In an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera television, veteran investor Jim Rogers put the blame for the economic crisis on the Federal Reserve and said that if we want a recovery, the World Bank and the IMF should be abolished, not given more power.
Rogers also slammed the current stimulus package, saying that more good money was being thrown after bad and the bailouts were only making things worse. Rogers said the U.S. was following the same disastrous policies as Japan in propping up companies that should be allowed to fail, and that the same consequences would be faced - some as far as 20 years into the future.
Said Rogers:
"The way the system is supposed to work, when times like this come, the solid people, the competent people, take over the assets from the incompetent people and then you start over again from a sound base, this is what South Korea did, this is what Russia did, and they did fine. What they’re doing this time is they’re taking the assets away from the competent people and giving them to the incompetent people and saying now you compete with the competent people with their assets and their money - it’s terrible economics and it’s not going to work, it hasn’t worked before and it’s not going to work this time,"
"The way the system is supposed to work is when you make a mistake you go broke, he refused to let people go broke, he saved his friends and now we’re all having to pay for them,"
When asked if he had any respect for the World Bank and the IMF, Rogers responded, "Zero....the best thing that would happen would be if we could abolish the World Bank and the IMF, they were set up in 1945 and ‘46 with very sound goals and very sound aspirations - they have far far far left behind those aspirations and goals, they’re now run by people who do little more than take care of themselves....look at their projects and you would be mortified."
When asked what if any sectors would be profitable in the crash, Rogers advised people invested in stocks to "get yourself a tractor and learn how to farm".