0:11: Hello everybody.
0:11: It's Simon Dixon here and welcome to the very first episode of Bitcoin.
0:16: Hard Talk.
0:16: This is where we have hard talk about hard money over the last 20 years that I've been involved in economics, banking, Bitcoin and everything in between.
0:27: I've met some of the greatest minds and investors in the industry and some of those are at different places in the curve of what they believe in Bitcoin or whether they don't.
0:39: And so what I wanted to do is rather than being an echo chamber of me getting already converted people that believe in Bitcoin onto the show will certainly have some of those I wanted to also bring in people from the traditional world so that we can get a perspective of how they think and we can get different angles because I think it's always good to question your beliefs so that you can actually strengthen your beliefs if you still believe in that way or whether we can make Bitcoin better by actually understanding some of the things ahead.
1:13: So this very first episode, I got Mr Jim Rogers who I did a tour with in China.
1:21: and I was giving the Bitcoin talk, he was given the China America talk and we got to spend a lot of time together.
1:29: And so I thought he would be a great person to get on the show because he actually gave a comment recently that he believes that Bitcoins go into zero.
1:38: So I wanted to understand a bit more dive a bit deeper.
1:41: And so we're gonna now move over to the interview in the very first episode of Bitcoin Hard Talk.
1:48: For those of you not familiar with Jim Rogers, he's a billionaire investor that's actually traveled over 340,000 miles, six continents, 100 and 16 countries in and actually got him in the Guinness Book of Records twice.
2:03: He wrote two books on his adventures, Investment biker and adventure capitalist.
2:07: He's the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with billionaire investor George Soros and he's the creator of the Rogers International Commodity Index as a very successful commodities trader.
2:28: Hello, everybody.
2:29: It's Simon Dixon here from Bitcoin Hard Talk where we have hard talk about hard money.
2:34: And today we have a very special guest, Mr Jim Rogers.
2:38: we first met in China when we were doing a tour and I've been studying Mr rogers' work for a very long time.
2:47: I read his book, Investment Biker, which took a whole tour around the world.
2:53: which was a very fascinating book.
2:55: I'd recommend to all and there's been many books since.
2:58: and today we're gonna discuss try and get a perspective from Mr Jim Rogers on what he's seeing today.
3:05: But just before I do that for those that are not too familiar with your investment approach, My, I guess my summary of Mr Rogers investment approach is looking for cheap things in game changing scenarios.
3:21: So if a country looks like it's shifting from communism to capitalism, And there might be some bargains as a result of a, of a, a communist policy.
3:30: Is that, is that correct, Jim, how would you summarize your, your investing work over the years?
3:36: Well, Simon, I can see why you have a show.
3:38: You said it better than I did.
3:40: All I would say is I try to find things that are cheap where there's change taking place.
3:45: But boy, you said you're good at this?
3:47: Brilliant.
3:48: OK.
3:50: So when you see the I, I guess one of the things that's coming at the moment is if we're moving into a recession and a depression, which it seems like we're moving that way.
4:02: The phrase that you always get is cash is king.
4:04: Now, one of the things that's not captured in that phrase is which cash?
4:10: So what do you think?
4:11: whi which type of cash would you be holding right now?
4:14: And which cash might be king?
4:16: Great insight I would remind you that in 2007, a lot of people said there's gonna be a gigantic problem.
4:23: So they put all their money into cash in Icelandic Krona because it was yielding very high rates of interest.
4:30: And of course, Iceland went bankrupt and they lost their shirts.
4:33: So you gotta have the right cash.
4:35: If you're gonna put your money into cash there, hundreds of, well, dozens scores anyway of kinds of cash out there at the moment.
4:44: I mainly own us dollars.
4:46: Now.
4:47: I hope you're gonna say what, why the United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.
4:53: And it's getting worse every day, Simon.
4:56: So why do I own it?
4:57: Because around the world, most currencies are suspect now and in times of trauma, times of crisis, people look for a safe haven.
5:08: They think for historic reasons that the US dollar is a safe haven.
5:13: It's not, it's not the largest debtor nation in the world, but people think it is.
5:18: So I own a lot of us stock.
5:20: It's going to get overpriced.
5:22: It might even turn into a bubble.
5:24: And at which point, I hope I'm smart enough to sell my US dollars and put the money elsewhere.
5:31: Ok.
