The Derivative - Crazy Commodity Cycles (and cross-continent motorcycles) with Jim Rogers

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

The king of Commodities has entered The Derivative ring. You know his name, you’ve read his books, you’ve probably utilized his index, and now you’re listening to him in this most recent podcast episode. Jim Rogers is an American investor and financial commentator and was there at the start of the Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management. In today’s episode, we’re talking with Jim about peanut sales, commodity supercycles, global debt reset,  creation of the RICI, reweighting for renewables, commodities vs commodity companies, Jim’s ability to identify the next world trend, Guinness Book of World Records, Chinese commodities, preferring shares of Google over Gold, potential of innovation outpacing demand, Hot Commodities 1998 vs 2021, cross country trips, probability of a Chinese supercycle, and Jim’s thoughts about the next bear market and market dislocation being the worst we’ve ever seen. Chapters: 00:00-02:02 = Intro 02:03-15:35 = An Extraordinary Background 15:36-39:57 = COMMODITIES: Indexes, Energies & China    39:58-59:27 = Money Printing, Simple Observations & Global Debt Reset 59:28-01:06:49 = Now & Then: Comparing & Contrasting Commodities 01:06:50-01:16:25 = Favorites Check out this list of Jim’s books (translated into many languages) and read up on all of his interesting stories here. And last but not least, don't forget to subscribe to The Derivative, and follow us on Twitter, or LinkedIn, and Facebook, and sign-up for our blog digest. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, business, or tax advice. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RCM Alternatives, their affiliates, or companies featured. Due to industry regulations, participants on this podcast are instructed not to make specific trade recommendations, nor reference past or potential profits. And listeners are reminded that managed futures, commodity trading, and other alternative investments are complex and carry a risk of substantial losses. As such, they are not suitable for all investors. For more information, visit www.rcmalternatives.com/disclaimer

Thanks for listening to The Derivative. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RCM Alternatives, their affiliates, or companies featured. Due to industry regulations, participants on this podcast are instructed not to make specific trade recommendations nor reference past or potential profits, and listeners are reminded that managed futures, commodity trading, and other alternative investments are complex and carry a risk

of substantial losses. As such, they are not suitable for all investors. Welcome to The Derivative by RCM Alternatives, where we dive into what makes alternative investments go, analyze the strategies of unique hedge fund managers, and chat with interesting guests from across the investment world. Nobody is printing money as fast as the U.S. and the Japanese, for instance. In China, they still have interest rates, not great interest rates, but they're still proper interest rates, whereas in Japan and America, there are no interest rates anymore. And in Germany, so some countries have done a better, less bad job than others. I am looking because I know enough history to know that somebody is

going to come out of this in better shape compared to others who are going to come out in worse shape. The key, of course, is to find out, all right, who? Where should we be moving our money? And I don't have an answer yet. I do know China is doing a less bad job than Japan, for instance. But I own Japanese shares because they're printing money every day and buying ETFs. Jeff, the Bank of Japan has more money than I do. If they're buying ETFs, I'm buying Japanese ETFs. Come on. Hello, everybody. From humble and maybe child labor law questionable beginnings as a child peanut salesman to one of the most well-known traders in the world, our guest today, the one

and only Jim Rogers, certainly has left his mark on our industry, and he's not done yet. He's written over 10 books, translated into many languages, taken multiple cross-country slash continent trips on both a motorcycle and a custom car to get to know the local markets better and developed his own commodity index and now can add guests of The Derivatives to his extensive resume. So welcome, Jim. Jeff, I am delighted to be here. My first time on The Derivative and with RCM. So I'm very pleased and very honored. I appreciate it. And you're there in Singapore, your new home away from home.

I am in Singapore. It's 1115 in the morning here. So yes, I've lived here for several years and we're quite pleased. I love it. And I got to ask, I saw the picture right over your head of a young couple in an airplane. What's going on there? The picture that I think you see is my father and mother as he was a young lieutenant in the Second World War before he went off to Europe. And is that the one you're talking about? Yeah, I can't see the airplane anymore. But before we started, I could see it. They were recently married.

They had not had me yet, but they were on the way. Young and in love. And then you were in Vietnam? I was in the United States Army during the Vietnam time, but I was not in Vietnam. Oh, lucky you. That's why you're still here with us. So you have such an interesting and great background. I'm not sure where to even start, but I guess I'll go with that first job selling peanuts. How do you become a five-year-old peanut salesman? Well, actually, my first job when I was five was I picked up the empty bottles

at the baseball games, and the lady gave me five cents for every 24 bottles I picked up. That's not a typo. First of all, we'd all be in jail now if you tried to do this again. But there I was, five years old, and the lady paid me five cents for every 24 bottles. I remember one night I made a dollar and 15 cents. It was so much money that I went home and gave half of it to my younger brother. I was pleased with myself. The next year I started selling peanuts and Cokes myself and it was my my concession. But I was six when that happened.

Yeah. And where was this? This was in a small town called Demopolis, Alabama. It was very small. My phone number was five when I was growing up in Demopolis. And as I say, we'd all be in jail now if a six-year-old kid was selling peanuts and Cokes at the baseball games. But it happened and we're all still. Was it some sort of MLB feeder or was it just a local league? Oh, no, this was a very small. Jeff, my phone number was five. Five.

It's local. I mean, it was the Rotary Club playing the Kiwanis Club. It was stuff like that. The Little League guys. It was local. I mean, it was the Rotary Club playing the Kiwanis Club. It was stuff like that. The Little League guys. It was nothing serious. I mean, certainly nobody getting paid except me making a little bit of money. I love it. And then somehow you made it from there to college and on to Wall Street? Yes, I went to college. And when I was in university, I thought I would go to law school and business school and medical school. I was a confused kid like many others. I happened to have a summer job on Wall Street and instantly fell in love because here was a place that would pay me to know what was going on in the world. And that's what I loved. I mean, I didn't know anything.

I was 21 years old. I didn't know anything about Wall Street. All I knew was it was in New York somewhere and something bad had happened in 1929. I didn't know there was a difference between stocks and bonds. I said, stocks and bonds, it must be the same thing.

I learned and loved it. And loved it. And that's where you met- I did not go to law school, business school or medical school. Yeah, I was the same confused kid and ended up a philosophy major. So I think you had the better end of the stick there. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. In my second university, my course was philosophy, politics, and economics.

I had to take the philosophy. I didn't understand it. I was no good at it. I was terrible. But Jeff, in later years, I said, oh, now I understand. Now I see what those guys were talking about. I came to understand it. And I'm a great, I tell my daughters, I hope you study philosophy someday.

