don’t have much time for that because
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the election is only, what, 13-14 months away now.
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If the market really collapses in the next 13 or 14 months, then I would change my view,
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but there are enough things he can do, which is why it’s hard to get rid of sitting presidents.
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They’ll prop things up long enough to get through the election.
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I would, if I were betting and I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet that Trump
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will be reelected.
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MATT MILSOM: A lot of speculation that he might actually start to swerve the Fed and
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play the currency markets himself for the Treasury.
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JIM ROGERS: What, Trump will start buying what?
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US dollars or renminbi?
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What’s he going to buy?
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MATT MILSOM: He’s going to be selling dollars.
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JIM ROGERS: He could do that.
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Yes, and he might.
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He cannot force the Fed to do it.
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No, but he could, he could browbeat him.
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He can certainly force the Treasury to do that, to sell US dollars.
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First of all, I’m not sure the market would put up with it, it would for a while, obviously,
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it would for a while, but eventually, the market, as I said to you before, I mentioned
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the market’s going to say to these guys, “We’re not going to play this game anymore.
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This is an absurd, ludicrous game.
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It’s never happened before.
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We know it’s not going to work.
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We’re not going to play anymore.”
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Okay, maybe we’ll try.
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I don’t think it’s enough.
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Maybe it’s enough to save the election, I said to you before.
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It’s so difficult to dislodge a sitting president.
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There are lots of things he can do.
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If he needs votes in that state, he spends a lot of money in that state.
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His opponent cannot do that, the opponent can say look, what a terrible person he is.
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He’s spending money in your state.
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The people say, thank you, thank you spend more money in my state.
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We’ll vote for you.
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MATT MILSOM: He can almost play the Fed to his own fiddle, I guess at the same time.
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He can blame them if it goes– JIM ROGERS: He certainly can blame them, whether he can
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persuade them.
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He seems to be persuading them now is another question, but sure.
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That’s what I mean, if he goes in there and threatens them, or does x or does y, sure
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he can.
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That’s the problem when you’re the president, or the advantage when you’re the president.
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MATT MILSOM: I see Powell’s having a bit more backup by myself.
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I just think he’s his own guy.
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Really, he’s not a PhD Economics.
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He’s a– JIM ROGERS: That’s the best news.
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I believe PhDs, which is bad news.
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We’ll see.
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MATT MILSOM: I could see that arising a bigger conflict there, you think between Powell and–
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JIM ROGERS: No, I can see a huge conflict and that’s going to– the Federal Reserve,
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its debt went up by five, six times in 10 years.
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If I had said to you 20 years ago, a major central bank in the world is going to increase
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the debt on its balance sheet by 500% in 10 years, you’re going to say, “Get out of here.
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We’re not going to talk to you anymore.
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You’re not even smart enough to talk on TV.
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What are you talking about?”
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It’s inconceivable that it could have happened, but it’s happened.
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Sure, they have a problem, too.
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How far can they go?
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How far can any of us go?
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MATT MILSOM: It surprised me the volatility’s so cheapened right now.
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JIM ROGERS: The debt worldwide is the highest in world history.
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Interest rates are the lowest in world history.
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In 2008, we had a big debt problem.
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China, which had a lot of money saves for a rainy day, started spending the money and
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helped save the world, but even China now has debt.
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China can’t save the world anymore.
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The central bank came riding in with its printing presses, helped save the world.
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That’s getting late for all the printing presses in the world.
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It’s getting late in the day.
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MATT MILSOM: Is the rate of change as well as a debt in China that’s extraordinary just–
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JIM ROGERS: Oh, no, I know.
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To repeat, ports in China has said we’ll let them go bankrupt.
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I don’t think they will.
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Not that they’re lying, I think they believe that they’re going to let people go bankrupt
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but they haven’t had this problem in decades.
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They’re bureaucrats and they’re academics, haven’t felt the pressure of people calling
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up saying, “You must save Chinese civilization.
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This is Chinese history, our image our integrity.”
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No, they haven’t had that gigantic pressure from everybody in the country, they’re saying,
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“Save Chinese civilization.”
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What they really mean it save me.
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They haven’t had that yet.