5:31: So when we were in the China tour, which seems like a lifetime ago,, at the moment with so much has happened since,, you were very bullish on China and you were making investments in Russia.
5:47: , are you, are you still, do you still hold that view?
5:51: Well, yeah.
5:51: Well, my view was and is that China is going to be the most important country in the 21st century?
5:57: I mean, look out the window.
5:58: Well, you can't look out the window there but where we were before you could see what's happening in China and it will continue to happen, there will certainly be many sets setbacks along the way.
6:08: I mean, the United States had huge setbacks as it became the most important country in the 20th century.
6:14: UK had huge sex backs as it became the most important country in the 19th century.
6:20: So sure China is gonna have a lot of problems, but I don't see anybody else on the horizon.
6:26: I do own shares in Russia.
6:28: Russia was certainly hated back in those days, I, I bought more Russian share.
6:32: I bought more Chinese shares recently.
6:34: So yes, I continue to invest in both of those places.
6:39: Ok.
6:41: And obviously with you know, the, the the cash situation at the moment, there's, you know, it seems like the countries with the highest levels of debt are still being considered safe havens.
6:55: So, you know, the in 2007, we had an issue with too much debt.
7:00: and yet the Federal Reserve has got a lot more debt.
7:03: People are also looking at the Japanese Yen as a safe haven where the debt, I think you even wrote a book on warning the Japanese people.
7:11: Why do we look at what, what, what is, what's going wrong here and what, why is this happening?
7:17: Well, that's why there are always opportunities in the, in the world, especially in the investment world because most people look back instead of looking forward and the US dollar has been the world's reserve currency for 7080 years now.
7:32: And the Japanese Yen has been a great, was a great currency for a while.
7:36: You know, it went up a great deal.
7:38: Japan was soundly financed.
7:39: So people, people don't keep up or they don't do their homework or whatever.
7:44: I mean, Japan is a disaster.
7:45: Yes, I've written three books now in Japan about what the, the gigantic problems come in.
7:51: But people don't, they don't, they don't think about it.
7:54: They don't do their homework.
7:55: I don't know.
7:56: You have to, maybe they should watch,, your show to keep up with things, but people don't understand that the United States is going over a cliff.
8:04: I hope I get it right.
8:06: I own the US dollar.
8:07: I hope I have enough sense to get out in time.
8:09: But people own the Swiss Frank.
8:12: Oh my God.
8:13: When I was a kid, the Swiss Frank was the paragon of virtue.
8:16: Now, the Swiss Frank is backed by, by Amazon and Google and you know, Netflix I mean, it's astonishing what can, how countries can change.
8:28: Yeah.
8:28: So, I mean, Swiss Bank is, is really interesting that,, we've now reached,, a day and age when central banks are buying foreign stocks.
8:38: , and maybe that, you know, how, how is one meant to even understand markets at the moment.
8:45: So, you know, the bond market seems like it's in a bubble with,, low yields yet.
8:50: , if everyone, if the whole world owns dollars, then they obviously want yield.
8:55: And so they're buying treasuries.
8:58: if you know, the stocks just seem completely pumped, pumped up by central banks and quantitative easing.
9:06: So how, how is one meant to actually, it seems like the markets are politics now and they're no longer the markets.
9:14: Well, very insightful.
9:15: Yeah, again, look out the window everywhere in the world is doing it.
9:18: You know, central bankers right now, if you look to your right or to your left out, they're cranking up the printing presses as fast as they can, whether it's Japan or America wherever it is and they're putting all that money into markets.
9:31: And that's why markets are are up so much.
9:33: You, you said something like seems like bonds that are in a bubble.
9:37: Simon, this is a bubble, this is a real bubble.
9:40: Interest rates are zero, they never and below zero in some countries they have, this has never happened in recorded history.
9:48: Doesn't seem like a bubble, it is a bubble.
9:51: You're looking at a bubble looking you in the eye shares.
9:54: Some shares are in bubble kind of territory.
9:58: As I look around the world, the only asset class I see that's cheap or the cheapest asset class I should say or commodities, real assets, especially agriculture because it's a disaster.
10:10: You know, sugar is down 80% from its all time high.
10:15: That was not a Typo Simon 8 0% from its all time high.
10:20: So, you know, there may be opportunities out there, but it's certainly not in the bond market.
10:28: Ok.
