Governments thru out history have gone bankrupt

The norm is for governments to go bankrupt over in the extended periods of time including the countries which are on top. It's happened throughout history. 

After the First World War a hundred years ago U.K. was the richest most powerful country in the world there was no number two, well I can remember when the U.K. went bankrupt two generations later, three generations later could not sell long term debt I.M.F. had to bail them out.

You're not old enough to remember when the French were like that or the Spanish or the Dutch,  everybody has been on top – well not everybody – but many people have been on top one time or another they've all gone bankrupt. 

In 2008 Bear Stearns disappeared, Bear Stearns had been around over 90 years. Lehman Brothers disappeared. Lehman Brothers had been around over 150 years. A long, long time, a long glorious history they’ve been through wars, depression, civil war they've been through everything and yet they disappear.

So the next time around it's going to be worse than anything we've seen and a lot of institutions, people, companies even countries, certainly governments and maybe even countries are going to disappear. I hope you get very worried.

US Dollar Bubble vs Gold bubble

I expect more turmoil in the markets and when there's turmoil, people look for safe haven. Now, many people think the U.S. dollar is a safe heaven. It's not. It's not, .... because, you know, the U.S. is largest debtor nation in the history world and getting worse all the time, but people still think it is. So that's why I own a lot of dollars. The dollar's gonna go higher. It may even turn into a bubble before this over, if things get as bad as I think they will. At which point, I hope I'm smart enough to sell my U.S. dollars. I don't know, maybe if I'm right about gold, you know, the dollar will go higher. It'll turn into a bubble, I'll sell my U.S. dollars and buy gold under a thousand. See how easy it is to get rich? Just sit here and talk about it on the internet and you can get rich. So that's what I expect to happen.

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.

EU breakup could cause a lot of chaos in the markets

If the European Union starts breaking up or the Euro starts breaking up, that's going to throw a spanner in a lot of people's works because nobody's really sort of planned on that. Most of the bonds, the Euro bonds, none of them, very few of them now have any provision for what happens if there is no Euro. I mean Italy owns several billion dollars’ worth of bonds. Suppose Italy pulls out of the Euro and they suddenly say OK we're going to pay you back in Lira, well that's going to confuse a lot of people and cause a lot more turmoil. 

You have the same sorts of movements in Asia not nearly as powerful or as vocal yet but you have the same sorts-- in the United States there's a movement now for California to withdraw from the U.S. and by the way in the U.S. a lot of people would like to see California leave the U.S. So it may work both ways.

So when you start having bear markets as you I’m sure well know one bad thing happens and another bad thing happens and these things snowball just like in bull markets good news comes out then more good news comes out the next thing you know you're five or six or seven years into a bull market.

Well bear markets do the same thing and so we have a lot of bad news on the horizon. I haven't even gotten to war. I haven't even gotten to trade war or anything like that but you know things do go wrong.

Jim Rogers invests in Graphene

In early 2017, Jim Rogers invested in Standard Graphene, a graphene manufacturer based in South Korea. He is also serving as an adviser there.

According to Rogers,

"Scientists say Graphene is going to bring bigger changes to the world than the internet and transistors. It did not exist 15 years ago. It is a miracle material. I have an interest in the company because they seem to be a leader in production of Graphene."

Known as the one-atom-thick material made of carbon atoms, graphene is like a piece of paper but it's stronger than steel and more flexible than rubber.

Historically stock market has problems when the Fed raises rates 3 times

Interest rates are gonna go higher all over the world. We have a very artificial situation with interest rates at zero or negative rates in some places that is not normal and it cannot last. It will not last. So whether the market or the Fed or somebody is going to raise interest rates, historically, once the Fed raises interest rates three times, it usually means the stock market is going to have problems. If it doesn't happen after three times, historically, it has always happened after four times. So we will have another interest rate hike, and that maybe the death knell for the stock market and maybe even for the economy. The caveat for that, of course, is never before have interest rates been at zero, so who knows what will happen this time. Maybe it is different this time.

Watch the video above to watch Jim Rogers expectations of the Stock market reaction to the US Federal Reserve rate hikes. Three or Four rate hikes have historically troubled the markets. Could this time be different ?

