Listened to this podcast with Jim Rogers... (very worth listening to! click here) http://media.dorseywright.com/rss/DorseyWrightPodcast106.mp3
I have nothing but the UTMOST respect for Mr. Jim Rogers, but I've got one point to quibble with him. Before I continue, I should point out that I espouse his conclusions completely.
He keeps saying that China in 2007 is like investing in US in 1907. Along with all the ups and downs and crisis, human rights violations, theft, corruption and other perils. Of course the implicit, and often explicit, message is that investing there for the long long long term is going to be a big win.
Well, the slight problem I have with that analogy is that the analogy suffers from selection(?) bias - the US back then didn't look that bullish, probably some other countries looked more 'obvious' then and would've been viewed as the 'China of 1907', other than the US. Remember, we were a small country with an accelerating, but very poor quality (IE, give me your wretched, your poor, etc...) population. Lots of space and commodities, not needing to import much at all. Perhaps a better guess at the next century's big winner would've been Africa (or even China). And any other 'obvious pick' since then hasn't worked out at all. So unless you picked the unlikely US, or even more unlikely Japan, by some weird luck, your bet would've failed, or at best kept up with the US of 1907 - England.
(Disclaimer: No real data here, no homework or research done, just vague recollections and generally complete-BS pulled from my rear. YMMV)
Btw, his book Adventure Capitalist is a MUST READ by anyone interested in the world, life or investing. Great book and clearly an example of Jim's genius. Called China when it was a backwater, commodities when that was for farmers, gold when that was for jewelry, and shorting the dollar when everyone couldn't get enough of those. Now its obvious but was not at all back then. Pure genius.
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