10:29: So commodities seems to be where you're looking for your value right now.
10:35: Are there any countries that you think are driving like value opportunities at the moment or is it, is it kind of too, too early to buy too late to sell type scenario?
10:47: Well, I mentioned I bought Chinese shares.
10:49: recently I bought Russian shares.
10:51: Recently I bought Japanese.
10:53: I bought Japanese ETF S a week or two ago.
10:56: You know, I mean, Japan's a disaster.
10:58: I've written several books about the disaster in Japan but Simon, the head of the central bank goes to work every morning, goes in early cranks up, the printing press starts printing.
11:09: He buys, he, he buys index futures, he buys ETF S he buys stocks, they gave him permission to buy stocks too.
11:18: He has more money than I do.
11:20: Simon.
11:21: If he's gonna buy ETF si bought ETF S, you know, it's not good for Japan, it's not good for the world, but that's what he's doing.
11:29: So I joined in too.
11:32: So let's switch, switch gears slightly.
11:34: We're talking about commodities and central banks buying assets.
11:38: , I've been given some crazy theories over the years and people have often thought,, I'm a little bit crazy,, in terms of some of the things that I can imagine happening.
11:48: But one of the scenarios is that,, I, I feel like Bitcoin has reached commodity like status in our bubble, you know, I, I speak to traditional investors like you,, that have always thought outside the box because, you know, we, we are in a, in our own little Bitcoin bubble and I like to be, you know, I like yes.
12:13: and I like to, you know, be sanity checked by, people that have many decades more investing experience.
12:19: But,, if the Swiss Central bank is able to buy stocks,, and we enter a time of which it seems like we are right now where there may be, you know, a Bretton Woods style renegotiation of money.
12:36: Is it inconceivable that central banks might,, not the big ones, obviously, but smaller central banks in a, in a game of trying to conceive power,, might make an asymmetric bet by announcing that they're holding some Bitcoin as a reserve.
12:52: How, how do you see a scenario like that playing out?
12:55: I mean, anything is possible if you are, I, I'm older than you, but I've read a lot of history.
13:02: It's a shock and a stunning what, what bureaucrats and politicians and central banks can do.
13:08: It's just amazing you read back over some history and you say, how did they do that?
13:12: How could they 20 years from now?
13:15: We're gonna look back and say, how could interest rates have been negative, never happened in history and therefore appeared all over the world.
13:23: People accepted negative interest rates.
13:25: So it's stunning what people have done in history and what they can do and will do.
13:31: Yes.
13:31: Anything is possible.
13:33: Anything is possible.
13:35: Is it going to be bit, who knows why not?
13:38: But I mean, I would suspect not.
13:42: but we will see as, as you, as you and I we have discussed recently, but as you know, many cryptocurrencies have already disappeared.
13:50: S there were thousands at one time, many of them have already gone to zero and disappeared.
13:56: And my, as you know, I guess we're gonna come to this later.
14:00: I expect all of them to go to zero eventually.
14:03: including Bitcoin.
14:05: Yeah, let's dive straight into that then.
14:07: So from our perspective, Bitcoin is very different to every other Cryptocurrency that was created since it's like stop right there for a second.
14:16: You just said very dangerous things.
14:19: Some of the most dangerous words in the investment business are, it's different this time.
14:25: Be very careful when you hear your saying it's different this time.
14:29: Go ahead, I'll listen.
14:30: Yeah.
14:31: Well, I mean, you, you have warned about that constantly,, in your work that you, you know, you're in a, in a crazy scenario when you're saying this time is different.
14:39: , but this, but this time is different.
14:43: ,, in terms of Bitcoin, it, it, we, we see it as, you know, kind of like gold is very different to other commodities.
14:51: We see Bitcoin is very different to other cryptocurrencies for, for various reasons just in terms of its the the properties behind it.
15:01: And yeah, so you see it going to zero, help us, help us understand what you're seeing that we're not seeing.
15:09: Well, for thousands of years, people have used whatever they wanted as money.
15:15: Seashells, sugar cubes, cattle, gold, silver.
15:21: 100 years ago, banks could print their own money legally.
15:24: You know, if you were a bank in Germany, you print your own money.
15:27: No, it was legal to do so or England or elsewhere.
15:32: Then in the 19 thirties, the Bank of England, which was the most important bank in the world at the time said from now on it is an act of treason if you use anything for money except our money.
