Disquieting Career Advice

Demopolis-born Jim Rogers—a nationally known hedge fund investor, financial columnist and author—dropped a bombshell on University of Alabama business students in March. He told them to turn their backs on financial careers and aim for farming, mining and commodities.

The Tuscaloosa News reported on his speech to business majors, saying that the days of rewarding careers on Wall Street will soon be a bygone era.

“Finance is not the place to be for a career, ” the Tuscaloosa paper quoted him. “If you want to make real money, go into real goods, raw materials and commodities.”

“If you want to make a lot money, be a farmer. In the next generation, farmers will be driving the Lamborghinis, and the Wall Street financiers will be driving the taxis.”

Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, moved to Singapore from Wall Street in 2008, soon after the he began preaching a retrenchment into basic commodities. His latest book, Hot Commodities, forecast a promising future for China and India, compared to the U.S. In 2008, he told Commodityonline he moved to Singapore because “I was getting wary of the U.S. economy. I always want to be closer to the economic boom.”

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“I am bullish on opportunities in the agricultural commodities market, ” Rogers told the blog interviewer.


By Nedra Bloom

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