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Sunday, March 07, 2004

Jim Rogers, Marc Faber and Dan Yergin on life, the universe and everything 

Thomas sent me this slightly dated, yet highly readable conversation between Daniel Yergin (Commanding Heights fame) and two of the best known investors/thinkers in the world, Jim Rogers and Marc Faber. They talk about everything from the roots of terrorism, the need to learn Chinese, a Dutch proclivity to being handicapped to the state of India's infrastructure. Though it's a stream of consciousness kind of conversation, the transcript is still worth a read.

I have noticed that Jim Rogers is very upbeat about China's prospects and very downbeat about India's prospects. In this conversation, Rogers reiterates that he is very bearish on India. He has in the past even suggested that India might get Balkanised and so on. While this is a valid fear, I happen to think Rogers is dead wrong on India's prospects. I would even bet that India's long-term prospects are better than China's. This interview was recorded in early 2003, when the Indian economy was sputtering at about 4% growth. I wonder if the recent numbers has caused any sort of rethink in Rogers' mind or would he simply attribute it to good monsoons?