Tom Reese/Paul Rubillo, Dividend.com
Famed investor Jim Rogers is not pulling any punches in his latest assessment of the U.S. Banking Industry.
Rogers called most of the largest U.S. banks ''totally bankrupt,'' and said the government has made it worse by bailing out the incompetent players, instead of letting the strong institutions come in and take them over, which is the normal process. Rogers was short names like Fannie Mae (FRE) and Freddie Mac (FRE), expecting both companies' shares to self-destruct as they have.
The Bottom Line
Rogers sees the U.S. potentially entering a ''lost decade'' similar to what happened in Japan when government bailouts just made things worse. Eighteen years later, and Japan is still trying to recover form the bad moves the government had made. The U.S. kept telling the Japanese to let the bad banks go, but they didn't listen, and here we are today, following the same road.
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