Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip
by Jim Rogers

Dec 2004

An engaging but melancholy read

Jim Rogers is the guy who started it all for me (a friend lent me his first book, Investment Biker, my sophomore year in college). Investment Biker seemed to create extreme reactions, either loved or hated for its brashness. His follow up, Adventure Capitalist, is more sober and contemplative, though still fun.

The four dominant themes of Adventure Capitalist are bureaucracy, border hazards, untapped potential, and the transient nature of greatness. Country after country shows promise, but opportunity is sadly drowned by mind-numbing red tape and colossal government ineptitude. Again and again there is trouble at the border, and disappointment inevitably follows. The country with a positive border crossing experience, China, is the only one Rogers is wildly bullish on. He sees Shanghai in the year 2004 as analogous to 1904 New York.

With his father's illness as a backdrop, mortality is clearly on Rogers' mind. He refers often to the grand sweep of history, and predicts oblivion for many of the cities and some of the countries he passes through: Timbuktu, once great, now fading into nothing. Russia and Indonesia, countries dissolving into chaos. Saudi Arabia, reverting back to sand dunes centuries hence. Back in the United States, even the glitter and glitz of Vegas simply reminds Rogers of Ozymandias. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, nothing gold can stay. In the long run he's right, of course, but in the short run it's unclear what his message is, other than emphasizing the inevitability of change.

Rogers' views on foreign aid to Africa and NGOs, backed up by frustrating firsthand experience, were particularly eye opening. His "Africa plan" makes a lot of sense, and it's sad to think first world countries are only making things worse for the third world with their current ham-fisted efforts.

After the journey ends, we get a glimpse, or rather a written speech, detailing the big picture—the Jim Rogers macro view. Much of the world is still drowning in red tape, and America is slowly sinking into the muck. Buy China, buy commodities, and buy into war zones at the first sign of an olive branch.

With the birth of his first child, there is more enthusiasm in the last two sentences than the last twenty pages. It's almost as if he were resigning himself to a humdrum existence, the grand adventure over and done, only to discover that being a father is a new adventure all over again. Cheers Jim.