15:44: Well, Simon treason means they execute you.
15:47: So people stopped using other forms of money because nobody wanted to be executed.
15:54: And that's what's going to happen again.
15:57: I know all of you guys in the crypto world are smarter than the bank smarter than the governments.
16:03: You know, you're smarter than the government.
16:05: I know you're smarter than the government.
16:07: But Simon, they have the guns, they all have the guns.
16:10: And when the Bank of England said it's treason, people stopped using other money and when the bank of whoever or banks of whoever says it's treason, people are gonna stop using alternative currencies.
16:25: Now.
16:25: Yes, money is gonna be on the computer.
16:28: There is no question, money is gonna be on the internet but it's gonna be their money in China.
16:33: Simon.
16:34: It's already, I mean, you China's already come up with their own computer money.
16:39: But even before that, when it was Rindy, you know, you can't take a taxi in China with money.
16:47: Now with Renminbi Chinese legal money, you cannot take a taxi, you cannot buy ice cream, you got to have your money on the computer on the, or you can't do it.
16:58: And now the Chinese have come up with their own crypto money if you want to call it that.
17:04: But it's their crypto money and you, I don't think what you want.
17:07: We all can think what we want.
17:09: But I suspect that eight years from now, eight months from now, three years from now, you're not gonna be able to go into China and use anything except their crypto money and that's gonna spread to the rest of the world as well.
17:25: Yeah, we're certainly aligned with,, countries gonna be creating their own central bank digital currencies.
17:31: They have been,, that's been on the cards for a long time.
17:35: And,, I think in, in a, in a money printing environment,, I think a central bank, digital currency could end up being used instead of a bank bailout to try and recap, recapitalize the system.
17:49: I think the, the, the difference, well, there's a couple of assumptions there.
17:53: I think that the first assumption is that all governments will make Bitcoin illegal.
18:00: Now, what we have seen is that in the past, you know, gold ownership was made illegal in America.
18:08: So I believe Jim from, from your own experience in, you went to Canada and Switzerland to acquire your gold.
18:16: And so while there is a market for it in another country, surely there will be a price for it and a demand for it.
18:26: Well, yes, there, there's no question and, and if, what you just said is true, but if people were looking for something else with all due respect, why wouldn't they go to another country and buy gold?
18:38: Why would they go and buy Bitcoin?
18:40: Bitcoin they can only use on a computer, you know, and if the computers are down or something's wrong, what do you?
18:46: What good is it gonna do?
18:47: You, if you go to Canada and buy Bitcoin and then go back to America, I'm using those two countries and you cannot use Bitcoin on your computer system in America.
18:56: What good does it do?
18:57: You?
18:58: At least I could take my, go back to America in my pocket.
19:02: , yes, certainly.
19:05: I mean, I work that way.
19:06: Simon, you know, I'm not nearly as computer literate as you are.
19:10: That's so, by the way, I don't particularly like the fact that the governments have the guns.
19:16: I don't like the fact that the government's Walters.
19:19: But Simon, you have to remember.
19:20: They love it, they love it gives them complete control.
19:24: They will know everything you ever do.
19:27: They can call you up one day and say Simon, you've had too much coffee this month.
19:31: Stop drinking so much coffee.
19:33: They will know everything about you and they think that's wonderful.
19:37: Plus computer money is a lot cheaper for them.
19:39: They don't have to print it.
19:41: They don't have to transport it, they don't have to account for it.
19:44: No, they love this.
19:45: So it's gonna become every government.
19:47: You said some small governments might try X or try, try Bitcoin.
19:52: Why it's so much simpler just to use computer money.
19:57: So there's AAA couple of things there.
19:59: So on the individual level, the, the case for gold is clear, like, you know, if, if people don't have gold you know, that, that's an essential part of everyone's survival mechanism, especially in today's economies.
20:14: But one of the challenges, I mean, Jim, you, you know, you're, you're in Singapore, I'm sure that your gold is pretty close to you.
20:21: But in the time of a lockdown, when you really need your gold, you can't, you is you're not gonna be probably the time you need your gold, you're not gonna be able to fly over to Switzerland or fly over to Singapore if you're not there.
20:35: And that's the time when digital money becomes an important hedge against gold.
20:40: So it's not, it's not that it's one or the other.
