Canada Will Feel U.S. Problems, But Won't Suffer as Much, U.S. Investment Guru Says

Canada Will Feel U.S. Problems, But Won't Suffer as Much, U.S. Investment Guru Says

10/02/08 06:02 pm (EST)
(CEP NEWS) Toronto - Canada's economy should feel some side-effects from America's weak economy, but won't suffer as much as the U.S. system, author and investment guru Jim Rogers told reporters before a speech in Toronto Thursday."Canada's better positioned than most places in the world right now," Rogers told a gathering of reporters a few hours ahead of his scheduled speech to the Toronto Chartered Financial Accountants Society.

The former Wall Street veteran said Canada won't suffer as much as the U.S. because the last few federal governments have managed Canada's budget and trade matters better than the White House, and Canada retains strong commodity supplies.

"I'd rather be long on zinc than short on investment banks," said Rogers, noting that while commodity prices are undergoing a correction right now, there will eventually be commodity shortages after the global demand for them rebounds following the U.S. economic recovery.
Rogers, who co-founded Quantum Fund with investing heavyweight George Soros, criticized the massive U.S. bailout plan, saying the financial system must work through its own problems in a true free-market way rather than through government intervention.

"You get over your pain even though it's serious pain and then you progress," Rogers said. "The American government is getting it wrong ... and bailing out the wrong people." He accused the U.S. lawmakers behind the bailout plan of trying to "bail out their banking friends."
He predicted that in two years, when other problems crop up in the U.S. financial system, "the American government will be out of bullets."

Rogers pronounced that "America is in a recession and the world is in a recession." He also placed much of the blame for the current U.S. crisis on former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and said Greenspan's successor Ben Bernanke "doesn't know anything about markets...he doesn't know anything about anything except printing money."
U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were also in Rogers's firing line.
"Neither one of them has a clue. Both would be disastrous" for the U.S. economic recovery, he said.

Rogers said he's putting his money into airline stocks, Swiss francs, Japanese yen and agriculture stocks as long-term plays while shorting U.S. government long bonds.
He favours airline stocks because he believes demand for air travel as a global essential service industry will make a comeback once the airline sector emerges leaner and stronger from the current downturn.

http://www.forextv.com/Forex/News/ShowStoryCEP.jsp?seq=130612

03/10/2008
Jim prefers to put his money on Zinc rather that short investment banks.