Last Days of Rome:
The Emirate has been struggling for many months, and if you scratch the surface the pain in this new and gaudy metropolis is palpable. Ross, who asked not to be identified, is one of countless expatriates who have been caught out by the collapse in Dubai’s once-booming property market.
Like many he bought a flat off-plan in what was a red-hot property market. Today he is trapped, his passport confiscated until he repays bank loans he used to invest in a property that may never exist. If his work dries up before he can clear his debts he will go to jail.
Nobody saw it coming.On a recent walk around the car park at Dubai Airport, there were more than two dozens cars that looked completely abandoned by their owners.
Some people have taken to writing little messages on the layers of sand that have gathered on the vehicles.
One says "Gone 4 Ever", and another says "He will return. Inshallah".
"Many people leave cars like this," said an airport worker. "Maybe they have a loan from the bank, maybe their jobs have been terminated. That's why they have left their cars here and gone."
"If there's one thing you can trust, it's Dubai," Khalid al-Malik, the CEO of Tatweer, a separate government-owned developer behind some of Dubai's most ambitious projects, said during an interview in April 2008. "Just like what the Americans did with their reputation, we are people who can deliver."Dubai's biggest deadbeat is Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Why is he not in debtor's prison, along with the stupid greedy Europeans who flipped and flopped?
7 comments:
They may have a nice little tourist industry in 20 years. You'll be able to visit the empty ruins of the world's tallest building.
Have to disagree with you.
This is just like an American company declaring chapter 13, shafting its creditors/unions, pensioners etc and then reappearing in commercial life debt free, and able to reward its management with a stellar bonus.
Dubai is the only area in that part of the world e.g (iran, saudi arabia,oman) that is even remotely free/tolarent.
Who could forget this gem from November 2007 (so long ago?):
US stocks rebound on UAE's Citigroup investment
http://tinyurl.com/yb8kd94
I am sure this all ends well.
I guess I'll never understand "high finance" and "life in the fast lane". Can anyone explain, in short mono-syllables, what it was that Dubai had at one point that attracted people? Yes, I understand, there was a "bubble". But to have a bubble you must first have a product. Then the bubble pops when demand for the product falls. But what was the freakin' product? Square footage of sand?
Michael. Basically the product was location and openness. It gave people a chance to do business in the middle east close to all the oil money in what is the most free and open market there.
Really big money likes being able to business freely as well as in secret. So, lots of big bucks flocked there. Lastly, people from the not even close to being free countries like Saudi Arabia, et al could go there, raise hell, and go back home and pretend to be good little boys.
The biggest part was the sizzle from their fajitas. People started buying the steak at first but then got attracted to the sizzle. It took a while but Dubai ran out of sizzle because they only had so much steak and had been pouring extra water on the plates in the hopes of being able to put some steak on the plates eventually.
The slave labor was also a big part of the attraction. At least it was for the people who weren't the slaves.
More blow-ups within Dubai, Inc. today. Dubai is like that Mexican couple who worked as strawberry pickers in California who found someone dumb enough to lend them $700,000 for a house. Only add an additional 000,000 to the amount loaned.
Dubai is all about borrowed money, nothing more.
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