20:42: It's, you need, you need y you want some hard money that works when the internet goes down but you also want some hard money that works when when you can't access your gold, which is the time when you probably really need hard money.
20:56: Hooray.
20:57: I hope it happens, Simon.
20:58: But again, I know how these guys think and they think we've got the guns and we're not gonna let those guys get away with it.
21:06: Yeah.
21:07: So Jim, you, you, you, you literally rode a motorcycle around the world to experience all different cultures, all different ways of organizing countries.
21:20: When you see a country like maybe you've been there.
21:23: I, I, I haven't been there but when you see a country like Lebanon at the moment, what these countries do have is they do have electricity and if your currency is in ruin and you wanted to actually re, you know, so one of, one of the things that actually happened is, Bulgaria actually confiscated 200,000 Bitcoins from a criminal organization and those Bitcoins are actually worth greater than their entire national debt.
21:50: , obviously through crony capitalism.
21:53: , well, sorry, through crony politicians, the, the Bitcoins just disappeared and they didn't make their way to the, the government's balance sheet.
22:01: But if I were a country like Lebanon, you know, thinking how they think I'd try and take an asymmetric bet, I'd try and recapitalize and I try and gain some more power by announcing that they're adding something like Bitcoin as a, as a reserve asset and they're dedicating some of their electricity.
22:19: Well, by all means, if, if that's your view and you could persuade them, how about it?
22:25: Let them do it?
22:27: My rejoinder to that is looking at history.
22:31: Is that ok?
22:32: So Lebanon does that, then what if they need to go to France and buy corn or maize?
22:40: What are they gonna do?
22:41: You know, maybe they can get some French farmers to take their bitcoins, maybe, I don't know.
22:47: And then they got to get the shippers to take the, the ships to take the Bitcoin as well.
22:52: Maybe it will happen that way.
22:55: If I were the Lebanese looking for maize, I would take some gold, I would take some silver.
23:03: Yeah.
23:05: Ok.
23:05: , so, well, I guess the, the, the difference there is that they got to try and acquire the silver with the Lebanese or the gold and silver with their currency that no one wants.
23:15: , well, but the same would apply if they wanted to buy Bitcoin, they got to acquire it with something.
23:22: You're suggesting they just acquire it with their electricity.
23:25: They, they can make their own.
23:27: Yeah.
23:27: The way, the way that, the way that Bitcoin works is, you can mine it, which is running.
23:33: No, I know.
23:34: I know.
23:35: So you're suggesting that Lebanon would just sit down and say, ok, well, let's, let's mine some Bitcoin and go to France and buy mate.
23:42: I, I'm suggesting that's what I would do if I were them, but I, I don't know if they're gonna listen to me.
23:48: Ok?
23:49: Nor me.
23:50: Yeah.
23:51: So that's why I, I'll listen to you, you know, maybe nobody else will listen to you and me, but we can listen to each other.
23:58: Yeah.
23:58: Yeah.
23:59: Well, that's why I love your, your philosophy.
24:02: Jim, when it comes to investing, you've always said invest in things, you know, and understand.
24:09: you know, don't listen to me, educate yourself.
24:12: I'm not gonna tell you, you know, what, what works for me may not work for you.
24:16: Cos you don't understand the reasons why I'm investing and we might have different time frames and what do you, what do you suggest to people that you know, are, are watching shows like this and just constantly looking for?
24:28: What does Simon Dixon say?
24:29: I should be buying?
24:30: What does Jim Rogers say I should be buying?
24:33: Well, I would say it again and you said it very eloquently again.
24:36: Don't listen to me, you can listen to Simon if you want to.
24:40: I can tell you what I'm doing but don't do it because I'm doing it.
24:44: As you can see, I have some gold right here.
24:46: I'm like all the other peasants in the world.
24:49: All of us peasants know that when things go wrong, we ought to have some gold and some of us peasants might even be able to make money if we get our timing, right.
24:59: Some of us peasants also have silver.
25:02: Silver right now is actually a lot cheaper than gold on a historic basis.
25:05: So I own gold and silver.
25:08: I'm not buying right now because in Asia, a lot of people are dumping their gold and silver to my right to buy food, you know, because they are hard times.
25:15: But when go I hope I get, get it right and I can buy more gold and silver.
25:20: I mean, a lot of us dollars.
25:22: I've mentioned that before.
25:23: I bought Chinese shares recently, I bought Russian shares.
