I actually only was referring to the lack of infrastructure, not the poverty (although the two generally go hand in hand, because per-capita GDP is driven by th

I actually only was referring to the lack of infrastructure, not the poverty (although the two generally go hand in hand, because per-capita GDP is driven by the level of infrastructure investment.) As for balance sheets, that's why you don't assess company values based on their balance sheets alone. It's better to have a somewhat negative balance sheet and strong income potential than a zero balance sheet and 1/10th the future income. We complain a lot here in the US about how terrible things are, but we still have something like 10X the per-cap GDP of much of the world.