Yeah, it just taught me to write was the good thing and to not take things at face value, question them. And where was that? Was that Oxford? Yes, that was at Oxford. As I say, I didn't have a clue, but it did teach me to think, although I didn't sink in until later years, what they were trying to do. But it was, I had a great time at Oxford, yes. But the philosophy professor said I didn't quite see eye to eye. I remember when I got, but you have to take exams at the end of your time. And I got my degree. And I remember my philosophy, and I did reasonably, whether you can either get a first or a second or a third or a fourth. Well, I got a second, much to my astonishment, but more

to the philosophy professor's astonishment. He said, how did you do that? He knew I didn't know anything. I did too, but it worked. You got that silver medal. And then somewhere in there, you met Mr. Soros and the rest is history. How did that go down? Well, I was looking for a job at one point on Wall Street and he needed a young man. And we met and we hit it off. And well, I went to work there and we started. We had to go and start the company and we did. And and that's some reasonable success.

The understatement of the century. And I'm sure you've talked about it before, but I've never heard you actually talk about directly. But can you tell us about the famous trade that broke the Bank of England? I was not there then. I was long, long, long gone. Okay, so you were in and out quickly. Well, not quickly, 10 years. I was 37 when I retired. I started to retire when I was 36, but waited another year because we were having so much fun. But I had always wanted to have more than one life. I didn't want to wake up at age 90 sitting in front of a keyboard on Wall Street.

So my plan had always been to have adventure and other lives. So if you grow up in a town where your phone number is five, you either never leave or you want to get out and see the world. Well, I wanted to see the world. How many? What was the total number? Did it go up to 10? How many did it go up to? No, no, no. Some people even had a party line. I don't know if you remember what a party line was, but a party line was with more than one house, one home, had the same number, and it was differentiated by the number of rings. If it rang once, it was for you. If it rang twice, it was for the Jones. If it rang three

times, it was for the Browns. Some people even had party lines. That was the original social media. You could pick up and listen in, right? See what was going on. And people did. People certainly did. My mother tells that story. You couldn't do much in a small town without everybody knowing it. So that first retirement was when you started to, was that your first motorcycle trip? Well, my hope, my plan was to go around the world on a motorcycle, but those were the days of Soviet Union, Red China, communism, you know, all of that. So it's almost impossible. It was ludicrous for anybody to think they could motorcycle across China or across the Soviet Union. It took me several years to get permission. I eventually, I rode around Central Europe. I did various incendiary adventures.

Eventually, the Chinese said, okay. made a move the pbs made a documentary of it in fact uh and i showed it to the russians and so the russians said well okay you may be crazy but we know you're not a spy so you can do it so what did that look like where did you what was that original trip you started in europe and ended where? That first around the world trip, it started on the west coast of Ireland, on the Atlantic, because I wanted to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to Japan. And I turned around and went back through Siberia to the west coast of Ireland again, to be the first person to drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific twice. And then Africa, you know, Middle East, Central Australia, down to the bottom of South America and up to Alaska and then back to New York.

And I'm still alive. And did your back hurt? I can't imagine being on a motorcycle that long. Well, no, I love motorcycles. I never had any of those kind of problems, and I'm still alive. I still have my arms and legs. Many people get killed in cars and bikes, but for some reason, I'm still alive and still quite happy. And now I got to ask, because I've got a little motorcycle background, but what type of bike was it? There's only one right answer.

I don't know what your right answer is, but Jeff, I'm a hopeless mechanic. And so I always rode BMWs, which at the time were the best engineered and the best made and the most reliable motorcycles of all. So I rode BMWs and they're very smooth, very quiet. So my great, great grandfather was Walter S. Davidson, who was the founder of Harley Davidson. So unfortunately, my grandmother sold out for like $500 to AMF in 1970 something or 50 something. So we don't have the private island to show for it but uh it's a proud heritage we're proud of it well you should be jeff listen if you want to pick up girls or pick up boys whatever you want to pick up yeah nothing like a harley davidson riding up to the to the to the tavern or the bmw they're all gonna be looking at your harley davidson they're gonna be looking at your Harley-Davidson. They're not going to be looking at me. It's probably tough to find a part in China for a Harley-Davidson. Well, not then. You probably could now, but no. If you want to go around the world, at least for me,

BMW is right, but if you want many other things in life, nothing like a Harley-Davidson. And then you did this all again in a car later on in the Mercedes. Yes, it was a special Mercedes. I'd done it on a motorcycle. So I wanted to do it. And I didn't the first trip was not enough. It was two years, but it wasn't enough because there were things I hadn't seen. So I wanted to go again, but I'd done it on a bike. So I said, all right, I'll go in a sports car. But I had to we had to make a special sports car because you cannot go around the world without clearance. I assure you, you can't make it without clearance off the ground. And you need a diesel engine.

You need four-wheel drive. So we had to make my own special Mercedes sports car. Nice. And you're doing the full thing, like carrying the gas cans and the whole whole nine yards well yeah we had a we had to make a special trailer because the sports car doesn't have much room for luggage you know first aid and things like that so we made a special matching trailer which had gasoline everything sleeping bags sleep tents first aid everything were Were you ever tempted to even had an extra bottle of vodka? Because the doctor said, well, if you get hurt, you're going to need something and you probably

won't be able to get any medication. So take this bottle of vodka, just in case, just in case. Were you ever tempted to do sail around the world? No, I have been sailing and I have friends who adore it. But, you know, for me, the main joy of the other than the bike is every five minutes there's something new and something different. Now, my cellular friends say, well, that's true with sailing, too, but it's not quite the same thing. I mean, you don't see different people at different sites, different whatever, which you do when you drive around the world close to the ground. Yeah. Sailing around the world, you might not see anything for weeks. I know. And that's why it never really interested me.

Let's talk commodities. You know those a little bit right well i know a bit yes i've been investing in many things for many decades now so this is this is not my first rodeo jeff i know it um so you kind of coined this term back in well you tell me when but but Commodity Supercycle. That was the name of one of your books, right? Well, the name of my book, you know, get them while they're hot. Nobody cared about commodities in those days. You may remember, you're probably not old enough, but in 1998, in fact, Merrill Lynch

closed their commodity department because commodities were so hopeless and useless. And that was the exact moment when I started my commodities index and commodities fund. Because what, you know, they don't often ring a bell Jeff right they rang a bell Merrill Lynch rang a bell for me anyway in 1998 because I thought I could see that things were about to change and be much better and so tell us the the uh what was the seed of that thought of like I'm going all in on commodities this is a really big thing that's happening like how did that all come about? What was your thought process on that? Well, Jeff, first, you know, I'll make many mistakes, but that's when I happened to get

right. No, I had been around the world. I've been investing in all sorts of things for decades. And I could see that people were not investing in productive capacity. For instance, nobody built offshore drilling rigs anymore to drill for oil. All of these things. Merrill Lynch was closing down. You know, there was absolutely no interest in any kind of commodity. Gold had collapsed in 1980, and nothing had happened. Silver had collapsed in 1980. All of these things were sitting there empty, untouched,

with no interest. And I could see no productive capacity. Nobody was building mines. Nobody was looking for gold. All of these signs that were just simple economic, looking back at it now, but that's what I thought I saw at the moment, at the time. And I said to myself, I've got to invest in commodities because this has got to be a great opportunity. Now, at the time, I was about to go around the world. I wanted to invest in an index because I couldn't sit and trade commodities going around the world. I looked at all the commodity indices. They were all hopeless. You couldn't believe how I would put my money into them.

