Jim Rogers: My New Favorite Country to Invest

and now the United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world in the history of the world no nation has ever been as deeply in debt as we are the U.S is there is no question that in the next few decades especially having a different option is very important [Music] from Nomad capitalist live 2023 in Kuala Lumpur where we've got every room in the house it's a great pleasure to be joined by The Original Adventure capitalist legendary investor Jim Rogers Mr Rogers uh a pleasure to be with you again I am delighted to be here Andrew this has been a lot of fun and we shared the stage last night we had a q a for all of our guests here what I would ask you to start you wrote uh investment biker then Adventure capitalist for people who aren't familiar with what you did decades ago writing all around the world on a motorcycle tell us the story well Andrew I grew up in a very small village in the Backwoods of Alabama and I wanted to see the world I knew there was more I loved motorcycles so I wanted to go around the world on a motorcycle I remember telling a guy once like that and he said why don't you fly you know why don't you fly I said no no no motorcycles are fun and I want to see the world close to the ground because if you're close to the ground you really find out what's happening so I guess I was a little nuts but I wanted to go around the world on a motorcycle it took me a long time to get permission from the Chinese red Chinese Soviets what were they called in those days communist communist Russia but I finally got permission and I did it and we were talking about all the different uh driver's license endorsements and visas and Customs checks that you must have gone through and there were some pretty harrowing experiences at some of those borders well no of course and you might have inoculations too in many places but I didn't say it was easy but I didn't say it was fun it was complicated I went through several war zones and I assure you War zones are not fun but I'm alive and I'm quite pleased to be alive so I first read some of your stuff it's been 25 years from now obviously a lot has changed since then which countries would you say have gone up in which countries do you think have gone down since then well obvious first answer is China China has gone up when I first went to China oh my gosh oh my gosh I was 40 years ago it's changed her dramatically and of course Russia's gone down well I guess yeah Russia has changed a lot when the Communists were there there was very little very little in Russia there's not much more now but it's better it's certainly more prosperous it's more interesting more things are happening and all the Soviet States whatever this is so Union of Soviet socialists republics things have changed a lot in all the republics so I would have to say the Soviet Union and China have the biggest changes what do you think the United States where does that factor in we talked about the U.S dollar and how you're holding US Dollars merely because we're not sure you're not sure what the next thing is but what is the U.S factor in well you know when I was growing up or even in the 80s and that's what we're talking about the U.S was still a creditor Nation but now the United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world uh in the history of the world no nation has ever been as deeply in dead as we are the U.S is and that cannot be good I've read enough history to know that when countries get into this kind of situation somebody's going to suffer eventually and I guess it's a good time to be an old American I don't have to pay all those debts but I have two teenage children and they're going to face many problems in their lives and you moved to Singapore I've describe this as sort of a legacy not only for yourself but a legacy for your children that they'd be able to be multilingual they would be able to have that optionality talk about using internationalization as a way to benefit future Generations well there is no question that in the next few decades especially having a different option is very important maybe people don't want to leave their country where they are and that's fine but if you want to have a different option you should my children no Chinese fluently they know English fluently they know Asia now they can use chopsticks they can use knives and forks so I don't know if it's going to be good for them in 25 years but I have tried to give them the option to be able to be anywhere in the world and the mindset you not only do you need the option you need the mindset many people if you go to them and say things are going to be bad they will say okay I don't care I want to stay here or I'll deal with it then as if they'll they'll have Uber prescience to know exactly when it's coming and don't worry it'll be okay right many times I've heard that but I've read enough to know that when things change it can be extremely serious and you better have you better if you're not prepared you better at least have options to do something so that's what I'm trying to give my children and you mentioned that your daughter to those who say well how are my kids going to fit in overseas she just won election to the uh the the student council president yeah to my shock uh my daughter goes to a school where everybody's a child it's a girls school they're all Chinese she's the only one with blue eyes in the school but they had an election for student council president or recently and to our shot our Delight she won my my wife told her not to do it because she couldn't win well she did it and she won and she's got blue eyes and they fit in very well there you know she's very something's right she's fitting in very very well because she is a student council president and when they have assembly and they need a Chinese girl she's the Chinese girl she speaks I speak fluent she speaks better Chinese than they do so they put her on the stage blue-eyed kids speaking Chinese what do you see at the overlay because I think Adventure capitalist was an idea of investing in economies that maybe people generally don't think about what do you see because you mentioned having options with Adventure capitalist and Nomad capitalist internationalization how do those two come together well as I said last night I'm very impressed