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J. Rogers: Address to Summit 2022, Session IXa
Written by Jim Rogers, senior advisor, UPF International; chairman of Beeland Interests Inc.
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here. Every time I come to one of these conferences, I'm always stunned at how successful the organization is. Every time they put together an amazing group from all over the world with lots of different viewpoints, and people come. I don't know anybody else who could do it, especially in the pursuit of peace. Some people talk about peace, but here they seem to be really doing more.
I didn't know whether I was supposed to speak about media or the economy, so I've prepared to speak about both. I first want to say to The Washington Times: It is absolutely astonishing that in 1982 anybody could be dumb enough to start a newspaper in Washington, D.C., to compete with The Washington Post! [Laughter from the audience.] The Washington Post was unbelievably powerful. They had just been making movies about The Washington Post, winning all sorts of prizes. They brought down a U.S. president.
And these idiots did it! They did it when everybody else was too smart to try to do something like that. So please—don't ever let somebody tell you it cannot be done. Mr. McDevitt is proof that it can be done. The Washington Times has been around for 40 years. Most people know it now, and even The Washington Post knows about The Washington Times now. So do not let people scare you off, even if it's the media.
Speaking of the media: I do want to tell you that I have two daughters, and I have tried to teach my daughters not to listen to one source of media, because in my lifetime I have realized that every media tells you a story and they're convinced it’s the right story, but they cannot all be the right story. So I try to teach my daughters to read or listen to or watch several sources every day, because every one of them will say they are right—from different countries, not just from one country. They can’t all be right. So I hope that I am teaching my daughters to put it in their brains from five or six different places, and hopefully out the other side will come something that's reasonably accurate. I’ve learned that in my career.
I had the luck to go to a university outside the U.S. So during the Vietnam War I got exposed to a lot of non-U.S. media and I realized: Oh my gosh, these guys are right. What they're telling us in the American media is not right. And then the Iraq War—some of you remember America went to war with Iraq, same sort of thing. The American media, of course—as in most countries—did what was considered patriotic and supported the American war. But reading other media, you would find out that the Iraq War was ludicrous and was insane and never should have happened. I could go on and on. I will stop there, but just urge all of you—I try to read media from all over the world every day. I'm trying to teach my children to read media from all over the world.
Thank goodness, we have the media, because even though many of them are absurd and nothing more than propaganda, there are some, like The Washington Times or others, that if you read them and know how to read them and put it all together, you will come up with what’s really happening in the world and maybe you will help save the world.
Now, I think they want me to speak about the economy too, and money. I will. In the last few years, we have had—and I will use the U.S. as an example, because I am an American and it is the largest economy in the world, and I don't want to be picking on anybody in the other countries. But in the U.S. we have printed staggering amounts of money. The central bank, which is called the Federal Reserve in the United States, thinks that by printing huge amounts of money and spending and borrowing huge amounts of money, they will save the world. What they really want to do is save their jobs. They don't really care that much about the world. They're more interested in their jobs than they are in you and me. But that’s what they have set out to do.
They have printed staggering amounts of money, unprecedented, never been done in world history by any country in the world. Part of the result is that the United States is now the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. I repeat: Never in world history has any nation been as deeply in debt as the United States is, and it's getting worse every day. That's not a typo. Not every year—every day. It's going higher and higher.
So needless to say, in the world economy in the last few months, years, we've had reasonably good times because such staggering amounts of money have been borrowed, spent, printed, spent, etc. If you come to me and give me a trillion dollars, I will show you a very good time. We will have such a wonderful time, if you will give me a trillion dollars to spend any way I want to.
That's what's been going on in the world, and many people are quite happy right now. Stock markets were near all-time highs last year. So we've been having a wonderful time in the U.S. We've had the longest period of expansion in American history without a problem since 2009. That is 12, 13 years. Things have gotten better and better. That has never happened in American history. Maybe it's going to go on 30 years, I don't know.
But I'm just saying to you, it has never happened before. So that, in my brain anyway, makes me start to worry. I am extremely worried about what's going to happen in the U.S. economy, more importantly in the world economy, because in the U.S., stocks have gone to the highest level in history. Bubbles have started to form, which always worries me anyway.
Throughout the world we have property bubbles, if you come to Seoul or New Zealand or many places in the world. China's had a property bubble, which is now popping, partly by design, partly by accident. Many countries have had a property bubble, and when property bubbles pop, somebody always suffers. And there are many property bubbles around the world.
Bonds are the highest they've ever been in world history. World history. That's not a typo. Bonds have never been this expensive in the history of the world. So, needless to say, I would urge you not to buy bonds. They've never been this expensive. One reason they're so expensive is because so much money has been printed and borrowed and spent. So we're going to have a pop there as well.