But again, that was a reflection of the fact that nobody cared about commodities. The commodity index has been set up in the 30s or decades before. So I had to come up with my own commodity index where I could put my money and off I went and I got it right. Sometimes I get it right. And how did that look? Were you actually saying, I got a plan. I'm going to go out and research all these mines and stuff. Or this is just anecdotal. You're seeing things as you're investing in other things.

Which came first? Well, going around the world, I could see that countries, China, for instance, everything was changing in the world. Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and it was very clear that nobody wanted to be a communist anymore. Nobody wanted to be a socialist. If they did want to be a socialist, they wanted to be rich. So I could see, from my travels, I could see what was happening in the world. On the demand side, I could see what was happening in China and the Soviet Union, Africa. At one time, everybody in Africa was a socialist or a communist. Well, all that ended. Nobody wanted to do any of that anymore. So I could see that the demand was changing dramatically, but I could also see that the supply, nothing was happening. As I said, nobody built an offshore drilling rig for a long time.

In the 70s, they did. But this was all had ended. So supply and demand, Jeff, supply and demand. Nobody can repeal the laws of supply and demand. I mean, a lot of politicians try, but you cannot do it. So I thought I could see a boom or at least a bull market was coming and it did. It did. And then it lasted through like 07. And then the wheels kind of came off the whole concept or how do you remember that? Well, it depends on what you're looking at. I mean,

gold peaked in 2011. Oil went up until 2013, 14, whatever. Various and sundry thing. You know, it's like any market. People talk about the stock market. Well, there are many different stocks. So I and others say, no, no, it's a market of stocks. And likewise with commodities. Some commodities did extremely well for several more years.

Some stopped sooner. Robert R. But the whole concept of like China and the super cycle kind of ran its course through like 08 and the recession, right? It kind of slowed everything down. David Schawel, Ph.D.: Well, again, you say those dates. I mean, gold peaked in 2011, for instance, just to use a bad example. But okay, well, it didn't last forever. Nothing lasts forever. I wrote a book about it and explained, no, these things don't go on forever. They last for X number of years, then they go down for X number of years, then it all starts over again. There have been various commodities bull markets in history and various commodity bear markets in history. So this is nothing unusual. And what do you think? I'm always telling people like the seems to me technology is deflationary, right? So we're

creating all this new technology. We can drill down 3000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico, then go over 1000 feet and get at this oil we could never get to before. So is that innovation like outpacing the demand growth? You think that's part of what's kept for the last, I mean, the last quarter we've started to see the rise in commodities again, but for five years before that, grain prices, oil prices have all been rather capped. Well, there's a saying in the commodity business, and it should be in all businesses, that the cure for high prices is high prices, because high prices cut demand and bring in supply. And that's what happened. The other

part of the saying is the cure for low prices is low prices. If prices are low a long time, people buy more and stop producing. So, I mean, these cycles have been going on for thousands, hundreds of years, certainly, and probably thousands. And that's going to continue. Prices have been going up. We had a high price of oil, made people and the declining reserves of oil, reserves of oil, known reserves were declining everywhere, still are. And then so that begat fracking. New technology came along.

And Jeff, for a while there, if you could spell fracking, people would give you money, you know, and a bubble developed. Then, of course, we all realized, oh, wait, we got to make money. These guys got to pay their debts. So the fracking bubble popped and burst, as all bubbles do. Now fracking is still there, but you got to make money at it now. So known reserves of oil still continue to decline, except for fracking, and fracking is not a bubble anymore. Is fracking, F-R-A-K-I-N apostrophe? Fracking? Well, you're in Chicago. You know how to spell all the commodities better than anybody. You should

anyway. That's true. And what about, so tell me a little bit about the index, how it's different than some of the others, but it, and it still does. Then I want to come back to, it's still got a pretty healthy energy component, but just generally speaking, how's it differ from the others? Well, it certainly outperformed the others. So presumably it's better constructed. Most of the other, I mean, the other indexes didn't have rice, for instance, although, you know, most of the people in the world eat rice every day. I could go on and on.

They didn't have many things. So I wanted to have an index which was reflective of the cost of doing business around the world and the cost of being alive around the world. So I sat down with my commodity research bureau yearbook and other sources and figured out who- CRB index, that was one of the originals. I wanted to see who uses what and why and how. And by the way, the CRB index, which was one of the originals, had orange juice and oil with the same weighting. Whoops. Wait a minute.

That cannot be. That's not a reflection of being alive. It must have been a Floridian who came up with it. All of them. As I said, they didn't have rice. The CRB had oil and orange juices, et cetera, et cetera. So I came up with what I hoped and thought might be a reflection. And first, I had many, many more.

It has over 35 commodities. The others have many fewer. I wanted to have a reflection of what I thought it caused to do business around the world. I knew a lot of people ate rice every day, even though the U.S. indices didn't have rice. I mean, I had experienced some of these things. I knew that oil was more important than orange juice, etc. So I tried to come up with weightings that were somewhat reflective. And energy, as you know, Jeff, is to me the most important commodity.

Everything, whether it's electricity, which we all need to make things or oil to move them or oil to make the anything the machines move oil is the most important energy is the most important commodity so that's why it's got a bigger weighting right see uh texas two weeks ago as an example right with the freeze out and everything locked in. But so let's talk about that for a second in the new world. Right. Energy is becoming less and well, I'll rephrase that oil, you know, fossil fuels becoming less and less important. We're getting all the renewables online. Does that eventually need to be reweighted at some point? Well, obviously, if the world changes, you have to change with the world. But if orange juice causes cancer, we're going to get orange juice out of the indices. People

aren't going to trade orange juice anymore. I mean, that's pretty straightforward. Energy is still the most important commodity, at least if you ask me. As I go, I live in Singapore and everybody here is still driving and taking the bus to work, etc. Still has electricity and nearly all energy comes from oil and natural gas. Yeah, that may be changing. It seems to be changing. But, you know, Jeff, even if you look at things like electric cars, which seem to be changing. It seems to be changing. But you know, Jeff, even if you look at things like electric cars, which seem to be coming, first of all, you've got to produce the electricity, which has got to be made from something. Maybe it's sun power, maybe it's solar power or wind power. But electric cars, for instance, use five times as much copper as regular cars. So yeah, the demand for oil may go down, but the demand for copper is going to go

up and lead and lithium and other things. That was going to be my next question of some of these rare earth metals that are used in all the batteries we use these days, but they're not necessarily exchange traded. How do you square that of things that aren't exchange traded, but that are a part of cost of living? Well, you've got to have if you're going to have a traded index, you've got to have things that are traded. You can have one, I guess, with non-traded entities, but not me. That's hard to track. Somebody has to make up the prices. No, no, no.

