Jim Rogers holds a gold coin (Digital Journal)

I want to own more gold and silver

In a wide ranging interview with MacroVoices’ Erik Townsend, legendary investor Jim Rogers, co-founder of Quantum Fund with fellow investor George Soros, has said that he wants to own more gold and silver and will continue to accumulate on any price dips.

Set against a background of thoughts regarding the both the political and economic outlook, Rogers echoes the growing theme we have been touching on in recent months – heightened and arguably unprecedented uncertainty.

Basing much of his analysis and thoughts on history, Rogers reminds us that it does repeat itself and we’re not to assume that the ways of modern life mean that things will turn out differently.

Mixed feelings on Trump

When it comes to what President Trump will mean for markets, Jim Rogers believe that if the new Commander In Chief says all the things that he will do then it will stand for some overwhelmingly poor results on an international scale.

Whilst Rogers believes that Trump’s promises to cut taxes, improve infrastructure and bring back $3 trillion worth of US company assets from overseas will be ‘wonderful, wonderful things.’ Yet, he seems more concerned about the idea of trade wars that a few in Trump’s ear seemed to have a thing for.

“Mr. Trump has also said he’s going to have trade war with China, Mexico, Japan, Korea a few other people that he has named. He swore that on his first day in office he would impose 45% tariffs against China. He’s been there three weeks, two or three weeks and he hasn’t done it yet but he still got it in his head I’m sure or maybe he’s just another politician like all the rest of them. He says one thing and he doesn’t mean it at all but he does have at least three people in high levels in his group who are very, very keen to have trade wars with China and other people.”

Rogers says it could be ‘happy days’ for a while if Trump doesn’t follow through on campaign promises to take on trade competitors, but warns that if Trump does pursue these ideas that “it’s all over. I mean history is very clear that trade wars always lead to problems, often to disaster, sometimes even to real war, a shooting war.”

We’re heading for war

Rogers is convinced that we are heading for war. Thanks to the seeming decline of the US, the rise of populism and push for protectionism. Indeed, he recently went as far as to warn that we are on the verge of a “biblical” collapse.

The decline of the US in the short-term may well be encouraged by President Trump. Should a recession, or worse, kick-in in the short-term then the new administration can blame Obama, and then seemingly swoop in and save the day.

How will they save the day? That remains to be seen, but it seems that much of the rhetoric being used by Trump is also being seen elsewhere in the Western world and Rogers believes this signals war.

“…whenever things are bad and things are going wrong people look for somebody to blame. They always throughout history wherever we are, whichever country we’re discussing the first people blamed are always the foreigners… it’s always happened that way to blame the foreigners for better or for worse it seems it is happening as you point out in the U.S. again but it’s also happening in other places in Germany, France, Italy many places they’re blaming the foreigners already again it’s even happening in Singapore to some extent where I live…

“And as you rile up against the foreigners most countries historically have closed off one way or the other they close their borders, they close their economies and when you close the economy it leads to economic problems and sometimes eventually if you get into real serious trade wars it leads to bankruptcy and even worse.

“It’s rare and I don’t think ever in history that one country has started a trade war and the other country says, “oh well that’s too bad but we’re not going to do anything we’re just going to sit here and let you hit us again and again and again.” No the other countries retaliate that’s the way human beings are.

“So if country X. starts a trade war then country Y. hits back and then country X. hit’s back and country Y. hits back and the next thing you know countries C and D and E are involved as well and everybody’s suffering and then as economies get worse more and more things happen more and more discrimination more and more blame and then eventually bullets start flying.

“…I don’t like at all what I see happening. There are many analogies to previous periods in history before the First World War and this sort of thing started happening certainly before the Second World War this sort of thing started happening. It’s been common throughout history.

And these wars when they start they usually– in 1914 nobody, nobody could conceive of war and then the next thing you knew, there was war and everybody said don’t worry it’ll be over by Christmas, well six months later everybody was saying, how did we get into this war? How do we get out of this war? It’s absurd. It’s ludicrous…”

Where does all this lead to?

