Customer Reviews

Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers

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Rogers does such a great job reviewing various countries around the world. He not only explains the macro and micro economic aspects, but also the historic angle as well. The reader gets a tremendous feel for what makes a country economically successful. He also explains how the local culture, either helps or hinders a countries prosperity.
The best thing about Mr. Rogers is that he is not a Wall Street Pollyanna.He is not afraid to point out both positive and negative conditions.

The author, Jim Rogers, is a international investor and bike adventurer. By reading this book, through the author's eyes you can experience a graet world bike adventure. In this tour, you are going to see natives' lives and cultures in those countries, even to understand those and world economics, for as a investor on the bike the author observes those areas in detail from many viewpoints. It's interesting and useful to read this book, by which you can enjoy a world bike adventure and study economics.

The Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Roger would not have been a book I would have chosen to read on my own but, after being assigned to it I would recommend it to those interested in world economy, travel and BMW motorcycles. One follows Roger around the world on his 22-month expedition of six continents and numerous economies and societies. Along with his girlfriend, Tabitha, Roger, a Wall Street legend, entertains with antecedents from his trip, while giving valuable insight of each economy he comes across. Roger is known from revitalizing the "Sleeping Beauty" that is the Austrian stock market. Over the 65,067 miles traveled BMW motorcycles and thousands more by boat, plane and train, Roger experiences first hand global societies, international economies and how they are seceding and failing around the world.

One of the best travel narratives about motorcycle touring ever written. Plus, you get Rogers' insights into where to put your money. Fortunately, the motorcycle touring takes precedent over Rogers' relentlessly money-focused view of the world. To my mind, the finest book about motorcycle adventures is "Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba," Christopher P. Baker's fascinating and sometimes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising story of a 7,000-mile journey and justifiably the winner of both the 2002 "Travel Book of the Year" and the North American Travel Journalist Association's Awards of Excellence "Grand Prize."

This book is Robert Pirsig meets George Soros. Jim Rogers, gazillionaire of Quantum Fund fame, takes you on a riding and investing adventure around the world. During his travels you'll learn a little about local culture, a little about Jim's investment philosophy (go to where they allow open flows of money - just get there before everyone else) and a little about investment tips. Much of this would be great to have learned 7 or 8 years ago. Indeed, the book sparked my interest in working abroad.

If you enjoyed his later work, Adventure Capitalist, you're sure to like this too. The only knock is that many of his observations are now dated, as his pessimism has grown over time. (Examnple: He's not so bullish on Turkey and parts of Latin America.)

Enjoyable read, but, author's arrogance gets in the way: "I went to wall street a poor boy, and left with millions..." He basically knows more than anyone in the world. A "market will cure all the world's ills" capitalist, it gets old. I had to slog through the first pages to get through the arrogance, and finally made it to the last page. I enjoyed it, but if Roger's had just toned it down a notch about how wonderfully bright he was, it would have been more enjoyable.

This is a travel book, not a financial book, period. It's 90% travel to 10% international finance/investment 101. And it's interesting because Jim gives us a glimpse of the current, recent and distant-pasts of these exotic and intriguing places he visits on his motorcycle journey which spanned 22 months. He didn't look up influential people in the places he visited. He writes about his conversations and experiences from people he "bumped into" during his trip. That's where one learns what a place is really like. He also "put his bike down" a couple of times, and spent a lot of time wrenching on it. He's no schlep.

A success on Wall Street, he has a lot of knowledge about many different parts of the world in a historical, and "future possiblility" sense in the political, economic, and cultural context. Because his experiences on this journey, which comprise this book were penned in the early 1990s, the reader can: see if Jim was right about his take on the future of these nations. Overall he's on track.

For example, the rise of Islamic extremism in poor Islamic countries that have been left behind in the technological advances and globalization of the planet. Religious resurgences in the former Soviet republics, the lack of common sense and wastefulness of the communistic system, and the then-and-now shrinking of our world via telecommunications, freer international trade, regulations, technology, and business/trade agreements.

For the ten-percent of the book that discusses general international investment, for the layman he discusses U.S. Gold and monetary policy, that are short and easy to read, as well as basic Monetary policy and Macro-economic functions. How does someone buy and sell currency? What do folks look for when the invest in a nation? Why do some countries have currency and foreign exchange controls? And, what are the positives and negatives of these monetary policies?

