Billionaire investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, says he doesn’t understand how monetizing even more debt can solve a problem caused by too much debt. According to Rogers, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has failed in spurring economic growth as a result of the massive increase in the money supply brought about by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. Rogers suggests the U.S. must stop printing money and take on austerity measures like the Europeans did to let the economy recover.
“I’d rather have the Europeans running the U.S. central bank than the people running the U.S. central bank, least they know how to try to build for the future,” Rogers told CNBC Monday.
“In America, Bernanke just says we’ll print more money, we’ll spend more money, even though the United States is now the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.”
Rogers pointed out that economies in trouble should be allowed to fail, like bad companies.
“The things that have worked in the past…will be you go bankrupt then you re-organize and you start over. You have a painful period for a while, and then you start over. This has been done in the past 3 or 4 thousand years, and that’s the way you do it,” said Rogers.
Reprinted with permission from the Wall Street Pit.
Jim Rogers has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist, Investment Biker, Hot Commodities, A Gift to My Children, and A Bull in China. See his website.
