Emerging Market Enthusiasm as Charitable Donation

“Foreign investors were the biggest losers in U.S. rail projects. The British, in particular, couldn't resist bankrolling the emerging U.S. market in the mid-1800s, just as Americans couldn't resist bankrolling emerging Asian markets in the late 1900s. Much British capital was lost in what turned out to be a gigantic, albeit unintended, charitable contribution to U.S. track laying and road building. Heed it well, ye global capitalists! Fast growth in the latest emerging phenom doesn't necessarily mean fat profits for foreign enthusiasts. The U.S. railroads proved that.”

“Besides vicious taxation and Roosevelt's harangues, Davis identified three other Depression enhancers: (1) Congress's slapping stiff tariffs on foreign products to shelter U.S. manufacturers, (2) collapsing currencies abroad, and (3) corporate mergers. (Given the merger mania and the multiple currency crises in the late 1990s, plus the vigorous debate over free trade, all three have contemporary relevance.)”