New York (HedgeCo.Net) Jim Rogers is a legend in the hedge fund industry, having cofounded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. Mr. Rogers also seems to have a different way of looking at things. He displayed that with his best-selling book Investment Biker. MarketWatch recently interviewed Jim Rogers and what the interview revealed is that he is extremely pessimistic about the world stock markets. He is still invested in stocks in China, Japan and Russia, but he sees potential problems in each of those countries in the long run.

He doesn’t like the fact that U.S. stocks are making all-time highs, but rather he likes the fact that Japan is 50% off its all-time high combined with the way Prime Minister Abe is “doing things to make the market go up.” However, he went on to say that “In the short term, it’s good for investors. In the long term, it will ruin Japan. The population is declining, debt is going through the roof, and currencies are being destroyed. This is not good for Japan.”

As for his take on China, he likes that they are the largest creditor nation and the fact that their market is 30% below its all-time high. His concern for China’s market is that “Debt is building up in China internally that has never happened in decades. It will cause problems for them but it’s not at the tipping point yet. I hope there will be a significant correction so the market will return to a better level. It’s an incipient bubble.”In Russia he sees “the most hated market in the world” and he reasoned, “Why should I buy the U.S., which is wildly popular and expensive, when I can buy Russia, which is hated and cheap?”

Any final thoughts?

In 2008, we had a problem because debt was piled so high, but now the worldwide debt is much higher than it was then. In the U.S., the Fed’s balance sheet has gone up five or six times. Worldwide, all of these countries are talking about austerity, but they continue to run up higher and higher debt. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have the luxury to lower interest rates much more. To pump up the stock market, all they can use is printed money. The next time around will pretty horrible for all of us. I hope that you, your readers, and I survive.