You need something visible. At least I need something visible to have a proper index. Do you look personally to invest in some of those things, like lithium and some of those battery components? Well, various times in my life, I actually owned a company, a share that had lithium mines. Yes, I have invested in some of these things, but through companies, not through the private markets. I mean, you could invest in chrome or various and other things privately if you want, or even the companies which mine it,

but not as far as an index is concerned, a publicly traded index. And what are your thoughts on commodities versus commodity companies? Right. There's often people say, cool, I love gold. I'm going to invest in this gold miner. And then it takes on a lot of debt or goes bankrupt or something. And they're left holding the bag. They didn't get the commodity performance they were looking for. Well, Mark Twain once said that the definition of a gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing. That's because he lost a lot of money in a gold mine.

Jeff, if you can find the right gold mine, if you can find a company which is going to discover gold in Berlin, I urge you to buy every share you can and then send me an email. I want to buy it too. But as Mark Twain discovered and many other hundreds of gold mines and silver mines, but let's use gold, hundreds of these things, and you've got to get the right one. If you can get the right one, you're going to make a staggering amount of money. But otherwise, you're going to lose a lot of money. So it depends on who you are, what you know, the way you invest. I mean, if you're good at futures and timing, futures are fantastic. You get great leverage. If you get the timing right, you'll probably make staggering amounts of money in gold futures, either long or short.

But again, you have to know what you're doing. Preaching to the choir. And you mentioned long short. So that why have you always been just pure kind of buy and hold? I want to be long commodities instead of I want to trend follow commodities or something of that nature of going long and short. Well, no, there's nothing wrong with that. That's by all stretch. If you're a good trader and you know what you're doing, you can make a huge amount of money trading anything, stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, whatever it is. But for me on that particular moment, when I was heading off around the world, I knew I was going to be gone for, I hoped I was going to be gone for three years. And I wanted to be long because I thought there was the beginning of a bull market. And many studies have shown that if you invest in an index, you're going to

outperform most active managers. Yeah. The sad comment on all of us in our industry, but it happens to be correct and accurate. So for me, a commodity index and a commodity index fund was what I needed at the time. And still, I mean, you know, if you want to invest in stocks, most people are better off buying a stock index fund than trying to pick stocks. The studies show that's true of all investments. And I think the best thing you had in that whole thing was buying it and then not looking at it for three years, going away. Right. Like that's the ultimate weapon. I have learned, Jeff, over the years that I'm not a very good trader, the worst trader in

the world, worst market time in the world. So for me, especially if a bull market, if I find something cheap that I think is going to go up for a long time, I don't want to know the price. I used to open accounts in countries and the broker would say, well, shall I call you every day or every month? I said, no, no, no, I don't want to know. I don't want to know the prices because if I know the prices, if it goes up a lot, I might sell it. If it goes down a lot, I might sell it. I don't want to know the prices. But when I think a few years from now that the country is changing or the market is changing, I'll call you back and we'll sell. So I'm not very I'm horrible at market time. And I'm still amazed by this ability that

you have of like, when I think the country's changing, like that just pops into your head, or do you have a process and a structure for how to look at that? Jeff, what's wrong with you? I call RCM. Yeah. You call me at RCM, right? You call RCM. I say, hey, Vietnam's changing. Get out. Yes. No, I mean, I'm interested in the world. That's the beginning of this program. I'm very interested in what's happening in the world. I try to pay attention. And when I think I see something's happening like China, I mean, I could see the gigantic changes in China when I went there in the 80s. And so I wanted to invest and I still own Chinese shares. I mean, China has been the most successful

country in the world for the past 40 years or so. I don't see any reason to sell China, not yet anyway. It may come a time when my daughters or my granddaughters may sell China. Not yet, anyway. It may come a time. Well, my daughters or my granddaughters may sell China someday. But I mean, if you'd sold America 100 years ago, you would have looked great for a while. You'd look pretty foolish over the next 80 years. Yeah. And that's I hope my girls wake up one day and say, look at all these Chinese shares. He must have been smart. We're rich, you know. And you moved there so your daughters could learn Mandarin, right? Well, we wanted to go. We'd moved to China, but China was too polluted.

I don't speak Chinese. So Singapore was fabulous. They speak English and they speak Chinese here. So we moved. And Singapore has been another great, great, great success story over the past 40 or 50 years. Astonishing. So it's been a very good move because my children do speak perfect Mandarin now. My plan was I hope to prepare them for the 21st century by knowing Asia and by speaking Mandarin. So far, that's work.

That's work. But they're still teenagers. And do you keep a pulse on those Chinese futures markets, like with the rebar and all those different, they've got some unique commodities over there. Yeah, but it's impossible unless you're somebody special. It's impossible for foreigners to invest in those markets. So, yeah, I'm aware of them. That is something you can call RCM for. We're making progress on that front. And they said the operative word, making progress. Yeah, well, OK. Those markets have been there for 30 years. People have been

making progress for 30 years. It's like the currency. They've been opening the currency since 2005 and making progress. When you get them open, you let me know. Okay. Jeff Bullas Yeah. Well, they're doing a billion contracts now a year on their four exchanges. So it's coming. Jeff, I'm well aware of it. You know, in Dalian, they trade more than soybeans than they do in Chicago. And Chicago invented soybeans.

So, no, no, I know what's going on, but so what? I'm a foreigner. Doesn't do me any good. Now, if you're, you know, a big commodity company, if you're Cargill or something, I'm sure you can trade in China. I'm not Cargill.

Could be. Not yet. No, no, no, no. I'm not even RCM. And what do you, do you look at any of those like Chinese hedge fund managers or some of their onshore asset management firms? Well, I've met some of them. Yeah, of course. Yeah, but I don't talk to them.

I don't talk to anybody. I have learned in my style that if I listen to other people, I loosely lose money. It confuses me. I don't know what's going on so i i don't really sit around talking to anybody about investing god you're you're reading your own tea leaves right um so far i assure you jeff if you give me a hot tip i'm sure i and i acted on it i'm sure i would lose money not because of you just to me. And what do you think about the Chinese in terms of their reporting on their numbers and their agriculture? It seems like they can toy with the U.S. commodity prices whenever they want.

By saying our demand is up, our demand is down. We're going to buy this much. We're not going to buy this much. Jeff, you believe governments? I don't believe them. I'm sitting here saying, what? This guy is an investor and he believes governments? I don't believe any government. I know they all lie, including the US government. What are you talking about? Of course, I don't believe the Chinese. I don't believe the Germans. I mean, even the Germans have been caught lying governments.