by what you're doing or trying to do because everybody does need to learn and know about the rest of the world and know about options if nothing else they're always countries Rising people rising Industries rising and if you know about them you might take advantage of those opportunities and you might become very successful so I'm impressed by what you're trying to do I hope you're doing it well I don't know I've done it all on my own but it is an extremely good option for people to have so second citizenship you talked about that's important to you it should be important for everybody having a residence permit so Singapore perhaps a country someone can move to now not likely to become a citizen doesn't really allow for dual citizenship that could be a place you live so you're all in favor of having a passport having a residence banking I think you mentioned well I mainly interested all for having an option and if you don't have the option and something happens you're stuck even if you want to do something which many people won't do because of the mindset but you would have the option I mean if tomorrow something dramatic happens I think I hope my family and I can do something else because we have the mindset and the knowledge and the passports and the preparation bank accounts Investments just have the option it's very important and you hope you never need it you hope you never ever need it but if you do it's too late you've approached this though as an adventure and so while you've lived in Singapore for a long time now if you woke up tomorrow in Singapore was no longer the friendly place I don't see any indication why that would be the case but if that were to happen how would you approach this as an adventure that you need to go to one of those other places because I think that that trips a lot of people up that hey I want to go one place and then I'm done well if you you should have the knowledge as I said about my children I'm trying to give them the exposure and the knowledge of the rest of the world my daughter's been to more countries than I'd heard of when I was their age and who knows what will happen but if something happens at least I hope they have the mindset to say oh my gosh disaster is here now they can sit there and say I'll figure it out or they can sit there and figure out okay what do I do now where do I go how do I survive this history is full of Wars natural disasters economic disasters history full of changes that could require people to change I'm from the United States everybody in the United States except for the American Indians came from somewhere else at one time or another because somebody in their family decided they're better options elsewhere why don't I take advantage of it and they hold those ancestors in high esteem and yet somehow it's interesting that the idea of them moving is not to be held in high esteem never figured that one out you were very insightful yes it's amazing I mean I have run into people in the United States who have immigrated even under States and they start bad-mouthing other immigrants I said wait a minute you're a foreigner you're an immigrant what are you talking about and they always say but they are different they're different from me when I was doing it and they say this is different I mean one thing you watch the politicians in the United States the greatest country in the history not just now but the history of the world as if these politicians they've been they've studied 10 000 years and I say to myself you were talking about the rise and fall of countries had China's come back multiple times but they all eventually fall well historically yes every country no matter who has been on top they've all declined except I mean China's declined several times and been disaster but China for whatever reason is the only country that's been at the bottom and risen to the top three or four times I don't know why yet I'm trying to figure it out but nobody else has done that but wherever you are chances are something's going to go wrong in your country eventually and you if it happens you can say I don't care or you can say well wait a minute my great grandfather got on a boat and went across the sea and made life better for me and my children I should think about it pay it forward is there a cultural entrepreneurship in in let's say China you say they've risen multiple times is it something like that that's caused them to to be resilient in your opinion I have been trying to figure out Andrew if I can I'll get rich you know we all will uh you can figure it out perhaps but I don't know what it is you know whether food water education whatever it is something has happened to cause the Chinese to revive several times what what do you credit Singapore for I saw something recently very boldly saying it's the leadership I think that's important people who maybe don't live in Singapore said well the geography is good what do you credit Singapore's amazing turnaround well if you look at a globe Singapore is the most important port in a and and therefore the world so the location is held dramatically dramatically and as you know uh Singapore became a country independent country in 1965 well if you remember your history that's when Asia started booming Japan Korea all these places that were backwaters or disasters in the 60s and 70s and 80s had a huge boom Asia did so Singapore was at the right place at the right time now the guy who was running Singapore did some very smart things he insisted on bilingualism he insisted that everybody save a huge amount of their income and he actually took their income and made them save him and made them invested so if you wouldn't save and you invest and you educate especially bilingually and you were at the right place chances are you will be successful do you see some of the other countries now there's the Singapore of this the Singapore of that people talk about Rwanda is the Singapore of Africa or Uruguay could be the Singapore of of of South America are there other pending Singapore's that you're aware of and does any country ever come close or is there much more fragmentation well if it were that easy Andrew all we'd have to do is just go around and pedal pedal the method um I see good things happening in Uzbekistan now he was because that was an old Soviet Republic which disaster the