Date: 4/28/09

As co-founder (with George Soros) of the hugely successful Quantum Fund, investment guru Jim Rogers had made enough money by 1980 to retire at age 37. Since then, he has spent his time jaunting around the world, writing books on his travels and investment advice with names like Adventure Capitalism and Investment Biker. In 2007 he moved to Singapore to get a front-row seat at Asia’s economic boom and also saw the launch of tradeable securities tied to a commodities index he created. His newest book, A Gift to My Children, is a compendium of advice — financial and otherwise — to his two young daughters. Rogers spoke to TIME about the book, why the Obama Administration can’t fix the economy and why he still thinks commodities are the best investment for the future.

You have a lot of advice in your new book for your daughters, on money, education, travel, dating. Do you have any advice for boys?

Well, my first advice to my daughters was to be careful of boys, and to be leery of boys, having been a boy myself. For the most part my advice for the boys is the same — be careful of girls. Be careful of people of the other sex. Be careful of wild promises. Just like on Wall Street.

Let’s talk about Wall Street. Is there anything the government should be doing to fix the economic crisis?

No, the government can’t fix the crisis. Everything the government’s tried for the past two years has been wrong. That’s why the crisis continues. The idea that you can solve a problem of too much debt and too much consumption with more debt and more consumption is ludicrous on its face. What they should have done is just let everybody go bankrupt, let the bankruptcy courts reorganize everything. The Japanese tried this approach of propping up zombie banks and zombie companies; it did not work. And it’s not going to work in America either.

Do you think there’s anything to the argument that it’s just politically impossible to let all these companies go down? That it’d throw so many people out of work that it’d cause social turmoil?

They’ll be out of work anyway, you know? In a way I don’t understand the logic. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not saving the day. We have the highest unemployment we’ve had in the U.S. in a few decades and it’s getting worse.

You mention a few times the famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” What period are we rhyming with now? Is this an echo of the Great Depression or is there something else that would be more apt?

The Great Depression started out with a stock market bubble that burst in 1929, as the world was going into a nice recession. Then the government started making mistakes. They passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, they raised taxes, they became very protectionist, and the next thing you know we had the Great Depression. In Europe they made solvent banks take over insolvent banks with the result that both [kinds of] banks failed. This has all been done before. History is — I don’t like saying it, but it’s repeating itself. Governments are making the same old mistakes.

The market is up from its lows and the most recent unemployment numbers are slightly better; what do you say to people who say, ‘Well, we’re nearing bottom on this’?

I think we’ve seen a bottom. I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom. If America’s determining its policy on whether the stock market is up for a month, America’s in worse shape than I’d realized. We could have a rally for who knows, six months, a year, we could have a rally for a while after having had the kind of collapse we did. In the ’30s the stock market rallied frequently. But in the end it was still the Great Depression.

You normally say that you believe commodities are a better bet, but do you think now with asset prices pushed so far down that it’s a good time to start looking for undervalued stocks?

Sure. Some companies are going to be screaming “buy” these days. In the 1930s there were people who made fortunes. If you’re willing and able to do the homework I’m sure you’ll find some great opportunities. But the only area of the world economy I know of where the fundamentals are improving are commodities. Many farmers cannot get loans for fertilizer now. The inventories of food are the lowest they’ve been in decades. Nobody can get a loan to open a mine, so it’s going to be at least 15 years before you’re going to see any new mines opening up. The world’s known oil reserves are in decline. All of what’s going on in the world is improving the supply fundamentals for commodities. And I don’t see that that’s true anywhere else. If the world economy is going to improve, commodities are going to be the best place to be; if the world economy doesn’t improve, commodities are going to be the best place to be.

China has $2 trillion in U.S. debt. Do you think at some point these countries are just gong to say, “We’re done? We’re not going to keep underwriting your debt?” If so, what happens then?

It’s not just China. It’s our own people who are starting to say, “Why would I buy something that’s being printed as fast as you possibly can print it, why would I buy something where debts are getting higher and higher by the hour, and interest rates are at historic lows?” Let’s not pick on the Chinese here.

The reason I focused on China is you’ve said that the 21st century is going to be the Chinese century; you’re teaching your daughters Mandarin.

Yes, well, we can pick on China, but remember, the largest creditor nations in the world are in Asia now — it’s China, it’s Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore — all the money is here. Even if the Chinese continue to buy, somebody’s going to stop buying that stuff. If I was the Chinese I wouldn’t buy it. I’m waiting to sell it short at the right time.

Do you think this crisis is just going to solidify the advantages of China and these other Asian and Southeast Asian economies?

Well, again, throughout history, the center of the world has shifted to where the capital is, where the assets are. You don’t see any period in history where things are shifting to the debtors, and America’s the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. Unless something’s different this time, unless the world’s changed very very dramatically, the center of the influence, the center of power, the center of the earth, the center of the globe, is going to be shifting towards Asia, because that’s where all the money is. Have you ever heard of anybody saying, “Let’s go to where all of the debtors are”? It just doesn’t happen that way.

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Below is the complete interview with Barron’s John Kimelmen. The Q&A is dated April 20,2009.

