Monday, March 11, 2013

Quote of the Day: Jim Rogers

Throughout our history – any country’s history – the people who save their money and invest for their future are the ones that you build an economy, a society, and a nation on.

In America, many people saved their money, put it aside, and didn’t buy four or five houses with no job and no money down. They did what most people would consider the right thing, and what historically has been the right thing. But now, unfortunately, those people are being wiped out, because they are getting 0% return, or virtually no return, on their savings and their investments. We’re wiping them out at the expense of people who went deeply into debt, people who did what most people would consider the wrong thing at the expense of people who did the right thing. This, long-term, has terrible consequences for any nation, any society, any economy.

If you go back in history, you'll see what happened to the Germans when they wiped out their savings class in the 1920s. It didn’t lead to good things down the road for Germany. It didn’t lead to good things for Italy, which did the same thing. There were plenty of countries where it wiped out the people who saved and invested for their future. It’s usually a serious, political reaction, desperation in some cases, and looking for a savior and easy answers is usually what happens when you destroy the people who save and invest for the future.

~ Jim Rogers, from Peak Prosperity Interview, 3/9/2013

Grouch: Savers have been punished since the Fed's Quantitative Easing program began. Bank deposits, Certificates of Deposit, Money Market accounts and even investment grade bonds aren't even keeping up with inflation and taxes while the Fed continues its risk-on, asset inflation policy. All market-based incentives now lead rational investors to borrow at these cheap rates, instead of save and commit their capital to riskier projects in pursuit of return.

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