Soviets ruined it and it was a disaster of it there's a few times but now the people running it back to your point about leadership these people seem to be doing the right thing they know what they think they know what has to be done and they seem to be doing it saving investing all of the things that make Society successful I see what's happening there I look around the world I see possibly good things happening in Colombia you know Colombia was in ravaged by Civil War for decades one of the things I have learned if you go to a country at the near the end of a war or a civil war chances are you're going to make a lot of money because everything's cheap nobody has optimism nobody nothing's expensive and new ideas can go a long way so finding a place at war or disaster epidemic whatever it is can be a useful guideline but back to the ones that I see I see things happening in Colombia I see things I think I see things happening in Uzbekistan Rwanda certainly has good press I don't know how much of it is accurate or not but it the one time I was there I was impressed what one of the things that happened that helped Rwanda a lot was you know after the massacre everybody felt guilty and so the Western countries put a lot of money a lot of money into Rwanda so got an astonishing infrastructure with all of this yo money I'm not saying it's bad but it certainly helped them enormously so if you can find some kind of change positive change in a country or Society you might have a great success we talked the other day about fewer opportunities for Americans and I would imagine the future the West because oh sanctions some of those places that are coming out of War whether it's Germany or Japan decades ago wherever it may be next perhaps there's an advantage to to being Diversified in order to make investments that someone is American or some other Western passport holder can't well if you have more than one passport you certainly run into opportunities that you might not otherwise for instance right now I'm an American but I mean I have an American passport I have other paths but you know investing in Ukraine is not practical for me now investing in Russia is Not Practical for me now but I do know investing in countries at War usually leads to great opportunity if you have I mean Americans are not likely to invest in Russia right now but if you are Brazilian or something you're Hawaiian you might be able to invest in Russia and you might find good opportunities which are closed off to people who don't have the options and so you can make up your own mind ethically and financially what you want to do rather than your country doing it for you you're saying I don't know if I'm very smart but I think I'm smarter than bureaucrats in Washington I hope I'm smarter than I am let's talk about China there are folks saying demographics moving in the wrong direction it's the last decade for China you've been uh very favorable towards China since the books came out and I think still today why are those folks wrong well I mean I look back at history China is the only country that's been successful more than once and but remember the U.S oh my gosh in the United States we had huge problems we had a horrible Civil War we had many depressions with a d we had illegal dishonest politicians we've had many things ever had yes many things have gone wrong in the United States but for whatever reason we overcame those problems and became very successful that is going to happen in other countries in the future it has happened in the past you know in a hundred years ago Britain was the richest most successful country in the world there was no number two 50 years later Britain went bankrupt IMF had to fly into London and bail them out couldn't pay their bills so these things happen no matter who you think you are and no matter where you think you are something can change and will change so I hope that all of us learn enough history or learn enough about the world to know something is going to change and take advantage of it when you say We As Americans tell me how as someone who invests in a lot of places around the world someone who no longer lives in the United States what is your identity and and relationship in your mind with the United States well I'm a U.S citizen and therefore a U.S taxpayer unfortunately America is one of I think only two countries in the world where you have to pay American taxes no matter what other countries don't do that other countries don't think that's a fair system I don't think it's a fair we live in Singapore you're paying Singapore you need to pay a lot less yes and if you don't earn money in country X you don't have to pay taxes in country X except the us when you don't live there yeah and you don't live there doesn't matter under the American system and as I said it's only one of two in the world that I've heard of so I don't consider it fair but who cares what I think they think it's fair in Washington so that's the system but other people don't have that problem I mean if you're Portuguese and you live in Brazil you don't pay any taxes well you choose you choose where you want to pay basically rather than it being chosen for you you do choose you choose many things if you live in a different place and if you have multiple passports which are perfectly legal one good thing about the United States is you can have as many passports as you want nobody will stop you there are some countries Singapore you can only have one passport for historic reasons so some countries are more open and free if you have used that term it depends on where you are if you had to choose would you want to be an American or would you want to be a Singaporean citizen if it came down to one or the other well for the reasons I mentioned before in America I can have more than one passport in Singapore you can only have one passport and I consider that dangerous no matter what the country if you can only have one passport because I don't know what's going to happen in the next 50 years but I won't have the option which having one passport could be dangerous we talked about China and I know historically you've said perhaps Hong Kong should adopt uh there may be what are your thoughts on China's currency now in in if you had to imagine a situation when the currency opened up and perhaps presented more of a more