With five days left until the debt ceiling is reached, are Americans witnessing first hand a crisis or political showdown? According to investor and author Jim Rogers, it just doesn’t matter anymore.

“It’s a charade. It’s a scam. They’re not going to do anything serious,” Rogers told RT. “They’re going to announce something either the day before, the day of or the day after and they’re going to say everything is okay.” Rogers added, however, that “America is going to be in worse shape than it is now.”

“They are going to continue to spend and drive us deeper into debt,” said Rogers.

“I don’t see any chance of turning it around.”

Rogers says that the deadlock in Washington is just posturing. “They’re trying to get publicity for themselves,” he said. Rogers thinks lawmakers are just playing with taxpayer money and it’s not getting better anytime soon.

“We are all going to continue to get deeper and deeper into debt,” predicts Rogers, who believes the overall situation for America is only getting more and more serious. He harped on the fact that America is the largest debtor nation in the world, and said, “You think that problems are bad now, you wait until we don’t have any more credit.” There will be social unrest, said Rogers, as interest rates and inflation will go through the roof.

“Prepare for another lost decade or more,” he said.

In the meantime, Roger saidto ignore the debt talks. “Even if they default on August 2, 3, 4 — they’ll be back playing the same old games.”

“It has no effect on my investment decision,” said Rogers.

Rogers has relocated to Singapore, noting that the twenty-first century will mark a golden age for Asia as America declines.