One historical insight Jim noted on his long trek across Russia and the former Soviet republics on his bike is that communism and Stalin in the Soviet Union were greatly helped by the invasion of Germany in WWII. Hypothetical of course, but what if Germany hadn't attacked the USSR which led to the deaths of 1/6th of the Soviet population? The invasion, loss of life, hardship and subsequent "heroic" victory helped the USSR substantially. In addition to defeating the Germans, the Soviet's victory meant the subjugation of Eastern Europe, which enabled it to extract its resources and industries which the USSR didn't immenselyviously this helped Stalin tyrannical. How long would Stalin's tyannical murder spree, with his own people starving in the 1920s, have lasted with out it? His forever-lasting economic policies were not sound, as we found out in 1991. With the subsequent victory in '45, he was a "hero." The glue that held this multi-ethnic and geographically gargantuan empire together until is collapse in 1991.

Many of his insights about where the U.S. economy and culture are headed are worthy of being considerate of. In the last several decades the U.S. currency has lost a full 1/3 of its value. Why? What is the result, both good and bad? Find out here. Jim also notes, from a rational investor standpoint that the American economy is past its glory days, and like every other nation or culture in history it will diminish in the same likes of the British and Roman Empires as examples. According to Jim, it has already begun. The world changes. Demographics change. Cultures and populations change over time. Our world and its history culturalism and not static.

Multi-cultralism: good, right? Wrong. We simply don't know. It hasn't worked anywhere else in the world. It may very well (or may not) cause a lot of problems in the United States in the future after we're dead. Multi-culturalism is a natural demographic historical process that has affected, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Italy, Rwanda, Switzerland, Nigeria, China, Canada, and Latin America (among many more). Americans are too myopic to realize what ethnic, linguistic, and geographical "nationalism" can become over decades and centuries. He points out correctly the deep similarities of the folks in Alaska, the Yukon Territories, and Pacific Northwest in the U.S. What does the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia have in common with DC and Ottawa? Not much. But they do have much in common with each other.

He explained some international investment and financial models, so the layman can understand what he's saying. It's a presursor to an International finance/investment Intro class. This is why it's not a financial book. Many of his friends at "Worth" and "Money" magazine, and Wall Street (even Peter Lynch), gave a sound-bite for this book. But it won't attract the type of folks who'd read it, because it's a Travel Book and travelers read travel books, not investment books (generally speaking). So, why is Lynch's "Beating the Street" put in the same category as "Investment Biker?" Because the person in charge apparantley hasn't studied much Marketing....

He's gotta a biker-like name, Jim Rogers. He's wearing a leather jacket and chaps and has a smile on his face in the company of a good looking girlfriend. After he returned home from this trip, he drove his motorbike to Alaska. He's a biker at heart and schrewd investor in mind. Jim and Pirsig out to get together. Boy, wouldn't that be a book?

The book actually has not much to do with investemnts. Except for some global economic predictions, the book is on travelling the world. Do not read it for investment stories except if you are interested in lines like: The Chinese are building roads, construction workers who make them used to farm sheeps, of which the cashmere is exported. Therefore go short in fashion brands when the Chiense start building roads....

This is one of the finest book ever written on anything. Jim Rogers is a man of action, a living Indiana Jones. He does what he says.

Granted many people write on Finance, Business, Travels. However, virtually all wrote from the "ivory tower pinhead" perspective by professor who have never worked anywhere, built a business or personally been to all the places they write about.

Jim Rogers has "been there" "done that" This is no easy task when you got 10 credit cards, BMW bike, and beautiful woman half your age and five inches taller than you.

The very fact that he survived the trip and live to write about it is a miracle. Jim Rogers took the 2000 tour of the world. ...P>Jim travels to China, Russia, Africa and South America and talks to the business people there and get firsthand knowledge of what's going on. No "ivory tower pinhead" here. He been there and done that. ...

This is surly one of the greatest business and travel books ever written. All should buy and read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone born in the USA. Gives an outlook on the U.S. that's hard to find otherwise. Makes you realize the US won't be top dog forever, and concurrently how lucky one is to not live in most places Rogers visits (at least for now). His story about phoning home from college is worth at least part of the price of the book. Those who are resentful of financially independent people won't enjoy the book, of course. Indeed, I would feel a lot more confident biking across the world with multi-millions in net worth and the title "Doctor" than as a nobody. Being wealthy has a world of benefits...like being able to pay the expenses of that New York ingenue to do the adventure trip with you, and having the option to buy your way out of certain bad situations. One thing I knew before I read page one, you couldn't pay me to do a trip like this. I'm glad Rogers did, so I could enjoy the account from my easy chair. A great read.