Grand Theft Emerging Markets
The pension fund in Jacksonville, Florida has had its ups and downs. As a community activist I have attended City Council meetings regarding the issues. Recently after roughly about a billion dollars popped up missing I noticed something about the fund.
I had made friends with a retired lawyer that used to work for the pension fund. He was nice enough to provide me with a brief description of the fund. I was intrigued.
Then I went online and downloaded a copy of the by laws associated with the pension fund. I looked it over and I believe I have found something disturbing. The Police and Fire Pension Fund is, by law, mandated to operate a diversified portfolio of investments.
That means that they don't put all their eggs in one basket. If one stock share plummets they have additional diversified investments to ensure they don't lose their shirts. They invest in oil, real estate, retail, tech, medical, etc... ...Something about a cop wearing a barrel instead of carrying one. Forgive me, I'm paraphrasing, but I believe that was the reason listed. Anyway, I noticed they also were mandated by law to invest in Emerging Markets. I did some research on these "Emerging Markets", and this is what i found. Emerging Markets is the most detrimental thing an American investor can dabble in.
By definition these Emerging Markets are third world countries that begin to come out with 1st world technology. The problem is that they don't always come up with this technology themselves. I felt so strongly about this I edited the Wikipedia page on Emerging Markets. Their description described a very volatile gamble. They said it was feast or famine. You can make a ton of cash in emerging markets but there are very big risks.
As all of us investors know, 'RISK' is a four letter word we do not like. Apparently the greatest risk is patent infringement. Emerging Market strategy is to invest in Alibaba, instead of Amazon.... but what happens when Alibaba gets sued for selling counterfeit goods?
They would have you invest in Xiaomi instead of Apple. What happens when Apple sues Xiaomi for patent infringement? The list goes on and on...
A great deal of American technology and ideas have been spirited away to China. China has cheap labor and materials, so the temptation is to great for some businessmen to pass up. They only thing we have on our side is that the American dollars strength makes it ridiculous to invest abroad.
I mean, I am all for globalization, but not at the expense of MY intellectual property. ...Don't duplicate my product.., buy my product. I need that Skrilla Dude... understand?
If someone was to come up with something similar but better there would be nothing to say. The problem is that nine times out of 10 emerging markets are manufacturing items that some unwitting American holds the patent on. They are also very nonchalant about it too.
Remember the New Balance tennis shoe company. They paid a Chinese factory to make New Balance shoes but someone inside the plant stole their blue prints and they duplicated the shoes. They created an entire counterfeit New Balance company.
Then they marketed and sold the shoes with the same logo. Of course the NB meant something different to them, but it still looked like the same shoe. The American New Balance company filed lawsuit after lawsuit as they found the counterfeiters.
The Chinese courts however didn't believe that a theft had occurred. They argued that the shoes logo and design just looked similar. It was deemed harmless by their judges. I'm sorry but me personally, I would be very cautious with this whole emerging market thing. Its just not worth it. Besides, the american equivalent will suffer if you invest in the foreign knock off.
I would also want to invest in an emerging market closer to home. ...Like in South America, The Caribbean, Cuba, or Canada. Asians have a bad reputation of stealing patents then threatening to involve Russia if you complain.
Some of these 'Emerging Markets' are emerging with stolen American technology and ideas. The only person that would support that is people against America. That's probably who invented the term. ...Bastards...
If the third world wants to step into the future, it should be done with licensing agreements, not theft. Its simple physics. ...Two like particles of matter not being able to occupy the same space or time, or something like that.
