Why The American Economy Has Held Up So Well

So far the American economy has held up well because of a lot of money printing, a lot of government spending, cut taxes, everything possible to hold up the American economy. 

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.

Gold: I Started Buying More This Summer

I started buying more gold this summer, because I could see what was happening. I still own plenty of gold and silver. I guess the fact that it doesn't yield much or anything doesn't bother anyone now. Bonds don't yield anything either. Most things don't yield anything these days.

Related trading instruments: SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD), iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV), Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX)

Currencies: Singapore Dollar (SGD) Will Go Down Against The U.S. Dollar (USD)

The Singapore dollar (SGD), like all currencies, is going to go down against the US dollar (USD), because the US dollar (USD) is going to go much higher. 

Singapore doesn't like to talk about its debt but Singapore has debt, too. The IMF says that the Singapore debt is over 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). There is serious debt here. 

Now Singapore would say yeah, but we got a lot of asset, too. They do. There's no question about that. Once interest rates start going higher, normally, your debts get worse and your assets don't get better so the Singapore dollar (SGD) is going to suffer too, but it's mainly because the US dollar (USD) is going to be so strong when people start looking for a safe haven.

Real Vision: China and Global Investment

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.”

$17 Trillion In Negative Yielding Debt

$17 trillion now of negative yielding debt. It never happened in world history. It's absurd. 

It's a bunch of misguided bureaucrats and academics who don't know what they're doing. They're hoping. This has never happened in world history. Never in world history has this happened and it's going to be a gigantic disaster for all of us. 

How does it end? Badly. Bankruptcies. There are many states and cities, not just in America, Germany's got cities that are in trouble. Forget, we haven't even talked about Spain yet or Italy or some of the other places. No, many places are going to have serious problems. 

 Once interest rates go back to normal, it's going to cause a lot of, lot of bankruptcies and problems around the world.

China Is Letting The Currency Go Down

Any country, which has hundreds of billions of dollars of sanctions or tariffs imposed on it, the currency is going to go down, period, full stop. It's not just the Chinese, the Chinese are apparently letting it go down and not trying to control it. Anybody who has that ax chopped on it is going to be affected, because it theoretically is going to hurt your trade balance of trade very seriously when you have those tariffs imposed. 

Maybe China's saying, "Okay, we'll let it go, we're not going to stop it." To try to stop a currency declining when you've had hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs hitting you, you have to be affected. To try to stop that decline would cost gigantic amounts of money.

The Future Of Hong Kong Is Continued Decline

I think the future of Hong Kong is continued decline. 

The only reason Hong Kong became Hong Kong was because of 1949, in Mao Zi time. Now, you don't need Hong Kong anymore. Shanghai was the largest financial center between New York and London before the before the war, Second World War.

China's opening up so we don't need Hong Kong anymore. It's going to continue to decline. When the Renminbi, the Chinese currency, is convertible, yes, I would expect the Hong Kong dollar to disappear.

Related tickers:  iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF (FXI), iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index ETF (EWH)

New Book: Warning To Japan

In his most recent book, U.S. investor Jim Rogers issues a stark warning over Japan's future. In "Warning To Japan", warned of a dark future for Japan if it does not take drastic measures to curb its massive debt and severe population decline. Here's a few excerpts from the book:

"Japan's national debt is going to swell due to the Olympics, and this can only lead to a bad outcome for ordinary citizens." 

"There was such a long period of astonishing prosperity, when everything worked." 

"But Japan got so rich, so successful, that... it resulted in huge protectionism." 

"If there was somebody in Japan who will say, we got to bear this pain, we have to sort this out. And if we don't, the 10-year-olds in Japan today will have no future." 

"But the problem is that the politicians in power today don't want to do that. They know if they cause the pain, it is not going to be good for them." 

"They're opening up a little bit, but not nearly enough."

"It's simple arithmetic. The population is going down and they're not having babies. It is straightforward, but overwhelming and frightening for their future."

