Time Magazine interviews Jim Rogers

There's an interview with Jim Rogers in the current issue of Time Magazine.

Naturally, he's still bullish on two areas with which he has long been associated but that have fallen upon hard times lately - China and commodities.

And, of course, he's still wearing bow ties.

A couple highlights:

You were one of the first to call the commodities boom. Now that prices have fallen, has your bullishness changed?

No, no, not in the least. In the past 150 years or so, we've had eight or nine periods where there was forced liquidation of everything, with no regard to the fundamentals. Well, we're in one of those periods. In fact, what's happening now is improving the fundamentals of commodities. Farmers cannot even get loans for fertilizer. Certainly no one is going to get a loan to open a zinc mine. Supply is going down — this is very bullish. We have a decline in demand, but the world is in recession. We presume that is a business cycle.

So if I wanted to make money in oil, how long would my time horizon have to be?

I don't know whether you're going to have to wait six days, six months or six years before oil starts skyrocketing again. I covered a lot of my shorts [i.e., short positions] a couple of weeks ago and bought more commodities; I bought more agricultural commodities. I'm not a very good market timer, but I've been going back into the market. Ask me in a couple of years.

What other commodities have you been buying?

I only buy my indexes. I bought the agricultural index and I bought the general index. I think I'm going to make more money in agriculture than in other things for a while, but I'm not a very good market timer. I'm the world's worst trader.
...
How worried are you about the slowdown in China's GDP growth?

I'm not worried at all. China could have a recession, it's not going to be the end of the story. In the 19th century, America had 15 depressions with a "d," a horrible civil war, we had very few human rights, we had no rule of law, we had regular massacres in the street. China will certainly have setbacks along the way. A lot of people think China can't have a recession. That's balderdash. China can have a recession like everybody else. Is it the end of the story? No. If it happens, you buy yourself some more China.

He also had some unkind words about the recent bailouts in the U.S. - something about Wall Street calling up Hank Paulson and warning of financial market meltdown while their true motives were making their Maserati and plane payments.