25:26: I bought the Japanese shares.
25:28: I'm not buying us shares because they're an all time high.
25:32: I'm not buying any bonds.
25:33: Bonds are a bubble nearly everywhere in the world.
25:36: So these are some of the things that I'm doing.
25:39: But Simon, if people cannot find Russia on a map, I hope they don't go buy Russian shares.
25:46: If they don't know how to buy Russian shares, don't go buying Russian shares because you saw some guy on the internet saying he bought Russia only stay with what you know, and if you know and know everything about Bitcoin and you actually know it's going to be great.
26:04: Do it, I tell you you're gonna go bankrupt but don't listen to me do it your own way.
26:09: Yeah.
26:12: and I, I do remember when we met, you were we were in the midst of the 2017 bubble when the Bitcoin was up to 20,000 and you were saying the the future of money is certainly digital.
26:26: But this is a bubble if there ever is one.
26:29: So let me just say I make lots of mistakes.
26:34: I make plenty of mistakes.
26:37: So I don't know at that time, maybe I got something right.
26:40: But I get plenty wrong.
26:42: Yeah.
26:43: and you're willing to admit it, which is, which is great.
26:45: That's AAA rare commodity as it were on online at the moment.
26:51: So switching gears slightly.
26:53: Jim the you, you came from humble beginnings and you made all your own wealth, you know, through through the markets and through different decisions that you made.
27:03: , people are listening to us and you know, we're talking about Bitcoin, we're talking about commodities, but the vast majority of the world are just living month to month right now and can't even, you know, you, you talked about markets crashing cos everyone needs cash just to, just to buy their food.
27:20: , you know, in those early days when, when you didn't have money, what what advice could you give to people that are in this situation?
27:29: Living month to month, they want to start investing but they just can't get, they just can't get on the right side of this debt cycle.
27:38: Well, I told you about some of my mistakes.
27:41: You reminded me of my first wife, my first wife always wanted to spend.
27:45: I kept saying to her she wanted a sofa.
27:48: I said, let's save our money and put it in the market.
27:50: We can have 10 sofas someday.
27:53: That's why she's no longer my wife.
27:55: We had a whole different attitude, but basically you better learn to save, you better learn to accumulate some capital one way or the other.
28:03: because without some capital, you're not gonna be able to invest, you don't have to have a lot, but you've gotta have some if you want to be an investor or you can do it with sweat equity, which means start with your own hands and your own work whatever your, your idea is.
28:20: I mean, I met a Chinese guy once who started out selling bread to farmers early in the morning at six in the morning.
28:27: It was in the early days when, when China was turning from communist to capitalist, he got up early every morning, made bread and sold it to the farmers.
28:35: Now, he's a very rich guy that was his sweat equity.
28:39: If you will, he didn't have any capital, but he knew how to make bread.
28:43: And he had a good idea.
28:44: And so that was how he built up capital.
28:47: But you gotta have something, either a great idea that you can do without capital, you gotta have capital, you're not gonna be able to do it.
28:55: Yeah, I mean, I thought, unfortunately that's the way the world is.
28:59: Lots of people have tried to change that, including lots of communists.
29:02: Well, communism didn't work.
29:03: Socialism didn't work.
29:05: So the only thing I can tell you to do is figure out a fabulous idea that you can do without money, like selling bread to farmers at six in the morning in China or accumulate, save some money and start investing.
29:19: Yeah, spend less.
29:20: You earn, invest the difference.
29:21: But when our role model of the world is the government right now, how are they doing at spending less than they earn and investing the difference?
29:30: What, what would you recommend to governments with these levels of debt today?
29:34: Some go government is not my role model.
29:38: You said government is a role model.
29:40: If, if government is your role model, I suspect you would go down and get a job at the post office because that's not a very good role model.
29:47: As you just pointed out, they all have gigantic debts.
29:50: They're all going deeper and deeper into debt every day.
29:54: I urge you not unless you can find somebody who's gonna lend you in this amounts of money.
29:59: If you can find somebody who will lend you in this amounts of money, take it and start investing in some way.
30:06: But that's not gonna last very long.
30:08: Yeah.
30:10: So you see strengthening Dollar as a result of these trends and where do you see this end?
30:18: Like do, can the dollar just carry on doing what it's doing?
30:21: Can it carry on?
30:22: What, what, what do you see next?
30:23: What's the change here?
