“Who will produce the goods we need and who will buy our assets in the future?” Wharton finance professor and best-selling author Jeremy Siegel, PhD, posed this provocative question to an association of financial planners in Philadelphia.

There are some some possible answers to this question in the book Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers. Rogers set a Guinness record for the world’s longest continuous car trip as he spent three years driving through 116 countries on six continents. His book chronicles the trip and provides observations on capitalist potential.

Rogers made a fortune on Wall Street as the co-founder of the Quantum Fund, a global investment partnership. He sold out and retired at 37, but he has elected to remain active with his own investments and a variety of media commentary positions. In 1988, he took his first trip around the world on a motorcycle.

Three countries he visited during that trip stand out as potential investment opportunities. Ireland has a younger, highly educated workforce that is more interested in working than carrying on the wars of their elders. After 150 years of emigration, the Irish are coming back home, and the country is also now playing host to a significant influx of immigrants. Companies from all over the globe are building plants there, and thanks to favorable tax laws, there is a high tech boom going on.

Rogers observed that the best capitalists were the Communist Chinese. They have a long entrepreneurial history, so even though they have only been a communist nation for thirty years, there are still plenty of businesspeople who remember how capitalism works. And the Chinese don’t take siestas—they have an incredible work ethic and are a quick study when it comes to learning from the expatriate class that is returning with capital and expertise.

Rogers did note a potential problem in Asian demographics—a shortage of girls. Boys outnumber girls by 20% in nations like China and Korea where “one child, one family” is now the custom. (From a girl’s perspective, though, this may not be a problem!)

In Africa, Rogers ran into the blight of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). NGOs, in his opinion, accomplish nothing, spending money raised from charities and government sources in a quest to “save the world” and the bureaucracy that supports their opulent lifestyle while keeping them from having to get real jobs. Next time you are tempted to give clothes to some organization dedicated to fighting African famine, read Rogers’ comments about how our charitable efforts are handled.

But in Angola, he found promise. Decades of bitter civil wars have torn apart this country, but Rogers, ever the contrarian, still saw potential. As he noted, when things are at their worse, and despair its deepest, investment potential can be its greatest.

Everywhere Rogers looked, he could see entrepreneurial spirit driven by enormous energy and motivation just waiting to be harvested. All over Africa, he encountered people with talent and the drive to work from dawn to dusk—a work ethic no less powerful than that of the Chinese.

However, in too many parts of the world, he saw government corruption and an economic ineptitude that has destroyed potential for investment. He comments on how our misguided efforts at foreign aid have left countries like Ethiopia with a generation that has forgotten how to farm because we feed them instead. He spares little contempt for our foreign policy efforts in developing nations.

The answer to the question posed at the beginning of this column, I believe, lies in the future of the developing nations chronicled in Rogers’ book. Those nations with entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic and a young population will be the producers of the goods we buy, and they will, someday, have the money to buy the assets we wish to sell.