Even New York could end up in economic ruins

I have been a lot of places and you see how rich they once were, whether it is Belfast or Prague or whatever, you see how rich they once were and now they are destroyed! You go to Carthage; Carthage at one time was the terror of the Roman Empire. Carthage is just flat! There’s nothing there except stones and ruins. 

So it doesn’t matter who you are. Rome! Rome went from a population of millions to a population of a few thousand by the time it got into its major decline. .... the Romans actually ruined themselves because they spent money, they debased the currency, they went huge debt, a staggering number of regulations, all the things that have happened throughout history. But what really brought them down was they stopped paying pensions to the soldiers because they didn’t have enough money. Well, the soldiers didn’t like that so they went around getting their own pensions. But yes it did go into a decline and then the barbarians marched in because there was nobody to defend it.

Some day we are going to New York and look around, if the buildings are still there, and say ‘my god these guys must have had a huge amount of money once upon a time!’ Maybe the buildings will have fallen down or be abandoned or bombed if war comes, but no it doesn’t matter who you are, it’s going to end..




Jim Rogers is a smart investor who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1973. By 1983 the fund gained more than 4000 percent.