30:25: Well, what I see, is that when turmoil return, I mean, there's turmoil when, as the turmoil develops and there's going to be more turmoil before this is over.
30:37: , more and more people will flee to a safe haven and they think the US dollar is a safe haven.
30:45: And the US dollar is gonna get overpriced.
30:48: It could turn into a bubble depending on how bad the, the turmoil becomes.
30:53: And I hope when that happened, my plan is to sell my US dollars and put them somewhere else.
31:00: , maybe, who knows?
31:02: Maybe I'll put it into gold.
31:04: Historically, if, if the dollar gets very, very strong, often gold and silver have gone down or at least gone down have not gone up as much as the dollar has.
31:13: Maybe I'll put it in the gold and silver.
31:16: May.
31:17: China might make its currency convertible by them.
31:22: And especially if they have it on the computer, then maybe I'll put my money into the Chinese room and then, or the Chinese computer money, whatever it's called.
31:31: I don't know what I'll do.
31:32: Simon.
31:33: I have to wait till we get there.
31:35: Yeah.
31:35: My, my guess is you'll look for something a bit more privacy enhancing than,, China's,, digital currency, which I think could be one of the biggest,, threats to freedom, prosperity and personal privacy.
31:49: , that we've gonna be, by the time it's gonna be everywhere, all governments are going to love it.
31:56: They will because they will have total control over everybody.
32:01: They will know who your girlfriend or your boyfriend, whatever you have.
32:04: They'll know, you know, if you've been drinking too much, they'll know everything and they love that.
32:11: That gives government.
32:12: Oh, that's a dream for those guys.
32:15: , so I think, I think we're on the same page that the individual would,, find a demand for Bitcoin.
32:24: But the bit that you think is that the governments will just stop that and then that puts an end to that one.
32:30: I've made many mistakes in my, in my life.
32:33: Simon, you have a different view.
32:35: That's my view.
32:37: And, and especially since Bitcoin does require electric or does require the computer and the computer of course requires electricity.
32:47: So you, you, you have to have the internet and you have to have electricity to have Bitcoins.
32:53: Maybe we can, maybe it will work with us.
32:57: Peasants have a little gold in our pocket and we're gonna sew some silver into our lining.
33:04: You know, just in case I cannot sew electricity into my jacket, I cannot sew the internet into my, into my coat.
33:12: So, Jim in all, in all of your travels and the experience of you know, motorcycling around the whole world.
33:20: Is this a new one for you?
33:22: Have you ever seen an economy on lockdown?
33:27: like this before.
33:28: Is this, is this a new lesson for you or have you seen this before?
33:31: Well, we have been through, I've been through war zones.
33:34: Yes.
33:34: And war zones were not a lot of fun.
33:36: They were somewhat similar but nothing like this.
33:39: You know, Simon, we've had epidemics throughout history of several in this, in the last century and this century even we've had epidemics but never before has the whole world closed down.
33:50: Never before did mcdonald's close because of an epidemic.
33:55: Never before did all the airlines close because of an epidemic this time around.
34:00: It seems looking back on him that some, either the media or politicians or somebody got all hysterical.
34:08: The only solution is to close down and they did.
34:11: And so then it swept all the other politicians who felt they had to do something.
34:16: But as I say, this never happened before.
34:19: There was something 100 years ago called the Spanish flu, which by the way, started in America, but they called it the Spanish flu.
34:26: They had good pr they didn't close the world down.
34:29: 10 in 2009 in America, we had something called the H one N one virus.
34:35: We didn't close mcdonald's, we didn't stop going to football games.
34:39: Now, the whole world continued.
34:40: This is the only time in history that we've closed everything down and it seems to me that, you know, sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease.
34:52: And it seems to me that this is another case where the cure is worse than the disease.
34:58: So when, when we first met, I was in Hong Kong, you were in Singapore and Hong Kong seemed like the right place for me at the time.
35:06: And then a year later, it really didn't.
35:09: So where and there's been a lot of rivalry between Hong Kong and Singapore.
35:15: Where, where, how, how have you seen like Singapore's reaction to the current situation?
35:22: And how do you see Hong Kong at the moment?
35:27: Well, I don't think Hong Kong completely closed down ever if it did, it didn't close for a long period of time.
35:34: , Singapore.
35:36: Singapore is doing a brilliant job.