Other Topics Discussed:
-US Dollar bubble 
-Silver at the moment is cheaper than Gold but at the moment not buying either
-Would not buy the Japanese Yen 
-Bullish on agriculture

Junk bonds will be in trouble when interest rates rise

I know when interest rates start going up again permanently when the bull market really does come to an end and the interest rates, government bonds, interest rates are going to go very, very high ...., very high if I told you how high you would probably hang up now and not listen to me anymore. But in 1981 interest rates – short term interest rates in America – were over 20%, bonds were yielding over – long term bonds – was yielding over 15%.

We've had these long, long bull and bear markets in bonds in the United States and we probably will again. So when interest rates go higher the junk bonds are going to get destroyed both by interest rates and by credit defaults because many of them are in fact junk, the companies are not great creditors and they're going to pay the price.

Jim Rogers on bonds and junk bonds

As we speak in February of 2017 everybody is bullish on long term U.S. government bonds. I've been around long enough Eric to know that when everybody is on the same side of the boat, I better run to the other side. So I am not shorting government bonds. 

I am shorting junk bonds still if and when the mood changes and people are less skeptical and bonds go down and everybody starts saying, oh, bonds cheated me, she lied to me, they lied then I might be ready to short bonds again because we're certainly in the process of making a top. When that top comes, I don't know.

We are losing our freedoms

Governments are always looking out for themselves first and it's the same old thing ..... this has been going on for hundreds of years. The Indians recently did the same thing they withdrew 86% percent of the currency in circulation and they have now made it illegal to spend more than, I think it's about $4000 in any cash transaction. In France you cannot use more than, I think it's a €1000.

Many countries are already doing this. Some states in the U.S. you cannot make cash transactions above a certain amount. Governments love it. Then they can control you. If you want to go and buy a cup of coffee they know how many you drink, where you buy them etc. if they can all put it into electronic formats and they will the world is all going electronic. My children will probably never go to a bank when they're adults, maybe never go to a post office maybe even never to a doctor or rarely to a doctor when they're adults.

So the Internet and the computers changing everything that we know, money can certainly be easily converted to computers not today because there are still, some people who don't have computers and the system is not ready it but it can be done and when it's done the governments are going to be very, very happy they going to say they're doing it for our own good, this is not them, this is for our good. That they're doing this, but it’s coming and it's going to be a whole different world in which we live. 

Probably we are not going to have as many freedoms as we have now even though we are already losing our freedoms at a significant pace.

When things go wrong we look to blame others

Whenever things are bad and things are going wrong people look for somebody to blame. They always throughout history wherever we are, whichever country we're discussing the first people blamed are always the foreigners… it's always happened that way to blame the foreigners for better or for worse it seems it is happening as you point out in the U.S. again but it's also happening in other places in Germany, France, Italy many places they're blaming the foreigners already again it's even happening in Singapore to some extent where I live…

And as you rile up against the foreigners most countries historically have closed off one way or the other they close their borders, they close their economies and when you close the economy it leads to economic problems and sometimes eventually if you get into real serious trade wars it leads to bankruptcy and even worse.

Trade Wars

It's rare and I don't think ever in history that one country has started a trade war and the other country says, “oh well that's too bad but we're not going to do anything we're just going to sit here and let you hit us again and again and again.” No the other countries retaliate that’s the way human beings are.

So if country X. starts a trade war then country Y. hits back and then country X. hit's back and country Y. hits back and the next thing you know countries C and D and E are involved as well and everybody's suffering and then as economies get worse more and more things happen more and more discrimination more and more blame and then eventually bullets start flying.

I don't like at all what I see happening. There are many analogies to previous periods in history before the First World War and this sort of thing started happening certainly before the Second World War this sort of thing started happening. It's been common throughout history.

And these wars when they start they usually-- in 1914 nobody, nobody could conceive of war and then the next thing you knew, there was war and everybody said don't worry it'll be over by Christmas, well six months later everybody was saying, how did we get into this war? How do we get out of this war? It's absurd. It's ludicrous...