[splinky]

okay, big oops!

[Rail Paul]

The Dubai mess is likely to be a serious problem for a while. There are lots of institutions with big bucks at risk.

[ghostrider]

We got one of those right here in the Jersey Meadowlands that you can have for cheap too.

[Anthony Bonner]

500 restructuring bankers and lawyers just shit themselves with excitement

[Jaymes]

We were in Dubai not that long ago. A taxi driver explained that the rulers of Dubai had calculated how much oil they had and when it would run out. I can't remember how long that was, but it was a matter of not too many years. They decided that Dubai needed to find some other source of revenue in order to keep the party going. They came up with tourism. So they built all these "biggests" - world's biggest airport; world's biggest golf course; world's tallest building; world's biggest mall; world's biggest indoor ski hill. And so forth, all designed to draw visitors.

But unfortunately, to our Western minds anyway, if you're going to be the world's biggest tourist draw, you've got to have a little more sin available - bars, casinos, girls, nightlife - something.

As opposed to practically none at all.

It just didn't seem workable.

I read an article the other day about Dubai. It talked about all of the workers that had come in from impoverished countries - most notably India and Pakistan. They had enjoyed the soaring economy, rented nice apartments, bought good cars, etc.

Now they have no jobs and no prospects, so they're bailing out and heading home. They can't find anyone to take over their assets, so they are abandoning them. I can't remember how many automobiles the article said are being just left along the highways and byways, but it's considerable enough that figuring out what to do with them is causing a problem.

[ghostrider]

There is a Benihana in Dubai.

It's amazing, the things I learn here.

[Sneakeater]

Maybe someone can make a flow chart about where to eat in Dubai.

[Anthony Bonner]

I read an article the other day about Dubai. It talked about all of the workers that had come in from impoverished countries - most notably India and Pakistan. They had enjoyed the soaring economy, rented nice apartments, bought good cars, etc.

Now they have no jobs and no prospects, so they're bailing out and heading home. They can't find anyone to take over their assets, so they are abandoning them. I can't remember how many automobiles the article said are being just left along the highways and byways, but it's considerable enough that figuring out what to do with them is causing a problem.

Holy cow is that bogus. The South Asians who come over are essentially indentured servants. Passports taken away, forced to live in big tents in the desert. Massivey exploitation.

start here

The people who left their cars behind were Europeans (brits mostly) who had defaulted on some loan and were escaping the country before being put in debtors prison.

[Jaymes]

I read an article the other day about Dubai. It talked about all of the workers that had come in from impoverished countries - most notably India and Pakistan. They had enjoyed the soaring economy, rented nice apartments, bought good cars, etc.

Now they have no jobs and no prospects, so they're bailing out and heading home. They can't find anyone to take over their assets, so they are abandoning them. I can't remember how many automobiles the article said are being just left along the highways and byways, but it's considerable enough that figuring out what to do with them is causing a problem.

Holy cow is that bogus. The South Asians who come over are essentially indentured servants. Passports taken away, forced to live in big tents in the desert. Massivey exploitation.

start here

The people who left their cars behind were Europeans (brits mostly) who had defaulted on some loan and were escaping the country before being put in debtors prison.

Interesting.

Much different from the article I read.

And much worse.

[Anthony Bonner]

I actually finally found the article I was looking for this morning. Not pretty

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ai-1664368.html

[prasantrin]

I read an article the other day about Dubai. It talked about all of the workers that had come in from impoverished countries - most notably India and Pakistan. They had enjoyed the soaring economy, rented nice apartments, bought good cars, etc.

Now they have no jobs and no prospects, so they're bailing out and heading home. They can't find anyone to take over their assets, so they are abandoning them. I can't remember how many automobiles the article said are being just left along the highways and byways, but it's considerable enough that figuring out what to do with them is causing a problem.

Holy cow is that bogus. The South Asians who come over are essentially indentured servants. Passports taken away, forced to live in big tents in the desert. Massivey exploitation.

start here

The people who left their cars behind were Europeans (brits mostly) who had defaulted on some loan and were escaping the country before being put in debtors prison.

If you can find a June 2006 issue of Vanity Fair, there's an excellent article (according to then Dubai-based friends) that shows different sides of life in Dubai.

Found it online. Some snippets:

In contemporary Dubai the term "guest worker" is preferred. Most of them are fellow Muslims from Pakistan, exported by Pakistani recruiting agents offering them an escape from destitution and often charging them a fee for that escape. Whether or not they can read or write, many of them sign work agreements that accompany them to the agents' labor-contracting clients in Dubai. Once they arrive, their passports and visas are often confiscated by sponsors and employers until they complete the years of hard labor to which they have knowingly or unknowingly agreed.

Five hundred dirhams won't get you a second glance at Amnesia even if you pin it to your vest; most nights it costs a hundred dirhams just to walk through the door. This swanky club near the Hard Rock Cafe on Sheikh Zayed Road is where some of the most beautiful women in the world gather to get rich, among them the creme de la creme marocaine, as connoisseurs say: the most alluring of the Moroccan girls. I am told that, on certain evenings, one may also find here gentlemen of charm and class for hire.

I was talking to my friend who arrived in Dubai in 2002 and left in 2008. She recently went back for a visit, and said things had reverted back to her 2002 days, when Dubai was quiet and desert-like. In her six years there, vast pieces of desert were claimed for development and traffic was so bad that she'd leave for work more than two hours early. But in September 2009, Dubai was once again quiet and much of the construction seemed to have come to a stand-still. She said I'd enjoy it more now than I did when I visited in 2006.

[hollywood]

I actually finally found the article I was looking for this morning. Not pretty

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ai-1664368.html

Pretty ugly. A cautionary tale for us?

[Jaymes]

I actually finally found the article I was looking for this morning. Not pretty

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ai-1664368.html

Wow. Astounding.

[bloviatrix]

I actually finally found the article I was looking for this morning. Not pretty

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ai-1664368.html

A friend of mine lived there for two years and when her husband was posted there by his employer. That article basically quotes her views verbatim. She hated it. Said the place was a shoddily-built mirage. She couldn't get out of there quick enough.

[prasantrin]

I actually finally found the article I was looking for this morning. Not pretty

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...ai-1664368.html

A friend of mine lived there for two years and when her husband was posted there by his employer. That article basically quotes her views verbatim. She hated it. Said the place was a shoddily-built mirage. She couldn't get out of there quick enough.

I didn't like Dubai, either. It's unfortunate that most people associate the UAE with Dubai and Dubai alone. Sharjah is a great little emirate (though more strict than Dubai), and I liked what little I saw of RAK. I didn't make it down to Abu Dhabi, but I've been told I'd like it, too. Should I ever decide to teach in the UAE, I'd be hoping for a post in RAK or Sharjah, but the idea of working in or commuting to or from Dubai makes be feel nauseated.