Success Quote by Jim Rogers

Rogers is doing two things at once: narrating a brutal recent past for commodities, and quietly selling the inevitability of the next upswing. “Tough times” reads like understatement; in commodity cycles, that usually means bankruptcies, shuttered mines, idled rigs, and entire regions hollowed out. But he recasts that pain as productive discipline. “Lean and mean” is investor-friendly language for an industry forced into austerity: fewer projects, fewer workers, less capex, more focus on cash flow.

The key move is how he treats consolidation and mergers as natural selection. When weak producers get absorbed or wiped out, the market doesn’t just shrink; it becomes more coordinated, with fewer players capable of restraining supply. That’s the subtext: consolidation isn’t merely survival, it’s a mechanism that can tighten the spigot and rebuild pricing power.

Then comes the clincher: “All that excess supply has been sopped up.” The phrasing is tactile, almost domestic, as if surplus barrels and tons were a spill finally absorbed. It suggests the mess is gone, the floor is dry, and we’re back to scarcity. That’s the intent: to imply a turning point without having to make a bold forecast. If supply has been “sopped up,” then demand doesn’t need to boom to move prices; it just needs to keep breathing.

Context matters because commodities are cyclical and notoriously punishing for latecomers. Rogers is speaking the language of cycle veterans: pain cleanses, capacity exits, inventories draw down, and suddenly the narrative flips from glut to shortage. The quote is less a description than a setup: a rationale for why the next price spike won’t be irrational, but structurally engineered by the last downturn.