competition to the dollar what would that take well I I own a lot of US dollars but I know that the era of the US dollar is coming to an end no currency stayed on top forever and no more than 100 150 years none in history I can see that era of the US Dollars coming to an end but Andrew I don't see another currency at the moment that can compete except the Chinese currency but China the currencies are blocked currency you can't just buy and sell it like you can Euros or dollars or something so until China completely opens its currency I don't see its practice now they're doing it they've been doing it for 20 years not enough if you ask me but it's the only currency that I see on the horizon that someday can compete with the US dollar I hope something else comes along but I don't see it yet do you think China will take moves to be more open in that regard well they have been since for 20 years they have been opening it up but for some reason I mean if I were Beijing I'd open it today I'd say hello Beijing make it completely open today they don't care what I think they have been moving in that direction there are people now who say that China's closing off again I maybe it is but it's not like 50 years ago I hope that China continues to open up it'll be good for the world and good for China one of our VIPs was asking about bricks and your thoughts on that some new countries joining this Alliance let's call it what what do you what impact you see bricks happening on the world and what does it mean to you as an investor if anything but I don't pay too much attention to Bricks bricks as I'm artificial you know with a guy in Wall Street have looked at a map and said oh look at those he'd never been to most of them in fact he'd only been to one he didn't know what he was talking about he just looked at a map since it was he was at Goldman Sachs they all listened to him they wrote it down and listened to him but even now bricks in my estimation is nothing more than a figment of somebody's imagination it's they say they're expanding but they're not expanding anything more than just annual meetings that I can see there's nothing behind the concept they're all wonderful countries and they're going to be could have been it will be successful countries but I don't see and you know Andrew as I look at history there have been very few if any alliances of countries that have lasted very long particularly in so many different parts of the world I mean from Brazil to China I mean that's that's very different well said well put yes that's makes it even more improbable if you ask me China and India there's been comparisons between those two you speak very favorably of China thoughts on India as an investor well first of all if you can only visit one country in your life I would say to go to India I mean there's no the man-made sites the natural sites the food the languages the religion everything you walk down the street in India and it's a constant sensory Feast you sit there and say look at that and the women are always winning the beauty contest I mean it's amazing place but the Indians learn bureaucracy from the English and then they took it to a higher plane the Indians are very good in many things it's their great success stories in India and coming out of India but I don't quite see it partly because there are so many languages and ethnic groups and linguistic groups that yes there's Court there is success and there will be more successes coming out of India but I don't see it anytime soon it's getting better at the moment but so in many other places I don't see India becoming the next China yet maybe it will but I don't see it country I've heard you talked about before you came here you've spoken about it we've looked at it for the past couple years because it's a region that we look at Uzbekistan what are they doing that makes you very interested because I think a lot of people most people in the west haven't heard of Uzbekistan but in post-soviet countries Georgia those companies are really piling in well Uzbekistan on a map it's it's got a good geographic location it's right near China India Russia many other places they have a lot of Natural Resources agriculture metal many things are there it's a big country so they have a lot of Natural Resources they have some of the most amazing tourist sites I have ever seen I have only been there three or four times but it is astonishing that I I suspect it's going to be a tourist Mecca eventually because there are so many amazing sites there Tamara Lane for those who may not remember timeline was one of the world's great conquerors a few hundred years ago he was who's Pakistan but he built a lot of good stuff many other people did too so I see tourism natural resources lots of things the the location is geographically very good for trade and commerce with important countries in the world and if you have the right people saying let's open up let's get investors here let's do things it could be very successful what about Colombia stands out to you Colombia is another country you know had this long Civil War drug war Civil War every problem and it is a country with a lot of Natural Resources a lot of smart people and it is changing apparently the war is it has ended we think uh and Colombia has enormous possibilities is that because of geography because of something else well I would say the natural resources they've got oil they've got agriculture they've got marijuana they have everything you want marijuana is legal in much of the world now so a lot of the problems that they had they don't have now and the location right there top of South America close to the United States could be useful others here in Southeast Asia were in Kuala Lumpur Indonesia Cambodia Vietnam have been talked about any of those interest you well you know Indonesia is the largest country I mean it's got over 300 million people it's a very large country and in recent months recent years I have noticed that something is changing in Indonesia it's not now just a closed off whatever closed off country they seem to be opening up they seem to be trying to attract investors and so I am interested in Indonesia now for the first one of the few times in my life yes I see good things Vietnam the same thing there are 90 million people in a country with education more or less one