The Chinese growth story is finally showing undeniable signs of slowing. It's an inevitable event that somehow seems to shock ardent China bulls. Who better to discuss the situation than Jim Rogers, a man so convinced of the inevitability of China's economic dominance that he often advises investors to teach their children Mandarin.
While still bullish on the world's second largest economy, Rogers says a recessionary fate will befall them regardless of efforts to engineer an easy slowing of growth.
"I've never seen anybody pull off a soft landing" the influential investor tells me. "Politicians are not that smart; the economy is smarter."
Despite (or because of) a looming hard landing, Rogers is sticking with his enthusiasm for the Red Dragon.
"I know the Chinese call themselves communists, but they're really the best capitalists in the world," he says. This is at least in part because they'll allow bankruptcies and failures in sectors of their economies that Americans insist on propping up.
This is exactly the type of free market behavior the U.S. abandoned long ago. "California is more communist than China at this point," Rogers states. Ouch.
With ample troubles at home the largest lenders in the world have lost the desire, or perhaps the ability, to continue to bailout the rest of the world.
"They've (China) told the Europeans they can't bail them out," Rogers says, adding that China has turned to investing in hard assets around the world. Not surprisingly Rogers is playing along with the Chinese with his own portfolio. See how in the attached video.