"Few people have any confidence; they know, consciously or subconsciously, that there is something wrong. Maybe somebody will change things, but I'm afraid I don't see that happening right now. There are too many entrenched interests."

Investing, Global Debt & A Bubble In Education

In a recent interview with Money And Markets, Jim Rogers commented on his unortodhox approach to investing,

“I’ve been wildly bullish on many things many times, but often it’s things that people don’t understand. That’s how you get rich: You buy things that other people don’t care about.”

And Jim also expressed concerns about the rising level of debt worldwide:

“Nobody’s reduced their debt since 2008, specifically the mounting deficits in both the U.S. and China."

And finally Jim Rogers pinpointed a bubble in education in the United States:

There’s also a bubble in college education in the U.S., but I don’t know any way to short Princeton.”

Bankruptcies Are Coming

You're gonna start seeing bankruptcies. You're even gonna see bankruptcies in China which is gonna shock a lot of people including me and I just told you it's coming. 

There's a lot of debt in the world. In 2008 we had a big problem because of too much debt. Since then, you know the debt has skyrocketed everywhere and so we're gonna start seeing bankruptcies and with interest rates rising we're gonna see a collapse.

Market Update: British Pound, Gold and Silver

British Pound Outlook, The United Kingdom Can Break Up

The United Kingdom has huge debts. The United Kingdom is one of the most indebted nations in the world on any kind of comparative data. They don't have as much debt as the United States as it's a much smaller country. There's huge, gigantic debts which people don't seem to pay too much attention to. I pay attention to.

This story is not going down because of Boris Johnson. I mean, maybe he's contributing, maybe he's a needle causing the pinprick but no, Sterling has got huge problems and whatever happens it's going to get worse. It looks to me like the political problems are certainly going to make it much much worse, I mean the United Kingdom could break up.

US Dollar, Gold 

Many things that are gonna make the next problem very very very serious and a alternative an alternative is the the US dollar I expect the US dollar to get overpriced I expected it maybe turn into a bubble but often when that happens gold goes down you know if the dollar is very very strong go this week so my plan but don't pay too much attention my plan is that the US dollars going to get oh Christ I'm gonna sell my US Dollars and as gold goes down in that crisis as it often does I will put my US dollars into gold.

Gold or Silver?

If somebody came in and said, "You gotta buy Gold or Silver!" I would buy silver today. 

7 Investing Lessons From Jim Rogers

1) My problem, my strength, is I don't like to sell. I like to own things. The kinds of things I buy, often, you can own forever, or at least for many, many years.

2) The book that I still to this day tell people to read is Security Analysis by Ben Graham. I read it decades ago. Short of that, The Intelligent Investor by Graham and Dodd. Graham's ideas of investing in fundamentals and cheap stocks, I realized that's the that's the kind of investor I was, that's what I loved and thought was great. So, I recommend that book when people ask me what book to read or books to read I tell them about Ben Graham. 

3) The more certain something is, the less likely it is to be profitable. 

4) If people learn to be a little more attentive to what they see they might wind up making investments and they might be successful. 

5) One of the best things I can tell you is do not have a lot of debt and try to stay away from people that have a lot of debt. 

6) Those who can not adjust to change will be swept aside by it. Those who recognize change and react accordingly will benefit. 

7) If you want to get rich you don't diversify. You put all your eggs in one basket and then you watch the basket very carefully. You got to make sure it's the right basket or you will go bankrupt but that's how you get rich. Henry Ford never diversified, Bill Gates never diversified.

Bullish On South Korea

South Korea's economy has been slowing as well at the moment. South Korea's having a problem, everybody is because of trade wars, there are many, many reasons that the world is starting to slow down and we're going to have a very very serious problem in the next year or two. But once the 38th parallel opens this is gonna be the most exciting part of the world for the next 10 or 20 years. You have everything going for you once the 38th parallel opens. In the meantime things are not gonna be so good.

Related trading instruments: iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund ETF (EWY)