Famed investor Jim Rogers joined Bloomberg television for a couple of interview segments amidst Friday's worldwide market rout. In the first interview segment with Bloomberg's Betty Liu, Rogers offers his view of the current market panic, which he calls "an old fashioned selling climax", and goes down the list of his current market positions.
· Rogers says he is still buying assets that he feels have unimpaired fundamentals, and is still short long-term Treasuries, calling US Treasury bonds "the last bubble left" in America.
· When asked about various calls for bailouts and capital market suspensions, Jim responded by noting the idiocy of these measures. Rogers reminds Bloomberg that historically, these market interventions have never worked, and have only made things worse over time.
· Excesses built up in the previous boom/bubble period must be cleaned out with failures and private-market bankruptcies in order for the system to reorganize itself and move forward successfully.
Rogers re-empasized these points in a segment with Bloomberg's Mark Burton. He feels that calls for a bottom in the markets are probably too early, and that a true capitulation is likely somewhere ahead.
· Jim reminded Bloomberg that the policies implemented by central bankers and government officials are "hugely inflationary" and that markets are collapsing due to a lack of confidence in these measures.
· Sadly, the very people who have been wrong again and again (the "clowns" in Washington) are now in charge of "fixing" the very problems they denied all along.
· Jim reiterates his points on the inevitable disaster that these policies will help bring about, citing the case of Japan's "lost decade", a time when "zombie banks" and failing corporations were continually propped up by government intervention.
· Rogers also notes that we have likely been in a recession for some time, despite the media's persistent denial, and only now are people waking up to this reality.
· In turn, he feels that central banks will probably cut rates again, as that (and printing money) is all they know how to do.
That's the summary view; click the links to hear Jim's thoughts in full.
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