Rogers told Barron’s in 2016 that

“… if Trump does what he says he’s going to do such as wage trade wars then it’s going to be bad news for all of us. Trade wars have led to bankruptcy and bankruptcy has often led to war. At that point, you’d better own a lot of gold.”

Cashless Society – Cash-less means Freedom-less

Whilst everyone is keen to jump in on what Trump means, Jim Rogers was keen to provide the wider picture and “governments are always looking out for themselves first.”

Whilst he argues that this has been going on for hundreds of years, at the moment he sees it most clearly in the war on cash.

He refers to the move by governments to reduce the amount of physical cash in circulation through controls and law enforcement as a way of taking away our personal freedoms.

In both Europe and India, where the war on cash is strongest, we are repeatedly told that it has something to do with security – generally money laundering and terrorist activities. To this Jim Rogers says that this is just a way to get us to give up our freedoms:

“Well history shows that people always would like a little more safety and a willing to “give up some things for more safety and security.” Benjamin Franklin said well anybody who would give up some freedoms for security is going to wind up with neither security nor freedom and they deserve to lose both and of course that’s the way it is.”

And the war on cash is facilitated, as we have discussed in past articles, by the rise in technology. But cashless societies isn’t the only freedom-reducing side to tech.

“So the Internet and the computers changing everything that we know, money can certainly be easily converted to computers not today because there are still, some people who don’t have computers and the system is not ready it but it can be done and when it’s done the governments are going to be very, very happy they going to say they’re doing it for our own good Eric, this is not them, this is for our good. That they’re doing this, but it’s coming and it’s going to be a whole different world in which we live. Probably we are not going to have as many freedoms as we have now even though we are already losing our freedoms at a significant pace.”

As outlined in our post Cashless Society – War on Cash to Benefit Gold? the war on cash is not only reducing our personal freedoms but makes us far more vulnerable to bail-ins and negative interest rates. With this in mind, we and Jim Rogers recommend investors diversify their portfolios and buy gold, even if you already have some.

Rogers plans to buy more gold

As mentioned in the beginning, Rogers is very clear that whilst he already owns gold and silver, he is looking to own more. When will he buy some? He’s expecting both metals to have another dip.

Readers should not be put off by a seemingly bearish attitude to the gold price. Mr. Rogers has previously said that he has never sold any of his gold and has high hopes for the long-term gold price, mainly thanks to his very low expectations of governments and central bankers running the economy.

He told Barron’s last year:

“Before this is over, gold is going to go through the roof and could turn into its own bubble – more and more people will lose confidence in governments and currencies and when that happens, they always turn to gold.”

Timing is tricky though, and Rogers hopes that he’ll realise at the right time if the dip isn’t coming and will be “smart enough to buy more if it doesn’t.”

Rogers has long been on record regarding his expectation of great things for gold, mainly thanks to governments debasing the currency.

“If the U.S. dollar becomes confetti, any number you want to make up. They’re printing U.S. dollars fast enough to turn them into confetti. Who knows how high gold will go …”

To those who are unaware, Jim Rogers resides in Singapore extolling the virtues of the Asian country that acts as the gateway to the gold market between East and West. It will come as no surprise that he also advocates storing gold in Singapore. He’s not alone, both Jim Sinclair and Dr Marc Faber are also advocating acting as your own central bank and owning physical gold coins and bars in Singapore.

Conclusion – take a different perspective

Jim Rogers once told Time Magazine:

“My success in the market has been predicated on viewing the world from a different perspective…”

We couldn’t agree more. During uncertain times like these – with increasing ‘fake news’ and misleading news, of rising alternative and radical political views, of confusing financial signals – it is important to look beyond the simple information and simple narratives provided in the mainstream media whose primary function is to serve the agendas of corporate and government masters and tom profit from the sale of advertising.