So I'll rephrase it. I'll rephrase the question. You better do your own work or you're going to go broke. I'll rephrase the question. Why did U.S. traders believe and react to the Chinese numbers anymore? I guess that's the better question. Well, the main reason is because they know other people do. I mean, if we all wake up and there's a storm, we're going to react. And whether we should or we shouldn't. And of course, the US traders know that all the other traders, whether they're Japanese or German or American, are going to react to the numbers. And so they do too. That's part of the markets. But that's back to the short

term. I don't even pay attention. That's why I don't want to know. I don't want to know the short term fluctuations. And so what what's your view on China overall? Is this super cycle coming back? Have they built all they can build? What's the demand side like the big picture demand side look like for you out of China? Well, I haven't been to China in a year because I haven't been anywhere for a year. If I could go, I can't get there. No planes. But when I'm on the internet, I see that China, that things are bustling, that people are in the shops, the streets, at the bars, the discos. Things are happening. I can see that much anyway. They seem to have done a less bad job than most countries. So, yes, the Chinese economy, and they say the Chinese economy is recovering.

What evidence I have seen indicates that that's accurate. So is it going to be enough to offset other countries that have problems? Perhaps. But all countries will be recovering and reviving because there's been so much money spent. And back to, you know, commodities are supply and demand, Jeff. You can have a great, you can have demand go down and have a huge bull market if the supply goes. Look at lead. You remember lead?

You know, at one point in America, we outlawed lead in gasoline and in paint. You would think, oh my God, that's the end of the lead market. No more gasoline, no more paint. Lead boomed because there were no supply. Demand collapsed, price boomed because there was no supply. So you've got to remember supply and demand for everything. That would be an interesting thing to poll a bunch of millennials and say, do you know what unleaded means? They probably just think that's what they call gasoline, right? Like, no, it used to have lead and they took the lead out. Unleaded.

When I was a kid, that was leaded and unleaded. Well, first when I was a kid, it was only leaded. Then they came up with unleaded. What's your thoughts on the money printing? Good, bad, indifferent? Well, throughout history, if you print a lot of money, it has ultimately led to a debasement of your currency, what for me seems to be obvious reasons. And that's what's happened when currencies go down, something has to go up against it. And usually, real assets go up against the currencies. And so I would suspect that we're going to have the price of real goods going higher. We always have anyway.

But again, you have to consider the supply and demand aspects of it as well. But if you have a lot of money printing, the value of the money is going to go down and the value of something is going to go down and the value of something is going to go up against it, whether it's sugar or, you know, who knows what, lead, something. Gold, Bitcoin? Well, Bitcoin has been a fabulous investment for many people. Not for me. I have never bought nor sold any cryptocurrency. But Jeff, I would also point out to you, I'm sure you know that hundreds of cryptocurrencies have disappeared and gone to zero.

We don't hear about those anymore. We hear about everybody knows about Bitcoin, including me, but I have never bought or sold it. Part of the reason I have never is because I know that in history, if people, governments don't like to lose the monopoly and they don't like to lose control. And if cryptocurrencies become competitive as currency, most governments, if not all governments, are going to outlaw them. Now, the crypto guys say, well, we're smarter than the government. That's the point of it, right? Of course, the crypto guys are smarter than the government. Of course, the crypto guys are smarter than the government. The government's got the guns and the tanks. And if most people, if they say it's a crime, I anyway, am not going to use it. This has happened

throughout history. All money is going to be on the computer. I mean, if you go to China, you can't take a taxi with money. You can't buy an ice cream with money. It's all on the phone. Or you can't do anything. They're ahead of us. But we and everybody else is working on computer money, electronic money, crypto money, call it what you will. But it's going to be government money.

I mean, I don't like that. But I know what's happening. Governments love it. Right. And I've heard you say on another podcast of, right, as soon as they label it treason and the punishable by death, there's not going to be a lot of demand. Well, that's what happened in the 1930s. People could use anything they wanted for money. And then the Bank of England said, starting next week, it's an act of treason. If you use anything for money except our money, well, most people immediately, you know, treason means they execute you, Jeff. Yeah. Stop using seashells and sugar cubes and their own money.

As late as 1930, they were using seashells and sugar cubes? Well, I don't know what, if they were using, you could use any you wanted, you could write a contract in seashells. Yeah, yeah. There were places in Africa still that used seashells in those days, but no, nobody used anything except government money after that. And how do you view that everyone's trying to play the same game though, right? So if US is trying to devalue to get out from their debt load, Japan's been trying it for 20 years already, Europe's trying it. So if we're all trying it, it's not like one's going to fail and the rest are going to survive. It seems like, well, I'll just try it and we stay at the same level well when you say the same level the same level of currency values no like the same relative that

like no one no one country will blow up because we're all trying it at the same time right if one country just tried it and failed at it they might blow up and cause a big problem and the dollar wouldn't hugely appreciate but it seems like we're all doing it. It's going to preclude one from blowing up versus the others. Well, that's insightful that everybody is doing the same thing now. Everybody's printing money as fast as they can. But there are not everybody. I should retract that. Nobody is printing money as fast as the U.S. and the Japanese, for instance. In China, they still have interest rates, not great interest rates, but they're still proper interest rates. Whereas in Japan and America, there are no interest rates anymore. And in Germany.

So some countries have done a better less bad job than others i am looking because i know enough history to know that somebody's going to come out of this in better shape compared to others who are going to come out in worse shape the key of course is to find out all right who and where should we be moving our money and i don don't have an answer yet. I do know China is doing a less bad job than Japan, for instance, but I own Japanese shares because they're printing money every day and buying ETFs. Jeff, the Bank of Japan has more money than I do. If they're buying ETFs, I'm buying Japanese ETFs. Come on. You think we'll see that in the U.S. of U.S. purchase of actual stocks and security? I mean, they already did it in the bond ETFs. Yeah, no, the U.S. government

has made it legal for the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to buy other assets. And when things get really bad, they're going to do everything they can to save themselves. They don't care about you or your kids or my kids. They care about the next election. And the way they do that is if they have to, is they flood the money. They're all going to buy IBM or Ford or whatever they're going to buy. Is it good is it good no no it's not good but who cares what i say and i've heard you talk about the swiss frank is back now by google right like i will tell you when i was a kid there was nothing sounder in the world than the swiss frank it was sounder than gold even in those days you got some gold right there. I love it.