“I am skeptical about the rally, and the world economy for the next year or two or three,” he says. “But if stocks go down, I can make money with commodities.”

WELL, BANK EXECUTIVES and investors can breathe a sigh of relief: Jim Rogers has covered the short positions on financial stocks he put in place ahead of last year’s massive meltdown.

But just because this influential investor isn’t betting that big banks will fall much further doesn’t mean he’s confident they will stage a lasting rally either. He feels similarly about U.S. stocks in general.

“I am skeptical about the rally, and the world economy for the next year or two or three,” he says. “But if stocks go down, I can make money with commodities.”

Rogers, now 66, gained fame as George Soros’ hedge-fund partner in the 1970s and 1980s. After retiring from professional money manager in his late 30s, the Alabama native tooled around Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America visiting emerging markets, one by one. His resulting book, Investment Biker, helped to popularize emerging market investing at the outset of a bull market for the sector.

He also helped to popularize commodity investing, which for decades was the province of niche investors. In the 1990s, he developed commodity indexes based on futures contracts that in recent years have been turned into exchange-traded funds available to all investors. His 2004 book, Hot Commodities, came ahead of a surge prices for energy, metals, and agriculture.

Since its inception in July 1998, the Rogers International Commodities Index has gained 158%, while the S&P 500 has fallen 23%. And that gain for the commodities index comes despite the fact that it’s lost more than half of its value since last July. At these levels, Rogers has been a buyer.

These days, Rogers, now 66, is sticking close to home in Singapore with his wife, Paige Parker, and two small daughters. He’s about to release his latest book, A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing (Random House), in which he encourages other people’s children to travel widely and learn Mandarin so they can reap the rewards of China’s economic boom.

Recently, Rogers talked to Barrons.com by phone from his Singapore home.

Q: When you last did a lengthy interview with Barron’s magazine a year ago (see “Light Years Ahead of the Crowd,” April 14, 2008) you were lightening up on emerging markets investments. Well, you called that one right. But now that many of those markets have fallen from their highs of recent years, are you more optimistic?

A: No. I’ve sold all emerging markets stock except the ones in China. I bought more Chinese shares in October and November during the panic, but I have not bought China or any other stock markets including the U.S. since then. I’m not buying anything in China right now because the Chinese market ran up maybe 50% since last November. It’s been the strongest market in the world in the past six months and I don’t like jumping into something that has been that run up. Still, I’m not thinking of selling these stocks either. I think if it goes down I’ll buy more. I think you will find that it’s the single strongest market in the world since last fall.

Q: In your latest book, you talk of China as the great investment opportunity of the 21st century, just as the U.S. was in the 20th century. What percentage of a typical American investor’s portfolio should be in China?

A: If they can’t even find China on a map, I don’t think they should have anything in China. They should know something about China before they invest there. If they have the same convictions that I do then they should probably have a lot. If you asked me that question in 1909 about the U.S. stock market, I would have said to put 100% of your money in the U.S.

Q: Might it make sense to have a greater weighting in a diversified mix of Chinese stocks than in U.S. stocks?

A: Well yes. Just as in 1909, if you were German or Chinese, you should have had the largest percentage of your money in the United States. The idea of investing is to make money, not to have some sort of political agenda.

Q: That being said, you currently think Chinese stocks are bid-up now, so you’re not buying at these levels. So what have you been buying lately?

A: I have been buying commodities through the Rogers commodity indexes I developed because my lawyer won’t let me buy individual commodities. I recently bought the all four Rogers indexes – the Elements Rogers International Commodities Index (ticker:RJI) as well as the three specialty indexes, the International Metals (RJZ), the International Energy (RJN), and the International Agriculture (RJA.) That’s how I invest in commodities and that’s what I bought last week. I have been buying these shares since last fall and up to last week.

Q: Though you got out of emerging markets last year before they fell hard, you seemed be caught by surprise by the fall-off in commodity prices last year. Is that right?

A: Yes, I was surprised. I did not expect commodities to go down that much and in retrospect it was a period of forced liquidation for many (professional) investors. You know AIG went bankrupt, which was huge in commodities. Lehman Brothers was big in commodities.

But at least I was shorting the investment banks at the time and other financials such as Citigroup and Fannie Mae. So I was hedged by being long commodities and short the other things such as financials and as you know most of them were down from 80% to 100%, so I more than made up on my shorts than I lost on my longs. So thank God for (the stock decline in) Citigroup and thank God (for the decline) in Fannie Mae.

Q: Now despite the recent stock-market rally that started in March, many U.S. stocks are trading well off their 2007 highs. How come you see no value to this market?

A: I am not buying U.S. companies mainly because I think we may have seen a bottom but I don’t think we have seen the bottom. I am skeptical about the rally, the world economy for the next year or two or three. But if stocks go down, I can make money with commodities. In the 1970s, commodities went through the roof even though stocks were a disaster. In the 1930s, commodities rallied first and went up the most long before stocks pulled it together.

Q: Can you summarize the reasons for your bullishness about commodities?

