Jim Rogers: We are making the same mistake as Japan

Because common sense is "inhumane"?

he is right, no country has ever been able to spend their way out of a recession / depression and instead of doing what is proven to work based on past experiences they are doing the same thing expecting a different result which is crazy. Makes you wonder if the people in charge actually paid attention in economics class

Hes been saying that for the last 6 months or so.... he could be right, although he is sometimes wrong.

And he's obsessed with maseratis...

this is one of those times where he is dead on the money. If you go back and look at any major recession / depression you can see that countries have tried to spend their way out of it and it as a result becomes worse. When you let companies that have no business staying alive fail, it makes way for the ones that are smart enough to stay profitable. RBC Bank isn't having problems, while tons of stupid banks are. Wonder who is right, the majority that fail because of poor business decisions or the few that survive because they were smart about their business. Only in this country can you fail to do you job and get rewarded for it.

Someone tells it like it is, good stuff...

Jim Rogers also believes that the best days of the USA are behind it. I am paraphrasing: "In 1807 if you wanted to be in the center of the world's economy, you moved to London. In 1907, you moved to New York City. In 2007, you move to Asia."

I disagree. While the recovery will probably take much longer than any of the recessions the US has suffered since WW2, that's a far cry from saying that its glory days are over. The fact that the US still continues to attract the world's best and brightest and the US still continues to reward innovation and novel thinking almost guarantees that the best is still to come.

With China owning a lot of our debt he is not to far off.

I guess the 5 million people returning to Mexico don't fit into your scenario.
They must be dumb for leaving.

If China does not get paid back or gets paid back in devalued dollars their position isn't as enviable

of course. but its a lot easier for them to stop lending, than for us to stop borrowing.

They are going to stop lending. Soon. I predict our government tries to drive private investment out of the stock market (yep, another "crash" coming) and into treasuries...

I can see your point, but also, when you play devils advocate and look at it this way....the brightest and smartest come to America, start a company and outsource majority of the work to Asian countries. Sending the money overseas so while the company itself is making more revenues and is based out of the US majority of the money goes elsewhere for personnel costs etc. So while we might be one of the best places to live, our economy isn't the center anymore. With the internet and communications technologies we have and are on the brink of having. I think the world as a whole is going to just be even playing ground sooner then later when it comes to central start point. The times of being the center of an economy are switching to asian countries due to cheap labor and room for rapid expansion. As this phase dies out I see it just being a world economy where you do whatever from where ever and no longer worry about being in the middle.

I sort of agree with Jim Rogers when he says the hay day of the US is gone, we are no longer going to be the big pimp on the corner, but more so even with the rest of the world as they are finally catching up thanks to lower costs of entry and lower technology costs from advances made over previous years.

I dont really see them attempting to stop lending, as a US crash would have world wide effects that could inevitably bring down the rest of the world. You see how it is playing out now, we hit a recession and majority of the world is doing the same. Without us fat lazy americans around to buy stuff everyone suffers :P....I do see the habits of the lending making a drastic change. I wish they would do away with deficit spending, balance the budget and learn a little about economics before they start adding on to things

seems to be heading that way China is already asking for guarantees

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...oUI&refer=home

Not that I would take our word for it right now.

They didn't pay attention in economics class. But they did pay attention in Political Science class. How the US is handling the problem is pure politics. It plays well to the voters. It sure is a more palatable message than "Buck the fuck up and start saving and sacrificing cuz its going to be long hard ride". People don't want to hear that shit. Comfort is key. Entitlement to comfort is key. So whoever can give them that reassurance (despite economic realities) gets political points.

End result: whatever "management" of the economy is undertaken now will have unforeseen consequences that some poor schmuck 5 to 10 years from now will have to deal with. Latest example: Greenspan's maneuvers in 2001-2002 to manage the Dot Com bust.

The problems in Europe are there own. They have enough to sink themselves without our help. Short term and long term Europe is fucked.

China's problem is EVERYONE stopped buying their shit and they have a massive population of people needing jobs.

Bernanke has said he can just print up dollars to buy treasuries if they do not sell on the open market. The market has clearly dared him to try it if you look at the 50% increase in the 10 year. Some speculate he may already be doing this a little...

If we can't sell our bonds our deficit spending is over

Best case (for us) China begins to put less in our bonds. They will not keep buying at the same levels. Japan is not around to help now. Japan is FUCKED.

Expect another stock market crash this year orchestrated by the government to push money into treasuries...

China is already preparing for us to stop buying their goods. Their standard of living has a lot of room for growth and they know that and have planned it that way. While we buy less their own people buy more and their standard of living goes up and ours goes down.

Exactly, well said...... they are focussing on domestic consumption and their population will have the buying power. Theyll have a rough time in the short term but when things recover, theyll continue moving ahead. Another forgotten story is that of India which is probably second only to China in economic growth.

India has been more resilient against the downturn than China.... which was an interesting story considering all the hype about China "decoupling" which turned out to be a myth or at least it is right now (but probably not in the long term).

It may take a generation for China to decouple. Peter Schiff is right about this I think... Just his timing is a bit off...

China won't be focusing as much on domestic consumption as you think. Their plan seems to be to have the government spend money infrastructure and put people that used to make TVs for Wal Mart to work building roads, etc...