Well, I got gold. I got silver. Don't you? I mean, you never know when you might need a little gold or a little silver. Not here in this desk, but I like it. Well, I got in my pocket, too. Let me look in my pocket, see? A little silver in my pocket, just in case. The Swiss National Bank, for whatever reason, has started expanding its holdings. They own all the fat, hot stocks. I presume they probably own Alibaba and Tencent as well,

and Samsung and the rest of them. The Swiss National Bank now owns a lot of shares. And someday, and they don't talk about it a lot, and the more you question them, the less they talk about it. I've noticed they really have stopped talking about it recently. The Swiss franc is no longer backed by integrity. It's now backed by Google. When the world finds, I'm not saying Google doesn't have integrity. I'm just saying that, you know, the value of Amazon compared to the value of Swiss integrity and the Swiss mindset is somewhat different. Although if you, most of the world today might say, I'd rather have shares in Google than gold, right? I'd rather have it be Google back than gold back.

Well, the Swiss National Bank has said that. They have a lot more Google than they have gold now. Right. And it's got a lot more upside potentially. So I wanted to ask you just, you're known for these rather huge proclamations, right? Of like, we're going to see the biggest bear market since the 30s. Comms commodities are going to be on the super cycle like is that come to you naturally is that a blessing or a curse do you get like put in those mindsets and you you can't see anything else or is that just are you talking up your book yeah you say that's a uh whatever grandiose say, but I mean, to me, it's just a simple fact. I look around the world.

I know that in 2008, we had a horrible problem in the world because of too much debt. Well, I mean, I read the same newspapers you do. I know that since 2008, debt all over the world has skyrocketed. So I say to myself, well, the next time we have a problem, it's got to be the worst in my lifetime because the debt is so, so much worse than 2008. To me, that's just a simple statement, simple observation like, you know, we're going to have bad blizzards every few years. You have bad blizzards. If I tell you we're going to have horrible blizzards every few years, is that a grandiose statement?

Look at what happened in Texas. You know, it happens. And when I say the next bear market is going to be the worst in my lifetime, I know what happened in 2008. I know what's happened since. How can it not be? To me, that's just a simple observation. So a blessing. Right.

It's good. You like it. I don't know if it's a blessing or not then i got to do something about it and well to me it's a blessing i do a lot of the other people in the financial industry right they don't want to put themselves out there like that or they'll hedge their language or like well it could be this or that or in this range and they're very careful about their persona so i think for you right like you've got some fu money and you're just like hey this is what i think i'm putting it out there if

you don't like it you know talk to the next guy well yes absolutely but it's not that i just observe the world and i say say what i observe it's simple well i think other people would be even afraid to say what they observe because people might say, hey, you're wrong. Ah, well, Jeff, I don't have a job. You're not going to get fired. At least I don't have to worry. At the moment, I don't have to worry about having a job. So I don't mind saying what's on my mind, what I observe.

You know, Jeff, even now China has debt. In 2008, China had a lot of money saved for a rainy day. It started raining. They started spending the money and helped save the world. Now, even China has, there are going to be bankruptcies in China. It's going to shock me, and I just told you it's coming. It's already happening. It's already happening. So the next bear market is going to be a nightmare. Now, is that some kind of huge observation or is that just simple looking out the window? To me, it's looking out the window, a simple statement. Well, out your window is China. So you got to, it's a little easier. Well, a lot of things out my window. India's over there. There's Australia.

I mean, a variety of things out my window. And I thought you're going to say China was going to be that that cleanest, dirtiest shirt that came out of the wash as the new reserve currency. Well, I don't know. That's a that's a difficult statement, given that the Chinese currency is still a blocked currency. You can't have an international currency or medium of reserve, reserve is blocked. So saying that in 2021 is a little crazy. They have been opening up since 2005. But I mean, I'd do it today. If I was but Jeff, they don't listen to me. I don't listen to anybody. They're gonna do it their way. And yeah, I'd open the currency in the afternoon. They're doing it more and more and more every year.

So saying that Brent Minby is going to... It is the only currency I see now which can conceivably compete with the U.S. dollar down the road. But down the road, a lot can happen. And whatever happened with all this talk of they own all our treasuries, and they can just stop buying treasuries and the US is in big trouble. It seems we hear less and less of that big fear mongering these days. Jeff, if anybody stops buying our treasuries. Including ourselves, right? Including ourselves, including the social security system. I mean, the United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.

It doesn't matter who stops buying our treasuries. We've got a problem. We have a problem even if people continue to buy our treasuries. I mean, Jeff, it's a good time to be old. Yeah. Because the old people are getting the benefits of all of them. It's not a good time to be young. I got two teenage children. Oh, the problems they're going to inherit. It's not a good time to be young. It's a good time to be old.

All right. Well, I'm getting there at an ever-increasing rate. You better hurry. All right. Well, I'm getting there at an ever increasing rate. So the hurry, my best advice to everybody is get old as fast as you can. Get old as fast as you can. Although I don't like the part where your kids seem to grow up super fast. Well, I don't need that. Tell my kids every day, stop growing up, stop growing up. Well, the teenagers, they don't listen to me. No teenagers have ever listened to me, especially these. And are they going to go to school in Asia or in the U.S. to college? Well, I mean, who knows? The older one is applying to universities now. She's very,

very keen to go to university in the U.S. She says that we have deprived her of her American childhood because we brought her to Asia to teach her about Asia and Mandarin. So she insists on going to school in the US. So yes, she's hoping and planning to go to school at university in the United States, which is fine with me. No, it's great. Everybody should see as much of the world as they can.

Hey, we got good schools over here. Although everyone's saying now the applications are like double everybody should be as much in the world as they can hey we got good schools over here although everyone's saying now the applications are like double because you had every all the ones from last year with covid got delayed so now there's twice as many people coming into this one year no i know that and that's a huge disadvantage for her and for everybody of course and this year many universities said you don't have to take the ACT or the SAT so that meant even more people applied I said ah I wouldn't be any good on those tests so I'll why not why not apply um I had one more thought on the all the debt that we have across all these governments

why don't they all just get together and say we're going to have a global reset. Let's wipe all this out. Start over. Hooray. What's going to happen to all the endowments? What's going to happen to the Social Security Fund? Who's going to pay you your Social Security? What about the insurance companies? They're all going to have no assets, no reserves. When you get a heart attack, who's going to pay for your hospital? That's a great plan. But there's another side too. You wipe out all the assets. That means all the people with assets are suddenly not going to have any assets. What do you do about that? If they all are owning their own debt, in theory, they could wipe out all that debt

and then just still pay out the assets to the actual and end users wait a minute if princeton university has its all its assets wiped out how are they going to continue to no no i'm saying that i'm saying if the fed owns treasuries if the central bank owns treasuries in theory they can, I don't need to get paid on those, right? But they could still pay Princeton. They can still pay whatever. Oh, you mean we're just going to wipe out the debt that the government owns? Yeah.