35:37: Then Singapore closed down everything and things got worse.
35:43: , I would not have done it the Singapore way.
35:46: But who cares?
35:46: I will know in five or 10 years, which way was the right way.
35:50: You know, some Sweden didn't close down.
35:53: Belarus did not close down.
35:56: Eight American states did not close down.
35:59: Well, we'll know the Swedes will say, yeah, we're suffering more now.
36:02: But when the second or third wave comes, we're gonna be better off than all of you who closed down.
36:10: I, I have no idea.
36:11: We'll see.
36:12: I would have taken the Swedish way or the Belarus way and not closed down and because I mean, people are not dumb.
36:19: If you tell everybody there's, there's an epidemic going around.
36:22: People are not gonna go down to the bar and chat up the girls and drink a lot of whiskey with strangers and shake a lot of hands and kiss everybody in sight.
36:31: People are smarter than that.
36:33: So I would have let people take their, take their course, but again, nobody's gonna listen to me, Simon.
36:39: But that's what I would have done if we don't know, we'll know in a few years who would have been right?
36:44: OK.
36:45: So we're, we're drawing to the end of the interview.
36:48: I think it's been incredibly insightful.
36:49: Thank you.
36:50: For your time.
36:52: Why don't you share a little bit about what, what's exciting you at your stage of life now, Jim?
36:56: Are you, are you still deep in, deep in the markets?
36:59: Are you reaching the stage when other things are more important to you?
37:03: What excites you now?
37:04: Well, I never had Children, Simon.
37:06: I was very much against Children.
37:08: I thought Children were a horrible waste of time and it, I felt so sorry for people who had, you wasted their lives having Children.
37:16: But then I finally had one.
37:17: I was 60 when I had my first child and I found out I was completely wrong, completely wrong about Children.
37:23: I now have two daughters and they're the most important thing for me.
37:27: You know, I, I do as much as I can with, for them.
37:31: , if I'd had Children earlier, it would have been a mistake.
37:35: But, you know, finally after I've just sown a lot of wild oats, I drove around the world twice, I got a lot of stuff out of my system right now.
37:44: My, my most important thing in life is my two little girls.
37:48: Yeah.
37:49: And you're protecting their future if I remember by, making sure they speak Mandarin and they gave an incredible speech on video to the, the big audience in China and that they were amazed at, at how fluent, your daughter was.
38:05: They have done it more than once and it's nothing to do with me.
38:07: I speak no Mandarin.
38:09: I don't think I know what I'm doing.
38:10: But they, my two daughters somehow shock the Chinese because their Mandarin is so good.
38:16: You know, they've done TV, specials about my daughters but something has nothing to do with me.
38:21: I can't speak a word of Mandarin so they did it.
38:24: I didn't do it.
38:26: Yeah.
38:26: Ok.
38:27: All right.
38:28: Well, thank you so much for joining us.
38:30: Jim Rogers.
38:31: We'd love to do it again and review, you know what, what's coming up?
38:34: It seems like there's so many world events happening right now.
38:38: It's such an exciting time to be in the market, but for some people, it's a very scary time.
38:43: So what's the, what's the final, a final thought you would leave people with that?
38:47: Are that are kind of trying to make sense of this right now.
38:50: My final thought is wash your hands, go wash your hands.
38:56: Simon.
38:57: OK.
38:58: Wear your mask, buy hand sanitizers if you don't have one, wash your hands.
39:04: Ok.
39:06: All right.
39:06: Thank you very much for joining us.
39:07: Thank you.
39:08: I hope you enjoyed that episode of Bitcoin Hard Talk.
39:11: We're excited about bringing more in the future and we've got a really exciting line up, but I'd actually really like to hear who you'd like to see me talk with on Bitcoin Hard Talk.
39:21: So why don't you tweet me and the person that you think should be on the show.
39:27: You can tweet me at Simon Dixon tweet and also tweet the person that you think should be on the show and why they should be on it.
39:36: Also subscribe to this channel.
39:38: It's Simon Dixon on youtube.
39:40: If you hit the bell symbol, then youtube will give you notifications.
39:44: Every time we go live with another episode of Bitcoin Hard Talk plus my live A MA S and other updates as we watch the whole financial system unfold and remember, no matter how bad it gets, you are alive at one of the most exciting times in financial history and I wanna make sure that you're on the right side of that curve piece.