A: It depends on the supply and demand. And we have had a dearth of supply. Nobody has invested in productive capacity for 25 or 30 years now. The inventories of food are the lowest they have been in 50 years and you have a shortage of farmers even right now because most farmers are old men because it has been such a horrible business for 30 years. And as for metals, nobody can get a loan to open a mine as you know. Who is going to give you money to open a zinc mine? It takes at least 10 years to open a mine so it’s going to be 15 or 20 years before we see new mines come on. Nobody has been opening mines for 30 years and they are not going to. And in the meantime reserves are declining. As for oil, the International Energy Agency came out recently with a study showing that oil reserves worldwide were declining at the rate of 6% or 7% a year.

That does not mean that if suddenly the U.S. goes bankrupt that everything won’t collapse in price. But I would rather be in commodities because it’s the only thing I know where the fundamentals are improving. They are not improving for Citibank or General Motors but the supply situation in commodities is such that when demand comes back, then commodities are going to be the best place to be in my view.

Q: What do you think of bonds?

A: I am anticipating shorting bonds — the U.S. long bond. It’s about the only real bubble around that I can see right now — other than the U.S. dollar. I am not shorting bonds at this moment because I’ve shorted plenty of bubbles in my day, and I have learned that you better wait because they go up higher than any rational person can anticipate. But my plan is to short the long bond in the U.S. sometime in the foreseeable future.

Q: I’ve read that you think the penchant of the last two presidential administrations for bailing out failing U.S. companies is a big mistake and will contribute to prolonging this recession. You argue that it’s best to let these companies all go bankrupt. How bad can the economy get?

A: Yes, politicians are making mistakes. In Japan, the problem has lasted for 19 years. I hope that it doesn’t last 19 years in the U.S. The approach that works is to let them (U.S. banks and automakers) collapse and clean out the system. The idea that phony accounting is the solution (through changes in mark-to-market rules) is ludicrous. And the idea that a debt problem and an excessive spending problem can be cured with more debt and more spending is ludicrous.

It’s laughable on its face, but politicians think they’ve got to do something. Unfortunately, they are doing the wrong things and they are going to make it worse.

Q: Thanks for your time.

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Jim Rogers, the legendary American investor, financial commentator and, along with George Soros, founder of the Quantum Fund, is the ultimate commodities bull. More than 10 years ago, he started the Rogers International Commodities Index, and in 2005 he wrote “Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World’s Best Market.” Below, he explains to NEWSWEEK’s Rana Foroohar why oil is still black gold.

Foroohar: Inflation-adjusted, oil is the same price that it was in 1976, and in 1870. So why are you still a bull?
Rogers: It doesn’t matter. It’s also true that just about any stock you can think about is at or below where it was in the 1970s right now. So what? There are still 15- to 20-year periods when commodities, stocks and any other asset class goes up a great deal. In 1987 stocks collapsed by 40 to 80 percent. But people who were smart enough to stay in them made 1,000 percent returns in the next decade. The point is to take advantage of those periods and make some money.

What’s the fundamental case for commodities right now?
Supply is declining. There’s been 35 years of low investment in production capacity. The last lead smelter in the U.S. was built in 1969! There’s been no major oilfield discovery in 40 years. Oil is in decline. According to the International Energy Agency, oil reserves are declining significantly. At this rate, in 20 years, there will be no oil left. The only people to make money in the next 20 years will make it in commodities. It’s the only asset class where the fundamentals are improving. I mean, look at Citigroup, look at GM. Those fundamentals are not improving.

Do you see commodities as an inflation hedge?
Absolutely. This is only time in history where you’ve got every central bank in the world printing money at the same time. Consumer prices are going to go way up. The public is already getting out of paper money, which is why you’re seeing gold go up.

Does the future growth of China factor into your bullishness?
China is tiny in comparison to the U.S. economy. Anyone who thinks that the commodities story is driven by China needs to do more homework. In the 1970s, everyone was in recession, and you still had declining supply [in oil] and higher prices. Asia wasn’t even in the game then. China was run by Mao. But now, of course, there are those 3 billion people in Asia who are in the game. It’s just another factor.

Are we going to see another food-price spike sometime soon?
Definitely. I think you should move back to Indiana and marry a farmer. There are times in history when the money lenders have been in charge, and we just came through one of those periods. But it wasn’t always that way. Wall Street was a backwater in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and it will be again. Farmers are going to be the ones driving Lamborghinis, and the traders are going to have to learn to drive tractors.

What about technological advances? Another green revolution could easily drive prices down …
Sure, there’s always something that will end a bull market. But if you think we’re anywhere near that point now, think again. Even if everyone in the world decided to put a windmill on their head, it’s going to take decades for that to really change things. In the meantime, you’ve got to put your money somewhere. And as we’re already seeing, even the value of cash can be wiped out.

I guess that’s one reason the Chinese are so worried …
Well, if I were running the Chinese central bank, I’d buy oil, wheat and zinc. Which is what folks there are already doing.

How about you? Are you upping your own commodities positions right now?
As a matter of fact, I am. I never sold anything to begin with. And I’m not planning to, either.

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