But like across all the governments say, hey, all this cross-governmental debt, let's wipe it. Keep all the private sector assets in place. I don't know. The insurance companies are still going to have their assets so they can pay if you have a car accident. Yeah. It's only the government that's going to wipe out. Yeah, this is my pet theory. Well, I mean, hooray. And no, whenever there's a problem, people look for a theory. Mr. Marx had a great theory, and a lot of people tried it for a long time. Nobody wants to be a Marxist anymore,

but it was a wonderful theory. Now there's one called MMT, More Money Today. Everybody loves it. It's a fabulous theory, and we'll probably try something like that. Or maybe your approach. We'll probably try something like that. Is that the official acronym, MMT, more money today? That's a Jim Rogers special? Well, that's what I call it, because that's what it is. That's in essence what it is. Yeah. You know, like Marxism was a free lunch for everybody. Well, it didn't work. And MMT, whatever the real name is, more money today. Basically, it's more money today. The British are actually practicing it in theory. I mean, they're not publicizing, but that's what they're doing now. I think somebody in Britain has figured it out recently and said, wait, we've got to stop this. But that's what they've been doing. It's easy way and jeff people love easy answers but and i said this on

our last pod with uh veneer bensali of if i asked my nine-year-old daughter like hey if i give this group my money to hold for three years and keep safe and then give it back to me after three years. Should they pay me or should I pay them for that service? She'd probably say like, no, you should pay them for that service of keeping that money safe and making sure it gets back to you. So it seems there's somewhat of a perverse, you know, do we have like the human right to demand an interest rate on our debt, on our money. Well, Jeff, I mean, history is full of people who want easy answers and want the easy way and don't want to suffer pain. I mean, that's human beings.

Yeah. They're nine years old or 69. That's what people want in life. And often, people with votes or guns or whatever it happens to be, and they get their way, or they try. As I said, lots of people love Mr. Marx and his theories and love trying them. But I also know, when I went around the world after the Berlin Wall fell I realized nobody wants to be a communist a Marxist anymore and if they do they want to be rich it comes at that but now of course this 30 years later over 30 years later and a lot of problems building up so people now need easy answers again I hear hear you. When there's not any easy answers.

There is an easy answer. There's more money today. Print it, print it, print it. Or your solution, just renounce the debt. Yeah. Well, not my solution. I was just playing devil's advocate. A solution, an easy solution might be to renounce all the debt. So last question for you. Your book, The Hot Commodities, 1998, 30 years later, 33 years later, you see similarities, you see a bunch of differences. How do you compare and contrast those two? When you look across the spectrum today. If we're speaking specifically about commodities, we had a big boom. Oil went from nothing to 150 US dollars a barrel.

It's now back to 60 US dollars a barrel or whatever it is. Now we had booms and that's happened with many, many commodities since, since then, you know, many commodities boomed and collapsed. I would suspect from what I can see, those that, that as I look around, Jeff, bonds are in a bubble all over the world, which we've discussed property in many places. So, I mean, I can't believe what a bubble there is in property and so and many other cities around the world. Korea. Yes. Yes. Many stocks are beginning to form bubbles. I mean, not all stocks. I mean, there are many stocks that are still not up.

But I can see the fact that some stocks, I mean, Tencent, Amazon, Samsung. I mean, some of these stocks never go down. I've seen bubbles before. I know you have, too, or read about them. So I can see. But commodities, that's the only asset class I see that's still cheap. Silver's down 45% from its all-time high. Sugar's down, I don't know, 70 or 80% from its all-time high. Oil's down over 50% from its all-time high. So commodities is the only asset

class as a class that I see that's still cheap. And I know the fundamentals are changing. You know, more people in America study public relations and study agriculture now. You know, the highest rate of suicide in the UK is in agriculture. I mean, Jim, agriculture has been a nightmare all over the world. We help farmers with their hedging. And for four years, it was brutal. This year, finally, they got a little light at the end of the tunnel. But yeah, you didn't. I mean, RCM knows this as well as I do, I'm sure.

You know, agriculture, the fundamentals of agriculture worldwide have been terrible for a long time. Yeah. But they're not making any more land and we're sure as heck making more people, right? Except for Japan. Well, I do know that throughout history, we've had big, long cycles with all sectors of the world economy. You read literature, you read history, you know that sometimes the greatest, richest people have been the farmers,

whether they had a plantation or whatever, you know, whether they were English or Russian, it didn't matter. They were rich and rich and rich. We've also had times when they were really poor and peasants, you know, so this is not the first time we've had these long cycles and we're probably having them again. I love it.

All right, I'm going to ask you a few of your favorites, a little rapid fire, unless you got any other thoughts on the world at large. Be careful because I'm going to say, and I think this is a simple statement, the next bear market, the next economic dislocation will be the worst in my lifetime. And to me, that's simple because 2008 was a horrible time and since there was too much debt and since then the debt everywhere in the world has skyrocketed. So in your lifetime would not be i can don't see how if there's somebody thinks that's some kind of crazy statement please

tell me why i'm wrong i would love to be wrong yeah tell me so in your lifetime what's the biggest drawdown 2008 s&p like 56% or so? Oh, no. I mean, there have been, you know, the great bubble in Kuwait in the late 70s. It went to zero. A great Japanese bubble in the late 80s. You know, the market went from 40,000 to 7,000. The Japanese stock market is still down 35% from its all-time high. And that was over 30 years ago. I've had some

gigantic dislocation, what you call them, drawdowns. All right. So I thought you were just talking, I'm US-centric here, but you're saying worldwide is going to be the worst we've seen in your lifetime. Well, okay. I mean, I've always invested all over the world for many decades. And I, when I look out the window, I look at the world, I don't see just Missouri. You know, I see other places as well. So yeah, the debt is staggering. Even the Germans have debt now. You got German cities that are in serious trouble. Germany, for goodness sakes. No, this is happening everywhere. And I just got off topic there for a second, but do you think that's a problem that

we're so US-centric? Like most portfolios have little to no foreign stock exposure. There's a lot of new programs coming out where they're hedging, right? Maybe trend following and equities, but the equities is all S&P. You got any thoughts on that? You've long been diversified across the world. Yeah. If you can make money, you have your way and you're good at it. Don't listen to me. Do it your way. Don't try to copy somebody else. Don't take advice from some guy you see on the TV or the internet. If you're good at trading 18 stocks, wherever they trade those 18 stocks and ignore me. I, anyway, have always invested all over the world in an all asset classes, both long and short. That's been my way. But everybody has their own way. I used to work for Roy Neuberger. Roy Neuberger traded like nobody I've ever seen. I don't know if he knew what IBM did. It didn't matter. He could

trade IBM like crazy. He was over 100 when he died, still going down there every day. And he was shocking. He was so good. You think I could tell Roy Neuberger to buy Danish Krona? Oh, my God. He wouldn't know what Danish Krona were and he wouldn't care. And he shouldn't. And so you mentioned long and short. Do you have any shorts you're looking at? Not at the moment. Well, not at the moment.

