Stand on a street corner in Hanoi and sooner or later a Mercedes-Benz, a Porsche or a Lexus will glide past. Twenty years ago, this place was all bicycles. Now it’s all scooters and imported cars.
I can’t tell you how to turn water into wine, but after my recent scouting trip to Asia I can tell you how to turn it into money.
What I’m about to say may sound overly simplistic. But as an investor you want to put your money where the growth is. And right now the growth is not in America. It’s overseas.
One of the biggest trends in the world right now—and potentially one of the most profitable—is the growth of a new middle class outside places where you might not normally imagine middle class people. Places like India, Brazil and China.
The Panic of 2008 is in the rearview mirror. The financial system, which teetered on the brink, is still standing. And at writing, the Dow is back to levels not seen since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
China, Brazil and India were the big emerging-market growth stories of recent years. Indonesia is this year’s story.
Most people see the 2008–2009 economic crash as an isolated event. And they see governments’ large-scale money creation as a necessary antidote to this isolated event. The problem with this view is that it ignores the last 15 years of U.S. monetary history. And it obscures how today’s policy decisions will lead to tomorrow’s financial disaster.