“Foreign investors are loathe to invest in the U.S. because they know damn well that a period of massive inflation and/or exorbitant tax hikes are going to be needed to pay out of our financial mess (specifically with regard to huge unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security).”
Oh really?
From the Wall St. Journal:
U.S. Remains Top Magnet for Foreign Investment
Despite all the worries about U.S. economic competitiveness, the U.S. remains both the world’s largest magnet for foreign direct investment and the biggest source of such cross-border investment. The U.S. “continues to occupy a dominant position as foreign investor as a recipient of direct investment after a one-off drop in outflows in 2005 due to changes in the corporate tax code,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a new report.
Among industrialized countries, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Luxembourg were the biggest recipients of foreign direct investment in 2006, while the U.S., France and Spain were the biggest investors, a recent tally by the multilateral Paris-based organization found.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/07/05/us-remains-top-magnet-for-foreign-investment/