language you know many ethnic they don't have the ethnic Strife that some countries have that holds people back and it's right on the Chinese border they're not at War anymore with China so I see good possibilities in fact the ones you mentioned yes I've opened an account in Cambodia recently I haven't bought anything yet but it's just a tiny country so it could be useful in the future now there are many countries in Asia North Korea I wish I could invest in North Korea I cannot because it's illegal for Americans but I see positive changes coming there many places in in Asia you're less excited about India but does population play a role in to what extent in terms of you're saying Indonesia Vietnam larger populations does that make it more interesting well it's it's an interesting part of the mix that in of itself does not make it more interesting but if you are Vietnam and you do have 90 million people it gives you manufacturing scale if you want it Market scale if you want so yes it could be a positive factor it can be a negative factor you know for a long time the Chinese thought having too many people was negative they made people that couldn't have children they limited the number of children because mouth mousy tongue thought that too many children was a problem so it can go either way you wrote the book hot Commodities thoughts on Commodities in today's market I know we're not doing Hot Tips we'll talk on that in a minute but thoughts on where are hot Commodities today well as I look around the world most stock markets are at or near all-time highs which doesn't turn me on most Bond markets are in above all the interest rates are have been the lowest in recorded history in much of the world so as I have property in many places as a bubble if you go to New Zealand Korea many places properties of bubble but the only the cheapest asset class I know are Commodities I mean Sugar's down over 60 percent from its all-time high Silver's down over 60 percent from its all-time high these are not bubble numbers when you talk about being down massive percentage points so I think I see good opportunities going forward in Commodities and before you ask I will say agriculture is very cheap historically agriculture has been a disaster for a long time the average age of farmers in America is 58 the average age of farmers in Japan is 66 I mean I can go at the highest rate of suicide in the UK is agriculture you know agriculture has been a disaster for most people for a long time and that's happened throughout history you go back and you read the Russian novels about how rich the agriculture parents were Once Upon a Time true of many countries but we've had periods when the agriculture has been a disaster in the area in history but that often changes and I suspect it's changing again yes which is one last one more people in America study public relations than study agriculture nobody wants to be a farmer I've seen isolated incidents I think in Italy for example some uh students from urban areas said there aren't that many jobs here that's a challenge in parts of southern Europe and they're actually going back do you see any other examples of that or you really think that it's an opportunity to get in well I know it's an opportunity it's not for me I don't want to go out and get hot and dirty every day you know I'm too lazy but for many people who like being in the sun and working with their hands or working with growing things I mean as I said look at history there have been times when the agricultural people have been wildly successful and wildly Rich so I know it's an opportunity it's not for me I mean I do invest in agriculture now but it depends everybody has to figure out what they love the best for their own future lastly we discussed yesterday evening your opposition to Hot Tips obviously what you might know even if you wanted to tell somebody they don't have the full picture they don't know what to buy or when to sell but you talked about a good investor wants things to be boring what are your suggestions for becoming a good investor the best way is to stay with what you know everybody watching this knows a lot about something whether it's cars or sports or fashion something and every day you read about it whatever it is I mean I don't know anything about fashion don't care but there are people watching this who love fashion who can name many things and those are the people that can be the good investors because they will see something change they will see something change certainly before I will or before Wall Street will and if you see something changing that you know is going to work because you know a lot about it and pay a lot of attention do your research do your homework and invest and then call me and call me give him send him the Hot Tips yeah just tell me about I'm not going to do it because of your hot chip but at least I might start trying to look into it the same way you look into all these countries all over the map well I have learned that if you do your research chances are you'll be successful don't worry I make plenty of mistakes but I make fewer mistakes when I've done a lot of research than when I've done nothing and you've said there's always an opportunity to make money pretty much everywhere well there's always some place and some body rising and there's always somebody going into a decline that's a simple life that's history that's the world Mr Rogers it's a bit of pleasure to have you with us oh Andrew if you only knew this has been such a pleasure for me and I will say again this is such a good idea such a good idea to teach people about the opportunities in the world so I hope you're doing a good job and I hope you keep it up thank you thank you thank you [Music]

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 430,071

Keywords: nomad capitalist, go where you're treated best, andrew henderson, Jim Rogers Interview, Economic Insights, Global Finance, Investment Strategies, Singapore Success, Financial Expert, Investor Wisdom, Economic Outlook, Finance Talks, Wealth Management, Market Trends, Emerging Markets, Financial Future, Economic Growth, global citizen, leaving us, life in singapore, exploring singapore, india and china, colombia, investing in asia

Id: 1iZz1sSs92k

Length: 36min 43sec (2203 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2023