Rogers also believes that Americans are too optimistic about the economy. When asked about what concerns him about the state of American fiscal affairs. “The Central Bank. I mean the Central Bank controls monetary affairs, but the Central Bank keeps buying government debt and the congress keeps spending government money so the combination of the federal government including the Central Bank really scare me.” Maximize Your Trades With Profitly

Rogers also believe that printing money does nothing more than “buy time” before an inevitable collapse.

After discussing U.S., European debt and a potential Chinese slowdown, Jim was asked how he sees the global markets reacting in 2012.

“Well I’m not optimistic for the most part about stock markets. I don’t own many stocks anywhere in the world. The only offset of the caveat for me is the fact that there is an election in the US, in Spain – sorry in France, a few other places. So whenever there are elections coming governments spend, spend, spend they throw money out the window to buy votes. So some people are going to be much better off in 2012. Is it enough to offset the world’s problems? I don’t think so, except in some sectors which will benefit.”

Rogers is a big advocate of owning commodities because in his words, “If the market gets better, then commodities will do well because of the shortages.” Rogers is short stocks and also owns some currencies.

He believes that if the global economy doesn’t start to turn around, there will be wide spread problems in stock markets leading to more money printing. When that happens he says the best thing to do “is to own real assets.” Maximize Your Trades With Profitly

You can watch the full interview below.