I believe that what I called in the late '70s and early '80s, along with other people like Barton Biggs and Antoine van Agtmael, what we call emerging markets now, many emerging markets are no longer emerging; they're advanced economies, like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. Now we have new emerging economies like Kazakhstan, parts of the former Soviet Union, African countries, Mongolia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and so forth.
So I'm sure there is some merit of investing in these regions. There is also what I have experienced, a significant execution risk. In other words, people go in there and they buy stuff and then they don't take much money because they're being cheated out or promoters of the projects make the money and not the investors. But in general, the concept appeals to me.
I would also say, we have to broaden the concept of emerging markets to emerging industries. You make much more money in investing in biotech and in the Internet and social media stocks in the last few years. It's not a recommendation to do it at the current level of stock prices. But I'm saying in the last three or four years you made much more money in emerging sectors of the economy than investing in Laos and Cambodia and Mongolia.
