Famed international investor Jim Rogers says that if he were a betting man, he'd pick Barack Obama to win the 2012 presidential election. Only the multimillionaire Quantum Fund founder isn't a betting man, so it looks like his vote this year will be going to libertarian Ron Paul.
Leading presidential hopefuls Obama, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum "don't have a clue what's going on", Rogers (left) told Reuters in a televised interview on Thursday. "If I were a betting man, I would bet that Obama would win. He is a sitting president, and it's hard to defeat a sitting president."
Obama is printing and spending a lot of money to make sure the U.S. economy looks good this year, Rogers said, but he added that "the only one that understands" is Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who ran for president on the Libertarian ticket in 1988 and went on to espouse his libertarian platform as a Republican candidate in 2008 as well as 2012.
The Jim Rogers Blog quoted Rogers as supporting Paul as early as last August. "A pox on both their houses, the Democrats and Republicans," Rogers said. "In this election if Ron Paul gets anywhere close to a nomination, I will certainly support him."
The Jim Rogers Channel on YouTube shows that if he could see anybody for president, dead or alive, Rogers would pick laissez-faire economics philosopher Adam Smith, who died in 1790.