So I've just given you three places to avoid. Be very careful of stocks, very careful of bonds, avoid bonds, and be very careful of property. Not all property. There's some property in the world that's going to do extremely well. If you're in agricultural property, for instance, agriculture has been a disaster for a few decades. So if you want to be a farmer, please go do it. If you like being outside in the sun and getting dirty, agricultural property is one of the best investments I know in the world. Agriculture is one of the best investments I know in the world.
The price of sugar is down 60 or 70 percent from its all-time high. That is not a bubble. I told you that bonds have never been this high in the history of the world, but sugar's down 70 percent. So given a choice of buying something like sugar or agriculture or bonds, I would certainly opt for agriculture.
But that leads me into other real products as well. You know, I've told you three areas of the world economy are very strong. The only area of the world economy I know that's not overpriced and a bubble is the asset class of real things. Commodities, most people call them. I told you about the price of sugar. Those are not bubble numbers when you're talking about things that are down a great deal.
We think we're going to have electric vehicles in the future, from what I can read. But remember, electric vehicles use several times as much copper and lead and lithium— commodities—as do petrol cars. So if we're going to have electric vehicles, chances are you should learn more about metal commodities as well, because they're certainly inexpensive. Nobody has been opening lead mines in a long time. And yet electric vehicles use a lot of lead, a lot of copper, a lot of lithium, etc.
So if I were looking for new investments to ride out what may be a bad time in the world economy in the next two or three years—I've explained to you that we've had the longest period in American history without a bad time. So it's coming. My anticipation is that since people are so pessimistic right now, something will happen. Something good? I don't know. Peace in Ukraine, who knows? That's not a prediction. I'm just saying, as an example: If something happens to make people less pessimistic about the world, stocks and everything will go up a lot. But in my view, that probably will be the last time stocks will go up for a while.
We have many signs that I've seen before. Very expensive stocks, very expensive investments, many new players coming into the market. You cannot believe how many new players are calling up their friends. And this always happens after a long bull market. People are calling up and saying, I've discovered this new thing called the stock market, and it's so much fun and you can make a lot of money. And it's easy to make money in the stock market.
Guys, when they start telling you how easy it is, please be very, very, very careful and very, very worried. You are getting to this stage and a very long bull market and things are extremely expensive, maybe overpriced, but something is probably going to come and make everybody less pessimistic and more optimistic. This is the way I'm playing the markets. We'll have a last big rally. It'll go up a lot because all of these new investors are going to be very excited.
My plan is that if it happens that way, I will sell that rally. I haven't sold things for a long time. I will start selling stocks. I will even start selling short, which is a way you can make money if things go down. So I am starting to get very worried about the world, except things like commodities, which are real assets, because governments will print a lot of money, and whenever they print a lot of money, it usually goes into real assets because many people know it will protect them.
I'm an old peasant, and those old peasants know that when the world starts collapsing, we want to own some silver under the bed. We want to have some gold in the closet. So I will protect myself more and more, I hope, by buying commodities, real assets, as they print more money to save the world.
But the world economy is going to have problems, even Korea. Now I do own investments in Korea. I will divert just a minute to Korea, because once you open the 38th parallel, and if this group or you can open the DMZ, it's going to be the single most exciting country in the world for a decade or two. It'll be unbelievably exciting.
I hope I will be able and smart enough to invest in Korea, if and when that happens, because this is going to be the best place in the world to invest. I didn't say today; I said once they open the DMZ. Even then, when things are horrible, there are always some countries and some companies and some industries doing well. If and when that happens, even if the world economy is collapsing, this is going to be a very good place to invest.
I will say, just for the record, this morning I was listening to the Cambodians talk. I've opened an account in Cambodia recently. Most people don't invest in Cambodia, but the Cambodian stock market is very small, very undeveloped. I hope to invest in Cambodia starting yesterday, starting today, because I see opportunities there.
For those of you who know where Uzbekistan is, you might think about investing in Uzbekistan. It's another huge disaster. And I have learned in my career that if you invest in a disaster, when it's changing, you might make a lot of money. So I have started investing in that. It's a former Soviet republic. Terrible disaster, but wonderful, wonderful changes are taking place. They're starting to manage the country the way any of you would manage the country.
So there are always opportunities in the world. You can become a farmer, you can buy silver, you can move to Cambodia, you can move to Uzbekistan. But be extremely careful, extremely careful about buying stocks in most places in the world, and certainly be very careful about buying bonds, because bonds have never been this expensive in the history of the world. And read as many newspapers and read as many sources of media as you can. But one of them should be The Washington Times. Just make sure you get the proper views of the world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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