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MATT MILSOM: Xi as a link leader seems to be much more of a Maoist than ever before,
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to me.
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JIM ROGERS: I’m not sure Maoist, but they’re certainly closing off in that sense.
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Yes.
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Deng Xiaoping started opening up and Deng Xiaoping said you open the windows, you’re
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going to get some flies, but you’re going to get fresh air and sunshine, and the fresh
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air and the sunshine are worth the flies.
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He seems to be saying we don’t want flies and the last 40 years, much of the progress
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has been 18-year-olds in a garage doing crazy things on the computer.
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Alibaba, Microsoft, the names go on, and on and on.
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These were just kids doing wild, crazy things on the internet, which was open and free to
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nearly everybody.
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You start closing these things off, and it’s going to slow progress, it’s going to slow
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things now, whether we like it, history is always showing that.
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You close off and you go into decline.
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It does seem to be happening not just in China, even in the US, but it does seem to be happening
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more and more, so maybe we’re in for the dark ages again.
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MATT MILSOM: I don’t know.
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It’s almost that you think about where you’re going to head or what currency you need to
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get into, where you’re going to be safe.
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Do you know what I mean?
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You start thinking about– JIM ROGERS: That’s not what I mean.
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I don’t have a job.
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I can’t figure out a way to save myself.
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MATT MILSOM: You made the move to Asia on the back of those thoughts, I guess that that’s
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going to be a Pacific centuries.
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JIM ROGERS: Well, I moved here you because I know that the 20th century is Asia, 21st
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century is Asia.
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I wanted my children to know Asia and to speak Mandarin.
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That’s the best preparation I can give them for the 21st century.
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That’s why I’m here.
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Of course, Asia is continuing to develop and boom and head of the rest of the world.
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There is some debt in Asia, but nothing like in the West.
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Most of the Western countries are really broke, especially when you pull into pension plans.
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Europe’s got gigantic pension, US too, gigantic pension obligations, which they’ll never able
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to [indiscernible].
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MATT MILSOM: Yeah.
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Demographically, where does that end up?
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JIM ROGERS: It’s already starting to ruin a lot of people.
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Asia has probably– will have problems but nothing like some that are rising in the West.
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I can’t bear for my kids.
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MATT MILSOM: The world of agricultural investment view is still a– JIM ROGERS: Yeah, agriculture
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has been a disaster for 35 years or so.
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The average age of farmers in America is 58.
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More people in America study public relations and study agriculture.
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The highest rate of suicide in the UK is agriculture.
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Of Japan, the average age of farmers is 68.
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Nobody becomes a farmer, you go to Japan now, there’re huge stretches of land, they’re just
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empty.
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They can’t find anybody to farm them.
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Farmers have died, the kids have gone to Osaka.
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There’s nobody to farm that land.
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If you want to be a former, go to Japan.
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You can get a lot of land cheap.
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That’s true.
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Australia, Canada, all of these countries have very, very aged old farmers, men and
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women.
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It’s millions of Indian farmers have committed suicide, as I’m sure you know.
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No, no, agriculture is a disaster.
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The Chinese have a word, you know the Chinese word weiji?
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It means disaster and opportunity are the same and they are.
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If you can survive the disaster, you’re going to make a lot of money with the opportunity.
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MATT MILSOM: I guess the commodity complex per se, are softer on their knees-ish for
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the last five years.
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They’re actually doing okay in the States.
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JIM ROGERS: Yeah, yeah.
37:17
Things like sugar, sugar is down over 80% in the last 40 years, what do you notice down
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80% in the last 40 years?
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My IQ.
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Other than that, there’s not much that has declined, that deteriorated like some of the
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agricultural products.
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MATT MILSOM: Difficult bet to make given the climate change, too?
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JIM ROGERS: Well, yeah, climate change is taking place, is taking place for thousands
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of years.
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Go back and look at trees, and soil layers and iceberg layer, we see that climate change
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has always been taking place one way or the other, and it seems to be happening again.
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Of course, that’s going to be great for some farmers, disastrous for other farmers.
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The key is to be the farmer that it’s great for, not to be a farmer that gets wiped out
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because of climate change.
