“Mr. Roth?   He is ready now.  You can come in.”

With those words I was welcomed into the inner sanctum of one of the world’s most infamous dictators. ​

It was 2006 and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had spent the last half-decade destroying his country’s agricultural sector, plunging the “breadbasket of Africa” into famine.  He was also on the verge of kicking off one of the worst bouts of hyperinflation in history.  After 4+ years shunning the media, I was to be the first Western journalist granted an exclusive sit-down TV interview with him at his presidential office in downtown Harare.  Our exchange made news around the globe.

My name is Jonathan Roth and I have spent the better part of the last two decades conducting and/or producing interviews with the men and women shaping our world: prime ministers, presidents, royalty, business moguls, military commanders, geopolitical strategists and superstar economists.  Cross examining them about their decisions, why they made them and what the future holds has taught me a lot about how the world really works.

For example, one of the first interviews I ever produced on network television was with billionaire Jimmy Pattison.  He taught me a very valuable lesson that day: success is earned.  “Invested capital must produce!” he bellowed.  This was a few moments after he admitted to firing the lowest-performing sales rep at his car dealerships each month.  The gasps from the live studio audience ricocheted off the walls.  But, the message was clear.  Real success can never be gifted; it must be earned.

Nothing could prepare me for Lt. General Roméo Dallaire.  He was the United Nations military commander on the ground during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.  The General described his downward spiral into a suicidal depression due to guilt and shame.  He believed he could have prevented the worst of the killings, but the dithering of top UN and European officials conspired against him.  It was an interview that earned me and my team a Gemini Award, Canada’s equivalent of an Emmy Award.

And then there was Mossad Director Efraim Halevy.  He explained a truth that gains more relevance every day: “9/11 began World War 3…it is going to be the longest war in modern times.”

After over a decade of working as a journalist, producer and executive for major television outlets CTV, OMNI Television and Biography Channel, in 2012 I launched my own television production company. That’s when I began working with John Mauldin. John’s firm, Mauldin Economics, is one of America’s premiere financial publishers and has given me a front row seat to the heated economic and investing debates engulfing our world.  I have questioned everyone from central bankers and billionaire investors to financial and geopolitical forecasters and major CEO’s.  It has been a PhD in the study of money.

All of this has taken me to over 40 countries, spanning the globe.  

I have toured oil wells in Patagonia; explored one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining farms in Iceland; witnessed heavily armed U.S. troops offloading from a transport at a clandestine airstrip in the Sahara Desert; talked strategy with the Vice-Chairman of one of the world's largest mobile phone companies at their HQ in New Delhi; dodged protestors at U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2017 Inauguration in Washington DC; and ventured through shuttered pre-World War II gold mines in Japan.

These experiences have confirmed for me what has always been true but has often been forgotten: progress and wealth are impossible without resources. All empires rise and fall based upon access to resources. And today we are witnessing a global contest for resources unlike anything seen in history before.

This contest is translating into an unparalleled wealth creation opportunity. Those who see the contours of what is taking shape before the herd can enjoy enormous success. Alternatively, those who refuse to see the writing on the wall are destined to be on the outside looking in.

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Expect a regular flow of powerful interviews, insightful articles and entertaining videos. These will be perspectives on investing, global politics, technology and the future you won't see anywhere else.

Until the next dispatch…

ResourceWars: The Global Contest For The World's Wealth