‘A Pox on Both Their Houses’
Investing
legend Jim Rogers says it doesn’t matter who wins Election 2012.
In his view,
both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney are equally
bad.
“I repeat
Shakespeare: A pox on both their houses as far as I’m concerned,”
Rogers said in a Breakout
interview this week. “These are the guys who got us into this
problem, so why does anybody think they will get us out?”
The “problem”
to which Jim Rogers is referring to is the sluggish U.S. economy,
dragged down by the huge $16 trillion federal debt and annual budget
deficits in excess of $1 trillion.
Rogers predicted
that regardless of who wins Election 2012, things won’t get better.
“If Mr.
Obama wins, his friends are gonna get more money. If Mr. Romney
wins, his friends are gonna get more money. But you and I, and everybody
watching this show are gonna be worse off because the debt’s going
to go higher, and the turmoil is gonna get worse.”
Rogers blames
both major parties for the nation’s economic ills.
“All of
them have gotten us into this situation,” Rogers said. “Look
at the last 50 years of American history. Republicans, Democrats,
Republicans, Democrats …. It’s not doing us any good. None of
us are benefiting by what’s been going on in Washington.”
Jim Rogers
is so down on U.S. politicians that he has absolutely no preference
as to who wins the White House.
“I
will vote the protest vote. I nearly always vote the protest vote,”
Rogers said without specifying which third-party might get his support.
In Rogers’s
view, a vote for either major party just perpetuates the problem.
“If they
keep sending us turkeys, and we keep voting for turkeys, they’ll
send us more turkeys,” he said.
Jim Rogers
Takes Grim View of Fiscal Cliff
Rogers holds
out little hope for a bipartisan solution – or any solution
for that matter – to the so-called fiscal
cliff.
The fiscal
cliff is political shorthand for the economically lethal combination
of spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to hit Jan. 1, 2013.
It’s the result of the expiration of the President Bush-era tax
cuts combined with $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions in federal
spending made last summer as part of the deal to raise the debt
ceiling.
“I think
they’re going to delay it again,” Rogers said. “That’s
what they do. That’s all they know how to do down there. But it’s
not going to help us at all.”
But no matter
what Washington does, Rogers doesn’t see any easy escape from the
fiscal cliff.
“If they
raise taxes, that’s bad. If they delay everything, that’s bad,”
he said. “None of this is good for us. Do you understand that
the United States is at least in relative decline? They don’t understand
down there [in Washington]. All they want to do is get re-elected.”
Even if Washington
had the political will to do something about the fiscal cliff, Rogers
said, it would make no difference.
“Let’s
say there’s a fiscal cliff or not a fiscal cliff. We’re gonna have
serious problems next year and the year after,” Rogers said.
“For 2013 and 2014 you should be very worried, and you should
prepare yourself.”
Reprinted
with permission from Money
Morning.
October
19, 2012
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.
Copyright
© 2012 Money
Morning