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The Sahara Desert, which is the size of the continent with 48 states, used to be a huge
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agricultural area.
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Pigs, cows, wheat, corn, everything, huge, huge.
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We had climate change.
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We had ecological change, you know the rest of that story.
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If you were a farmer in Algeria 2000 years ago, you probably didn’t do very well.
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You should have moved to Iowa 2000 years ago.
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MATT MILSOM: Would it be too much to ask your asset allocation now?
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JIM ROGERS: You can ask, I don’t know.
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I don’t sit around.
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I don’t have a committee met.
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I don’t have anybody to answer to.
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I know I can still pay my bills.
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I do own some gold and silver.
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I do own a lot of US dollars, I’ve told you about.
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I’m short some junk bonds, short the ETF, Russia, China.
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I don’t own a lot of shares anywhere right now.
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The Japanese market, I sold out of.
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I used to own a lot of Japanese shares, sold out completely.
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MATT MILSOM: Why was that?
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JIM ROGERS: I bought them so well.
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It’s not often I get it right so I’m going to brag for a minute.
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The Japanese market was very, very cheap and I started by and then the tsunami.
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Remember the tsunami?
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Everything collapsed, I bought a little, gone up a lot, it tripled since then.
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I could see wasabi and the toll got stronger and stronger and stronger.
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They’d already printed lots of money.
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The central bank said we’ll print as much as we have to.
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That’s what they said.
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They said it out loud.
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Not some crazy guy saying it.
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I said what else can happen?
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What else can go right?
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They’ve spent a lot of money on infrastructure.
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They bought a lot of securities, so I sold out.
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So far, I’m right, but don’t worry, I make plenty of mistakes.
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MATT MILSOM: I guess, it changed your beast, don’t even trade anymore, eh, because there’s
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no float?
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JIM ROGERS: Nothing to trade, why would you buy them?
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Who’s going to buy them, except a central bank?
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MATT MILSOM: They have to keep going?
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JIM ROGERS: I told you I have.
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I’m going to Japan tomorrow, there’s been a best seller saying, “A Warning to Japan.”
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If they keep going– MATT MILSOM: That’s a book?
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JIM ROGERS: Yeah.
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MATT MILSOM: Sorry, I didn’t know that.
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JIM ROGERS: No, it’s the number one bestseller.
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MATT MILSOM: Congratulations.
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JIM ROGERS: I’m shocked.
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I’ve made two number one bestsellers.
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MATT MILSOM: What was the other one?
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JIM ROGERS: I forget that, it was some Japanese.
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It was something like, “A Warning to Japan.”
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MATT MILSOM: But this is a specific for that market, or they were– JIM ROGERS: Two books
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in Japanese.
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They were translated, my English was translated into Japanese.
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Two books in 2019 have been number one bestsellers by me.
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This is a shock.
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How could this happen?
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I’m more surprised than anybody.
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They called me up, that smarty say you got to come to Tokyo.
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I said why?
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He said your books have won bestseller.
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I forgot about the book.
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The book resulted from some reporters coming here and interviewing me like you.
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We’re out for several hours.
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I said we’re going to publish this.
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Okay, go ahead.
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I don’t care.
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Forgot about it.
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MATT MILSOM: You got a book tour now?
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JIM ROGERS: Yeah, I’m leaving tomorrow.
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I’m going tomorrow for a book tour in various cities of Japan, promoting, “A Warning to
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Japan.”
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MATT MILSOM: What was the essence of that?
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Was that demographics or that– JIM ROGERS: If you’re 10 years old, you better get out.
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If you’re 10 years old, you better get an AK47 and learn how to use it.
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These are not– it’s simple.
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I say to them, they will say, of course, he’s a foreigner.
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Don’t worry.
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The Japanese don’t like foreigners, and so they will just say, he’s a– whenever they
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say they don’t like somebody, they say he’s a foreigner so you don’t have to listen to
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him.
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I say to them, yeah, okay, I’m a foreigner, but this is arithmetic.
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It’s addition, the debt goes up every day.
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That’s simple addition and it’s subtraction, the population goes down every day.
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Central bank has been printing huge amounts of money.
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This is just simple addition and subtract.