I think his timing is off too.

Exactly... no one wants to work to get what they want, they just want to keep spending money they don't have with no consequences, and that includes the government.

"Why should I bother paying back my credit cards and loans? I can just file bankruptcy and start over again in 7 years!"

If that's how you feel...then you'll be thrilled by the White House announcement today regarding government bailout of homeowners' PRINCIPAL mortgage amounts on upside down mortgages.

They are not trying to get us out of it, they are trying to devalue the dollar. It is painfully clear and makes the most sense if you really think about it and understand how it all works. They are just printing money by the billions, that's going to take a toll on the USD sooner or later.

Many of you laugh at the idea of a new currency (North American currency) but we are closer to it now than ever. The problem is the dollar is not falling like they planned it would so they are spending more money, running us further into debt and hoping it will start to drop.

Make way for the Amero or a like currency.

For now.

I just read that immigration is at a low right now because less people want to come here due to our economic situation. People will stop coming here the further we crumble.

I don't see a way out of this mess simply because the government not the people will change their spending habits. Bailouts are given, the money is abused. People are laid off, they rack up credit they can't / won't pay. The country from the top to the bottom is living WAY beyond its means. You simply can't sustain anything like that.

Yep. Hyperinflation.

That is EXACTLY what is going on RIGHT NOW!

I copied this from Wiki, but look at how many countries have had hyperinflation and many of them changed to a new currency including the USA back in the Civil War era:


Angola, Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Krajina, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republika Srpska, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Zaire (now Congo), Zimbabwe...

And... And... And...

United States

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress authorized the printing of paper currency called continental currency. Between January 1861 and April 1865, the Lerner Commodity Price Index of leading cities in the eastern Confederacy states increased from 100 to over 9000. As the U.S. Civil War dragged on the Confederate States of America dollar had less and less value, until it was almost worthless by the last few months of the war.

Those of you thinking everything is OK and your government is looking out for you and your dollar, need to wake the fuck up. This is going down right now, you're all watching it day by day by day.

ha,ha, ha. but its not unfortunately funny. The crooks are running a save of US financial sector and almost nobody wonder, what they did in the past..


From; Jonathan Hoenig Jan 15th;


"The Real Problem With Geithner for Treasury"

TIM GEITHNER IS an awful choice for Treasury secretary, but not for the reasons other objectors are suggesting.


Geithner is accused of employing an immigrant with an elapsed work visa. From my perspective, this is a complete nonissue. If Geithner wants to hire an illegal immigrant to mop his floors, nobody’s rights are violated. He wants his socks laundered, an immigrant wants a job, and they make a mutually beneficial trade.

Geithner also reportedly failed to pay self employment taxes from 2001 to 2004, a shameful oversight for a man responsible for spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars over the past year in various bailout schemes. While he certainly should have been aware of his obligations, given the subjective, contradictory and virtually impenetrable tax code, it’s easy to get lost amid a sea of paperwork.

The Tax Foundation estimates over $250 billion is spent in compliance costs, simply figuring out how much we owe each year. Why is it that even college-educated professionals need to spend hundreds of dollars simply figuring out their tax obligation? He has since paid his obligations – with interest.

No, the problem with Geithner is, well, Geithner himself.

The Real Bailout Czar
In an age of bailouts, Geithner is the original Bailout Czar. It was Geithner, after all, who was the instrumental figure in arranging JP Morgan’s (JPM: 27.07*, -0.21, -0.76%) takeover of Bear Stearns, a deal in which $29 billion of taxpayer money was pledged as a backstop against illiquid and toxic assets.

It wasn’t Hank Paulson, but rather Tim Geithner who put together the plan to have the government rescue AIG, to the tune of $85 billion and growing.

It has been widely noted Geithner was in favor of stepping in with taxpayer dollars to save Lehman Brothers. I guess it’s pretty easy to spend taxpayer dollars when you aren’t even paying your own taxes.

If you are unfamiliar with Geithner, simply go the Federal Reserve’s web site to see a line-item balance sheet of his work: billions of tax dollars for AIG, Bear Stearns (look for “Maiden Lane LLC”; it’s the corporation created for Bear Stearns’s liquidation), commercial money markets and loans to primary dealers.

What Happened on His Watch
Of course, the financial deterioration at most of the large banks now begging for bailouts occurred under Geithner's watch as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. One could argue he missed the credit storm despite being in the catbird seat for more than five years.

He has, according to The Wall Street Journal, been looking for “as much firepower as possible” as Treasury secretary. Take note: That “firepower” is your tax dollars.

There is uniform agreement that the TARP -- along with all the trillions in bailouts and backstops that have gone along with it -- has been a complete disaster, as we predicted it would be from the start. Now Obama seems poised to rely on the guy who was responsible for getting this bailout train underway.

Wealth is not created because of a bailout, backstop or government stimulus plan. Geithner’s history suggests he believes government intervention is key to growing the economy.

It hasn’t worked since Bear Stearns. Eight trillion dollars later…why would it work now?

Jonathan Hoenig is managing member at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC.




from yesterday tv show.
Just asked Geitner if the big banks are insolvent and he says it would be irresponsible for him to comment.. LOL

guess for whom he worked before FED and what happened under his leadership.