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When Rogers finds such a hospitable environment, he gets very excited, parks his bike at the local exchange and buys a selection of stocks on the spot. These days Rogers is bullish on the darnedest places: Peru, Angola, Cameroon, and especially Botswana -- all seven of that country's stocks. Botswana has a stable currency, prosperous mines, rich natural resources, a 10% growth rate and no tribal conflicts to speak of, and the stock exchange is one desk in a banker's office. He likes New Zealand, which has cheap stocks and is starting to emerge from 10 years of depression. He likes China, with its long tradition of trading and haggling, where the traders and hagglers are finally loosed from their communist yoke. Last week he gave me his latest favorites: Ghana, Zimbabwe and Iran. His No. 1 short these days? A prosperous country with an untrustworthy currency whose government can't control its spending: the good old U.S. of A. "The rest of the world wants to be like what we were a few decades ago," he says. "And we've given it up."