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Forget that I’m foreigner and for some reason, both of them became number one bestsellers.
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I guess it’s because nobody in Japan ever says things like this.
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I don’t know why I became, but listen, I’m shocked.
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MATT MILSOM: Do you have any views on Softbank?
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JIM ROGERS: So far, they’ve made a lot of money but I don’t know enough to say much
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more than that.
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I read that problems are developing, but I have no knowledge, enough knowledge to say
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anything other than that.
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MATT MILSOM: I guess WeWork is the speculation for those issues there, for the float.
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JIM ROGERS: WeWork is not their only asset at Softbank.
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What I read about WeWork, WeWork may be one of those things.
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You remember in 1999?
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I think it was called pets.com or something.
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It was one of those things that was when people talk about the end of the bull market or the
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signal, or the sign that it was over, that may be WeWork now.
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They were printed out in 1999.
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That’s the one that people often bring up, I was not sure.
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I wish I had but they bring that one up.
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Now, if you look at the current bull market, maybe someday in 10 years, we’re all going
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to look back and say, “They rang that bell.
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That bell was called WeWork.
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That was the sign that we were coming to the end.”
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It’s always something that people look back on that it may be WeWork.
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MATT MILSOM: The amount of questioning that browned the IPO pricing makes you think that
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the greater fool game may have just come to a grinding halt.
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JIM ROGERS: I’ve never read the Prospectus but I’ve read a lot in the papers about the
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story, the company, that IPO, the CEO, etc.
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Just I’m sure you have too.
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I read it and I say this is 1929, this is 1999.
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This has all happened before.
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MATT MILSOM: They have nines in them.
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JIM ROGERS: Yeah.
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See, 1899– well, anyway, you read, I read this stuff and I’d say oh, yeah, this has
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happened before.
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I remember reading about things like this in previous bull markets, previous bubbles.
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MATT MILSOM: What brings you to an investment then?
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Is there a sector or there is an idea or somebody pitches to you?
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JIM ROGERS: No, it’s usually– the nature of who I am, I’m always looking or I’m always
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listening.
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If I stumble on something, I’m not out looking like I used to, but if I stumbled on something,
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I often do homework and then I’m in this Russian stock that I’m buying, I stumbled on it.
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The more homework I do, the more I buy.
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I continue but it’s usually I will stumble on something.
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MATT MILSOM: Public, is it a public stock?
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JIM ROGERS: Yeah, it’s a public company.
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MATT MILSOM: Sector?
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Which sector would have been?
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JIM ROGERS: You’re a very good reporter, but I’m not going to tell you because if I told
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you, you would know exactly what I’m buying.
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MATT MILSOM: Okay.
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I’m sure it wouldn’t be that easy to spot.
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JIM ROGERS: There are plenty of disasters in Russia.
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Everybody hates Russia now, so Russia’s on my list.
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Anyway, I will probably buy Russian government bonds and rubles again soon.
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I own Russian government bonds in rubles.
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The yield is very, very high.
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The ruble is hated.
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The Russians are hated, et cetera.
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MATT MILSOM: Any other markets that are particularly hated that you fancy?
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JIM ROGERS: Well, I told you Venezuela but you and I cannot do it.
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I cannot do anything in Venezuela.
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Zimbabwe, I bought a few shares of Zimbabwe, some of the North Korea but that’s illegal,
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too.
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I’m looking, but part of the problem is there are few markets that are hated so much.
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I mean I am buying Russia, it’s still hated.
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Most markets, even Germany.
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Look at Germany hit peak, what, two years ago.
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Been going out since but it’s not cheap.
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It’s not hated.
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Germany still a very large and [indiscernible] economy.
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No, I don’t see many now that jumps off the page to me and says, oh my God, you got to
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buy this disaster.
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I would love to find something like that, but I’m too lazy.
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MATT MILSOM: I’m thinking there’s probably a good places to stop.
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JIM ROGERS: I’m too lazy.
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Very good places to stop buying, I commend laziness to all of you.
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Watch Real Vision and get lazier and lazier, and lazier.
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MATT MILSOM: Jim, thanks for having us and thanks very much for coming on.
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JIM ROGERS: My delight, my pleasure.