Powerful, big spending advertising corporations do not want media to focus on the real risks of another global financial crisis as it risks frightening the consuming masses and impacting their advertising spend and their return on investment (ROI).

In the mainstream, Brexit was not going to happen. In the mainstream Trump was not supposed to win the election. In the mainstream, reduced personal freedoms and the gradual erosion of our civil rights are good and necessary things. In the mainstream, the cashless society is a good thing for everyone.

These narrow, one sided perspectives and a lack of plurality of opinion regarding these matters, the increasinh financial risks and the benefits of owning some physical gold are endangering both our liberties and our financial well being.

We live in uncertain times. No one knows how political declarations or financial volatility will play out, needless to say there are more unknown unknowns than ever before.

One thing we do know is that history repeats or at least rhymes as Marc Twain said. With this in mind, we echo Jim’s advice and advocate owning actual bullion coins and bars, knowing that if owned either in your possession or in the safest vaults in the world, they are beyond the reach of incompetent and desperate politicians and the risks they pose to us in terms of a reduction of our personal freedoms, trade wars, currency wars, terrorism and actual wars.

Jim Rogers Interview with MacroVoices’ Erik Townsend can be accessed here

Dr Marc Faber On Owning Gold In Singapore here

Gold and Silver Bullion – News and Commentary

Gold prices firm ahead of testimony by Fed’s Yellen (Reuters.com)

Banking Giant UBS Says Gold to Hit $1,300 in 2017 Amid 2 Rate Hikes (Fortune.com)

Global Stock Rally Loses Momentum, Dollar Declines (Bloomberg.com)

S&P tops $20 trillion as ‘Trump trade’ roars back to life (Reuters.com)

Juncker Will Not Run Again for President of EU – Says it Will Break Up (Telegraph.co.uk)

Bank For International Settlements Warns Of Looming Debt Bubble (Forbes.com)

Death of the Dollar: A New World Money (DailyReckoning.com)

Germany Gets the ‘Wrong Suitcase’ While Repatriating Its Gold Reserves from U.S. (SputnikNews.com)

Goodbye Petrodollar: Russia and China Dump US Treasuries, Buy Gold (Russia-Insider.com)

German gold returns home: How populism is influencing monetary policy (CSMonitor.com)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

14 Feb: USD 1,229.65, GBP 986.67 & EUR 1,157.84 per ounce
13 Feb: USD 1,229.40, GBP 982.04 & EUR 1,155.64 per ounce
10 Feb: USD 1,225.75, GBP 980.23 & EUR 1,151.35 per ounce
09 Feb: USD 1,241.75, GBP 988.18 & EUR 1,161.04 per ounce
08 Feb: USD 1,235.60, GBP 989.47 & EUR 1,160.10 per ounce
07 Feb: USD 1,231.00, GBP 995.14 & EUR 1,154.43 per ounce
06 Feb: USD 1,221.85, GBP 978.34 & EUR 1,138.15 per ounce
03 Feb: USD 1,214.05, GBP 970.93 & EUR 1,128.99 per ounce
02 Feb: USD 1,224.05, GBP 966.14 & EUR 1,131.88 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

14 Feb: USD 17.91, GBP 14.37 & EUR 16.85 per ounce
13 Feb: USD 17.97, GBP 14.34 & EUR 16.89 per ounce
10 Feb: USD 17.62, GBP 14.15 & EUR 16.55 per ounce
09 Feb: USD 17.71, GBP 14.10 & EUR 16.58 per ounce
08 Feb: USD 17.74, GBP 14.20 & EUR 16.66 per ounce
07 Feb: USD 17.60, GBP 14.21 & EUR 16.49 per ounce
06 Feb: USD 17.60, GBP 14.10 & EUR 16.39 per ounce
03 Feb: USD 17.28, GBP 13.84 & EUR 16.10 per ounce
02 Feb: USD 17.71, GBP 13.95 & EUR 16.38 per ounce

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 -- Published: Tuesday, 14 February 2017 | E-Mail  | Print  | Source: GoldSeek.com

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