Rogers: Europe is Doomed…but I’m Still Long The Euro (and Breakfast)

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Jim Rogers

I've never brought a guest such an elaborate breakfast- but when legendary investor Jim Rogers wants to come on my show- I go all out. Truth be told, it wasn't entirely Suzy Anchorwoman of me—it was secretly a good jumping off point for his favorite topic these days- inflation.

“Have you tried to buy any cotton recently? Have you tried to buy any sugar recently?" he said pointing down to the spread in front of him.

Co-hosting with me this morning on “Worldwide Exchange” over a breakfast of Diet Coke, candy and bagels, CEO of Rogers Holdings Jim Rogers was as usual all about commodities as an inflation hedge: the sugar he adores along with gold and silver.

“Prices are going up. I don’t know who these guys are who say prices are not going up. I look in the real world, and I see what’s happening. And everybody watching this show knows that prices are going up.”

Knowing Rogers’ vehement opposition to printing money (he said in a recent interview that Fed chairman Bernanke is “a disaster” and that “all he understands is printing money”), I asked him about the rumors that there would be more money printing in QE3 and QE4.

“I know there’s talk of it. It’s dumbfounding,” he said. “It’s stupefying to me that we have a Central Bank in the United States that thinks all they have to do is print money. That has never worked, anywhere in the world in the long term or the medium term.

He added that US central bankers see printing money as an easy solution, “Because that’s all they know.”

On the other hand, he said that the Central Bank’s current policy of printing money is “not good for the world, but at least they’re not raising taxes.”

So he's staying far away from debt, saying it's all overpriced and sticking his beloved commodities along with currencies.

“I own the Euro, I’m long the Euro, and I’m staying with it,” he said even though he knows Europe is doomed.

"You need to let Ireland go bankrupt,” he told me. “They are bankrupt. Why should innocent Germans, or innocent Poles, or innocent anybody pay for mistakes made by Irish politicians and Irish banks? That is unbelievably bad morality and it’s bad economics as well.”

“Let the bank’s shareholders lose money. Let the bank bondholders lose money. Let Ireland reorganize and start over. That’s the only thing that’s going to work. Propping people up and carrying lots of zombie banks and zombie companies is not going to work.”

“Greece is insolvent, Portugal has a liquidity problem, Spain has a liquidity problem, Belgium has been faking the books for a long time, Italy’s been faking the books for a long time. The UK is totally insolvent,” he said.

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