I'm looking. I mean, I see what you see. I see bubbles developing, but I'm not shorting them. I mean, I have learned the hard way. Bubbles go on much higher and do much crazier things than anybody can believe. I'm not shorting anything. Why is that? Well, I've started shorting junk bonds by buying reverse bond ETFs. But even that is so small, it's not worth talking about. We'll move on to the favorites, give you some rapid fire answers. So over all your motorcycle and car trip, what was your favorite spot? Might be like picking your favorite daughter,

but what was your favorite spot on all those trips? Or I'll take two or three if you can't narrow it down to one. I will tell you that crossing the Sahara Desert is one of the most extraordinary and exciting and romantic things you will ever do. If you survive. I don't know if I'll ever do it. Sahara Desert is the size of the continental United States. It's huge and there are no roads and it's a disaster but if you do it and I've done it three

times I will tell you it is unbelievable how exciting and fabulous if you make it and a lot of people and when I picture it it's dead flat is that completely wrong is it, it's dead flat. Is that completely wrong? Is it? No, it's not. It's a hard desert. Yeah, most of them. Yeah. Nothing there.

Sand. Sand. But there's not big mounds of sand. Sand and sand. Well, no, there are dunes. There are certainly dunes in any desert. But it's not like going through the Rockies or something. Yeah, yeah. There are dunes. But it's big, going through the Rockies or something. Yeah, yeah. There are dunes, but it's big, flat, no water, no anything, no people.

What was the least favorite or most difficult? I don't have an answer to that. You know, what comes to mind, I remember being held hostage in the Congo for nine days at one time, but even that was interesting and laughable and a great experience. We were held hostage by the police. They wanted money. They would take us to the disco. We would go out to dinner. The police chief had us come to his house at night for dinner. We all went to the disco together, but we were held hostage. Finally, I convinced them we didn't have any money, and they wouldn't just put us on the road because they wanted to get us out

of there, so they took us down to the railroad, and they put us on a flat car, and I was run out of town on a rail. They literally put our motorcycles and us on the flat car and said to the train, don't let them off. So we get to. Where did the train end up? But even that was an interesting, as I say, we went to the disco, we went to the police chief's home for dinner, etc. So having been to all those places, favorite place to vacation? Oh, I don't particularly like tourist places. My wife loves Bali, for instance, which is a great tourist attraction.

I don't particularly like those places because I like to go to, you know, I like to go to the bad places and the bad parts of town what and I've got as the favorite cuisine and all these trips like what kind of regional food did you find the best well I love Italian food I love Italian wine but I also like unagi which is a great Japanese dish it's's eel. I love unagi. I have learned recently about Korean anchovies. I can't believe how good they are. Fried silkworms in Korea. I love fried silkworms. It's harder and harder to get them.

No, there's some delicate iguana in South America, but it's harder and harder to get iguana. There's some great dishes. Never had monkey. Oh, I never tried monkey. People have tried, but for some things, I just, monkey's too close to home for me. Yeah, never had monkey either. And you got a favorite bow tie? you're not wearing the bow tie today well if i had known i would have dressed properly um i don't at the moment probably my i have a polka dot bow tie which i like i have uh if if this would i have a japanese mount fuji i've written some bestsellers in Japan recently, so I wear Mount Fuji when I'm talking to the Japanese, because in Japan, there's a saying that everybody should climb Mount Fuji at least once, but only a fool will climb it twice. So I love, and you cannot find, I had to

have it specially made, my Mount Fuji bow ties. I guess those are my favorites. And how did that come about? That was just your look and you stuck with it or was it a, were you doing that from early on? No, no. Bow ties were cheaper, Jeff. Much, much cheaper than long material. You don't get them dirty. If you get a bow tie tie dirty it's much cheaper to clean it i didn't have any money god smart still don't still don't i don't believe that um what i gotta ask about your goblet there is that gold to you it's silver silver uh i i my mother won some silver goblets when she was at university riding, and I still have them.

And silver, of course, kills germs. And it's a, I mean, silver is known as a way to stay more healthy. The Korean emperors used to only use silver chopsticks so nobody could poison them. Really? There are some sundry advantages. And I use my mother's old silver goblet still. I'm going to have to get my McDonald's Diet Cokes in a silver goblet.

Well, you would be healthier. You'll kill germs. I'd be healthier if I didn't drink the soda whatsoever. But, yeah, maybe a silver cup would be better. I drink green tea. I do drink a lot of green tea, actually. Green tea is also healthier, supposedly.

And then lastly, your favorite Star Wars character. Hopefully you're a fan. I have to confess to you that I don't know enough about Star Wars. I did see it 30, 40 years ago, but I haven't been back, and I don't have a TV, Jeff. Even if I did, I wouldn't watch it, so I don't go to many movies.

Do you remember the lead guy or the lead bad guy? No, no. Sorry. Luke Skywalker. I don't remember what I had for breakfast, Jeff. So much less do I remember Luke Skywalker. I've heard you cannot be alive without hearing Luke Skywalker. But if he walked in right now, I would not know who he was. I wouldn't know it's a male.

That's all I would know. And so no TV, that helps you stay focused and get your ideas. You're not getting CNBC on the brain and getting confused with all that stuff. I'm saving my money, Jeff. When I get enough saved up, I'll buy a TV. If you haven't heard, they're pretty cheap these days. Well, I know. Actually, it really doesn't matter anymore. For instance, my children can watch anything they want on the Internet and they do, you know, K-drama.

Oh, my children know all about K-drama. They can watch TV from anywhere in the world that they want to. And they periodically do. Crazy. Well, thanks, Jim. This has been fun. We'll hope to look you up next time I'm in Singapore, which would be my first time. Well, Jeff, you let me know when you're coming and I'll try to get enough money together to buy a TV. Yeah.

We can watch TV together if you want. I want to go get some fried silkworms. to get enough money together to buy a TV. Yeah. You can buy a TV together if you want. I want to go get some fried silkworms. Well, they are fabulous if you can find them. The only country where I have ever been able to find them is Korea, and it's street food. You buy them in newspapers. They're wrapped in newspapers.

They don't have them in fine restaurants, and they don't even have them that much as street food. I mean, Korea is getting more and more sophisticated and you can buy tequila worms in Mexico. If you and those are very good. You can buy fried tequila worms in Mexico. They're fabulous. All right. I'll take you up on that one. All right, Jim, thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. My pleasure, Jeff. And I urge you to watch the derivative so you can figure out what's going to go on. You asked me some questions. I didn't have the answers. You know, I need to know when this is going to happen. And I need to know what to do about it. I should call RCM, so I'll call RCM. You call us up. We'll help you out. Thank you. Thank you. Let's do it again

sometimes. Will do. Bye-bye. You've been listening to The Derivative. Links from this episode will be in the episode description of this channel. Follow us on Twitter at RCM Alts and visit our website to read our blog or subscribe to our newsletter at rcmalts.com. If you liked our show, introduce a friend and show them how to subscribe. And be sure to leave comments. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you.