Run for the hills

JIM ROGERS: ‘You Better Run For The Hills’ hit by locust plague

Business Insider,

30 March, 2013

The EU/IMF raiding bank accounts in Cyprus to bail out the country’s financial system sets a dangerous precedent and investors should “run for the hills” said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, on “Squawk on the Street” Thursday.

Rogers said that with Cyprus, politicians are saying that this is a special case and urging people not to worry, but that is exactly why investors should be concerned.

“What more do you need to know? Please, you better hurry, you better run for the hills. I’m doing it anyway,” Rogers said. “I want to make sure that I don’t get trapped. Think of all the poor souls that just thought they had a simple bank account. Now they find out that they are making a ‘contribution’ to the stability of Cyprus. The gall of these politicians.”

“If you’re going to listen to government, you’re going to go bankrupt very quickly,” he added.

“I, for one, am making sure I don’t have too much money in any one specific bank account anywhere in the world, because now there is a precedent,” he said. “The IMF has said ‘sure, loot the bank accounts’ the EU has said ‘loot the bank accounts’ so you can be sure that other countries when problems come, are going to say, ‘well, it’s condoned by the EU, it’s condoned by the IMF, so let’s do it too.’”

Jim Rogers, a voice closely followed by market participants, began shorting financials, home builders and Fannie Mae in 2006, and is famous for co-founding the Quantum Group of Funds with billionaire George Soros. Quantum is famously regarded for “breaking” the Bank of England and forcing a devaluation of the pound.

Rogers said that he has started the process in several European countries to get his bank accounts under the insured amounts. “Everybody should do the same thing too, because they’re going to go crazy the next time around,” he said.

In Europe, Rogers said that he owns Swiss francs and several long-term investments he’s had for decades, but added that he is “certainly not buying there. It’s pretty scary what’s going on in Europe, especially when they’re taking money out of people’s bank accounts.”

On the stock market hitting all-time highs, Rogers said that “it is very artificial. If you give me a trillion dollars, I’ll show you a good time too and a lot of people are having a good time. I’m somewhat sceptical because I know it’s going to end badly.”

“I’m certainly not investing in the U.S., because the U.S. is making all-time highs based on money printing,” he said, adding that he’s put money in Russia and Japan recently. “The whole world is benefiting from all this money being printed, but there are better places than where the all-time high is.”