I've never understood this theory of foreign investment. When Milton Friedman was telling us that "If you send green paper/gold to Japan in exchange for a car, then you win because you have a car and they just have worthless green paper or useless gold", the case could be made that this theory of his globalism had not been tested. Friedman also claimed that the nation that exports loses, while the nation that imports wins. Yet he, somehow, spun it so that sending our cash/gold abroad does not count as an export. So now we have tested Friedman's theory of globalism and, after decades, found it to be a complete failure. I think you're on to something with your explanation as public ridicule and assertions of authority figures are the only ways that this theory can survive despite the abundance of evidence that it is a complete crock.