Young Money: "The American and Foreign Power Company" and Foreign Investments

YM:

"[I]f a depression or financial crisis shuts off the foreign-investment spigot, these countries will see no further reason to respect foreigners' rights. If their investments aren't confiscated, they'll be subject to actions that drastically limit their return on investment."

A correspondent writes,

"See what is going on with Clorox assets in Venezuela. Currency and price controls made it impossible to operate at a profit, they shut down the plant and decided to exit the market in Venezuela for the time being. The govt has now confiscated the property and is attempting to operate it. Granted, Venezuela is about as extreme as they come in terms of not respecting property rights, but this all happened in about two weeks."

This is the problem with the "BRICs" that I have written about before.