Jim Rogers : All bubbles look the same, all absurd policies look the same, and they all lined up. And people always say the same things, they say it’s different this time

Tom: Throughout your investing career you’ve consistently spotted trends before others, including the housing bubble and the financial crisis. How are you able to do this? Is it about knowing what sources of information to pay attention to and which to ignore, or are you able to synthesize information into wisdom in a way others don’t?
Jim Rogers : I don’t know, but I do know that if something’s too good to be true then it’s probably not true. The idea that we could all buy five or six houses with no job and no money down, and then that those mortgages could be sliced and diced and made into even more miraculous AAA credit… Looking back, even at the time it was incomprehensible to me that people would believe that. But looking back on it, I don’t think anybody could comprehend how that happened, but it did. You often see that. Back in the late 90s there was the whole dot com thing. Everybody was talking about a new era. Even the Wall Street Journal started to capitalize New Economy, you know, everybody got sucked in. But if you have any knowledge of history, you know this can happen throughout history. All bubbles look the same, all absurd policies look the same, and they all lined up. And people always say the same things, they say it’s different this time, they say it’s a new economy, a new era, whatever, and it never is. All these absurdities always end up badly. And by the way, the Wall Street Journal stopped capitalizing New Economy in the early part of this century, because even they came to realize, oh my gosh, it was not a new economy, and it never is a new era. Mankind doesn’t change very much at all. - in an interview yesterday with investorguide


Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.