Billionaire investor warns of fresh global crisis ‘in 2013 or 2014′

Commodities guru, Jim Rogers, warns that the current financial crisis is set to worsen in the next couple of years, with fresh problems surfacing in 2013 or 2014.

Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore at the Philip Investment Festival 2012 press briefing on Thursday, Rogers explained that he remains bearish on the outlook of the global economy because "nobody's solving the problems in Europe".

"At the moment there's an election in America and an election coming up in Germany. Both of those countries are major economic powers, and they're doing everything they can to get re-elected. They're both spending a lot of money and they're printing a lot of money to get through the next election," said the 69-year-old American investor, who co-founded of the Quantum Fund along with George Soros.

Rogers, who relocated to Singapore with his family in 2007, added, "But I would suspect that after the elections, probably 2013, 2014, you're going to see more economic problems… and a lot of those problems will come out of Europe."

He then pointed out that nobody's really decreasing their debt in Europe, with most countries struggling under increasing debt except for a few small countries like Bulgaria. He added that current measures to help the affected nations are merely pushing these problems away into the future.

But that's not the only problem. Respected stock trader and author Mike Bellafiore, who was also present at the press briefing, said that the current crisis is not just about debt.

According to Bellafiore, who is a partner and co-founder of New York proprietary trading firm, SMB Capital, the current financial crisis also has a problematic political dimension to it.

The trader who owns three businesses in America said, "In 2008, there was really a banking crisis. (The current crisis) is more of a political crisis, in the sense that essentially Europe is at the mercy of (Angela) Merkel and how France and Germany decide to handle the situation with Greece."

Bellafiore then raised two questions: Is Germany really going to continue to pay for the debts of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Ireland?

And how likely is it for someone who lives in Greece to sign up for years of austerity when it wouldn't be difficult for a "populist Greek politician" to rally the people's support to leave the European Union and start their own currency?

"It's not just going to be just an issue of 'Can we work out our debt?'. It's an issue of 'Do the people who are making these decisions have the appetite to continue?' and 'Do the residents have the appetite to sign off on this?'," he said, adding that at the moment, nobody really knows the answer.

Turning to the issue of China's slowing economy, however, both investors are in fact pleased and optimistic rather than worried.

Rogers explained that China's recent policies to cool its economy are taking effect, so that they can "pop" their property bubble and defeat inflation.

Bellafiore said that China "has become softer purposely" and they are "trying not to grow as quickly" because of inflation, as opposed to it being an effect of the global crisis.

Rogers also added that Asian nations have generally been doing well in building up their reserves and spending less, which he says, is the way to go for countries to tide over the financial crisis.

According to the investor who currently lives in Singapore with his family, the city-state in particular, has been "doing a lot of things right".

"(Singapore) doesn't have staggering debts like America does. It's been saving money for a rainy day and loosening up its economy and its political system in many ways," he said.

The father of two, who rides a bicycle to and from his children's school every day, has only one tiny problem with Singapore.

"I just wish they would be more bicycle friendly," he said.