After a torrid year, the commodities markets showed some weakness is January. For example, gold fell by about 6%.

So is this a correction or finally a bear market?

Well, legendary investor, Jim Rogers, still thinks that commodities are the best place for your investment dollars (according to an interview on CNBC). No doubt, he has lots of credibility. When others snickered, Rogers started to invest in commodities in the late 1990s. He even wrote a book on the topic.

Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, has long advocated fiscal conservatism. In a recent interview for CNBC, he told the U.S. to stop printing money, bite the bullet and go on an austerity program. His ideas are sound but are falling on deaf ears at the Federal Reserve. Rogers said that he would rather have Europe manage our fiscal policy.

We must remember that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has already pledged and spent $12.8 trillion dollars to bail a handful of bankers. Now he says he will spend more if needed. He is already pumping money into the economy by buying treasuries with the proceeds of expiring securities.

Ever since governments around the world started printing stimulus money, Jim Rogers, chairman of Jim Rogers Holding, has been bullish on commodities.

Rogers holds gold and would buy more. "I wouldn't think of selling," he said. "If gold goes to $1,000 per ounce or pick a number -- I hope that I'm smart enough to buy more."

Central bankers are buying gold, making gold an investment of choice among bankers around the world. Rogers does not believe that we've seen a bubble in gold. He believes that gold will appreciate over the next decade.

Armed with wit and logic, investment legend Jim Rogers made the case on Bloomberg TV that the United States government's bailouts of failed companies may thrust the global economy into a depression.

"The U.S. is taking assets from competent people and giving them to incompetent people. That's bad economics."

Rogers argued that American International Group (NYSE: AIG) should have been allowed to descend into bankruptcy, and he feels the same about similarly situated businesses. It just doesn't make sense to divert money from healthy, prudently-managed companies and plow it into debt-burdened companies that are being run badly at best and criminally at worst.

In his investment career, Jim Rogers has made some great calls. He is the co-founder of the legendary hedge fund, the Quantum Fund (which got its start in the early 1970s), where he made a fortune on commodities trades (his partner was George Soros).

And since the late 1990s, Rogers has yet again been a bull on the commodities market. In fact, he has written a book on the topic, Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market.

But, with the recent plunge in commodities, is Rogers changing his views? Nope.

If anything, he's bullish for the next ten years (this is according to a speech he made at an investor conference in Kuala Lumpur). Basically, the recent fall-off is a correction. And, expect many more (after all, this was the case during the 1970s).

Basically, Rogers thinks there will need to be a massive global recession to derail the commodities boom. And, he doesn't see any signs of this.

Interestingly enough, Rogers said he is considering investing in base metals again.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

The World Bank entered the increasingly-divided debate on where oil prices are headed Wednesday by announcing in its Global Economic Prospects 2008 report that oil prices will fall gradually through 2009 to about $75, then fall toward $50 per barrel, in the longer-term.

"In the longer term, the oil market balance is expected to loosen and prices are projected to fall toward $50 per barrel," the World Bank wrote in its report. Oil closed Wednesday down 74 cents to $95.59.

The bank said that because OPEC has limited spare capacity and is holding down production, oil prices will likely remain quite elevated and volatile. However, high prices and increasing environmental concerns should continue to moderate growth in demand.

The Washington, D.C.-based international bank said it sees finely balanced markets in 2008-2009, then rising upstream investment in oil producing countries (OPEC and non-OPEC) should result in new supplies that exceed the growth in demand.

For more on this supercycle, I recommend reading uber-trader Jim Rogers' work on commodities. Jim was, along with George Soros, the founder of the Quantum Fund. He has been pretty accurate with his predictions regarding hard assets and the ensuing demand/supply issues that are being exacerbated by demand from India and China. There's an insightful interview with him here that's really good reading.

From the interview: "Nobody has discovered a gigantic oil field for thirty years. That's not a theory; that's a basic fact. In the meantime, demand for oil has been going up for many years. That's not a theory, either; that's a simple fact. Likewise, there has been one lead mine open in the world for the past twenty years, and the last lead smelter was built in the U.S. in 1979. I could continue: the number of acres devoted to wheat farming has been declining for 20 years.

All this recession talk has not convinced me that we are destined to have one, and I see plenty of signs that 2008 might surprise to the upside. There are plenty of problems within the US economy, and I could make a case that there is a possibility that the economy might catch cold but remedies also exist. I see the cup as half full for the stock market. This is not to say that individuals will not have to deal with hard times, they will - but the market might shine. This can happen because the market is global.

Many widely followed investment icons have a different perspective, including renowned international investor Jim Rogers in the December issue of Fortune who said, "In my view, the U.S. economy is in recession. I know the government says we're not. But as I look around, we know that automobiles are in worse than recession. The same thing is true for home-builders. Much of the financial sector is in worse than recession. So many parts of America are in worse than recession, and yet the government says we're not in a recession. I don't know what's so strong that it's offsetting these major weaknesses in the American economy. I just assume that the government is lying."

I can agree that the government is lying, but I can't agree that the economy is void of positives. There is plenty that is going strong in the economy. The defense sector is going strong as I reported on recently Defense sector rolls over S&P 500 for 8th straight year and there is every indication this will continue.