BRIC? not really; MINT

BRICs remember that?
Ten years ago Wall street pundits argued that Brazil had everything going for itself. Talks of becoming a developed country were published daily. It was its industry, manufacturing, tourism, internal demand, raw materials, food production... what could wrong?

Mexico...  well it was doomed... China made Mexico irrelevant.

look at this table

Greenfield FDI investments by country in $M
YEAR	Brazil	Mexico
2005	24,092	3,431
2006	4,357	9,743
2007	10,926	6,472
2008	27,958	21,463
2009	13,309	15,536
2010	25,355	10,412
2011	24,823	13,272
2012	13,809	9,253
2013	9,330	13,728
2014	5,917	16,025
2015	2,025	8,113
Total	161,901	127,548

Now nobody talks about BRICs in fact we talk MINT

Mexico
Indonesia
Nigeria
Turkey

Cool... for how long?

A brand new FX world

I used to teach (even this morning, 8/20/2015) that a devaluation was a good way for countries to increase their exports and get out of debt...

I guess it is still true, however... (a big one)...

Our supply chains are now so interconnected that depend on a group of currencies. Only a portion of any good is made in one country. Much of many products is simply transportation.

In this line, a new study from the World Bank concludes:

"Intuitively, as countries are
more integrated in global production processes, a currency
depreciation only improves the competitiveness of a fraction
of the value of final goods exports. "

The authors claim that depreciations are only 1/2 as effective as they were 20 years ago.

My un-scientific good gews for Bitcoin

Much seems to be going wrong for Bitcoin... Not all is lost.

The thing is that awareness does not equal adoption.I asked my students (today) how familiar they were with a number of mobile payment apps and some crypto-currencies. The list included Google Wallet, Bitcoin, Lemon Wallet, Ripple and Litecoin. Highlights below. N=25 sample of senior International Business Students.

Bitcoin seems to be on the minds of young people. A respectable 52%  (13 students) reported being familiar or somewhat familiar with the currency. The figure was very similar to Apple pay where 56% (14 students) reported familiarity.

Regarding adoption/usage, Only one student reported having used Bitcoin, and in his words, it was "to try it out"... The surprise came from the usage of Apple pay... (I was expecting a slam-dunk) Despite name brand,,fanfare, trust, halo, etc.. only two students report usage... (the Starbucks app seems to be what does the trick for Apple)

Takeaways?  The way I see it:
a)It is still time for Bitcoin or other crypto-currencies to get in the game! or
b) It is time for New England students to get more tech-savvy.
you choose