Op-Ed rough draft

Humanities AM
2-24-16

International Investing
Isaac Jordan

By spreading investments out globally you are talking less of a chance of losing your money. You might
be asking why this affects you. Investing your money can be a risky but rewarding business. Its a big
decision, deciding where to invest your money, what to invest in and when to invest it. If youre thinking
about buying stock or bonds, you need to figure out what is best for you. Do your research to find what
you think would work for you. When investing it is common to invest 5-25% of your portfolio depending
on how much you want to risk.
Over the years investments have been changing rapidly and are continuing to grow. In 1982, the global
total of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows was $57 billion. According to UNCTAD 2013, by the end
of 2012, FDI flows reached an estimated $1.35 trillion.
The growth in international investment is because of globalization, because the world is becoming a more
connected place. Some might say this is a bad thing, people think its a bad thing because companies and
countries want to get invested in, so the make the wages low, environment laws weak and working
conditions rough. They do all this in the hopes of getting invested in. By lowering these standards they are
making it cheaper and people want to invest in them.
International investments can have potential for higher rates of growth. International stocks are becoming
a larger share of the investment universe. Potential to lower overall risk in your portfolio. And can
multiple currencies can provide an added diversification to your investments.
Another reason to invest internationally is because more than 50% of investments are made outside the
U.S. Now the U.S. might have some good investment to make but there might a better one outside the
U.S. that you can invest in.
More than half of the world's market capitalization lies outside the U.S. As we shall explore in upcoming
articles, there are good reasons to believe that, over the long haul, international stocks have at least as
much potential, and probably more, as their U.S. counterparts.
When investing your money you want to be able to invest and watch that investment grow. Now in order
to do that you need to buy into a good stable company. But you might be thinking how can I tell what a
stable company might look like. The answer is, there is no answer. You are always going to have that risk
of lose some of your money when you invest in a company. There is no sure way to pick a company
Another reason international investing is a good is, it can help developing countries. Now days
developing countries are having a really hard time building themselves up, mainly because of the lack of
money that they have. They are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to money.
International investment is important to most economies, and can be particularly vital for developing
countries.
In many instances, developing countries have both the demand for a good or service, and the labor and
natural resources to supply it, but they lack the access to capital necessary to begin producing.

There are some reasons people hesitate to invest internationally. One of those reasons is they dont know
where there company is getting there materials, if they are made in a sweat shop. Now some people say
sweat shops are a bad thing and are dehumanizing. And if investing nationally you can figure out where
the company is getting there materials to see if they are made in a sweat shop.
Investing in a company that might be getting there materials from a sweat shop might not be a bad thing.
You not only can get your goods for a cheap price but are putting jobs out there for people in poor and
developing countries. People in poor or developing countries think a sweat shop is a highly lusted upon
job. Its cleaner, and can be safer than other jobs such as going though dumps to collect plastic to recycle
them for money.
Another reason people dont want to invest internationally is because they think that people/companies
will lower there law standards in order to get more people to invest in their company and country. Now
this is a real issue and can be bad for environmental laws and can be bad for working conditions and
lower pay. Now a way to fix this would be to have the UNCTAD make a law that says people cant lower
their laws to have people invest in their companies. And the investors cant encourage them to lower their
laws to make it cheaper. By making a law that applies to all countries who want to invest to keep
environmental laws as well as labor laws.
It is inappropriate to encourage investment by relaxing domestic health, safety or environmental
measures. This article also says Contracting Party should not waive or otherwise derogate from such
environmental measures

In the end, investing international there are more pros then there are to national investing. You can get
more money, you can make more jobs, with taking less of a chance in losing your money.

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Gordon, K. and J. Pohl (2011), Environmental Concerns in International Investment
Agreements: A Survey, OECD Working Papers on International Investment, 2011/01, OECD
Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kg9mq7scrjh-en3333