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UAE is well on its way to being the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Your rhetoric sounds like it’s from 2003.
by keiferski 3y ago
UAE is well on its way to being the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Your rhetoric sounds like it’s from 2003.
- lvl102 3y agoThink about the fact that education is pretty much free there. They even pay for Western institutions to set up satellite campuses. You’d think they should have the most educated and skilled labor in the world. At some point, you have to realize it’s cultural: they don’t want to work. Funny you mention Switzerland because they have some of the highest skilled labor in the world.
- keiferski 3y agoYou’re generalizing nearly 20 million people in Saudi Arabia alone. How this is even an acceptable thing to say on HN is beyond me. The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future. To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant of the facts and probably related to the point I made above.
- lvl102 3y agoYou’re right. It’s a gross generalization. But it is based on my personal and professional experience.
- keiferski 3y agoYeah, and I went to Greece, a country with a population half the size of Saudi Arabia, a few years ago and got bad service everywhere. The economic data is also not good. But I wouldn’t somehow think it’s accurate or acceptable to claim Greeks are all lazy and rude.
- oefrha 3y agoI won’t comment on culture but it is a fact that the majority of working Saudis work in bullshit government jobs where they basically collect paychecks for free, and actual labor is overwhelmingly performed by cheap migrant workers, no? Or is my information out of date? That’s an arrangement you can’t find anywhere outside the Gulf, to my knowledge.
- brazzy 3y agoYou have a bunch of weasel words there that are doing some heavy lifting: "majority", "actual" and "overwhelmingly". It's not possible to run a functioning country (which SA undeniably is) without a large number of people who are at least somewhat competent, at least somewhat hardworking, and at least somewhat loyal to the country. You may be able to rely on cheap migrant workers for the hard physical labor, but not for the planning and administration that makes the whole thing work.
- oefrha 3y agoAccording to https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/20/news/saudi-government-workers-productivity/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/20/news/saudi-government-worke..., 70% of employed Saudis work for the government, and according to their civil service minister, "many" of them don't even work an hour a day. If you think they're structured like any other country and I'm merely singling them out with "weasel words" we can't possibly have a discussion. The oil money printer can hide a lot of problems. A small percentage of somewhat competent people aren't guaranteed to be able to provide for a huge number of useless freeloaders if the gravy train stops. Look at Venezuela for a somewhat similar situation.
- benterix 3y ago> To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant I wanted to reply "But Sheikh Mohammed himself said so!" but then trying to back up my claim I realized it's false. [0] It's amazing how many false things we take for granted just because they align with our world-view (and make a good story). [O] https://factcheck.afp.com/sheikh-mohammed-did-not-say-great-grandson-will-be-back-camel-2014-interview https://factcheck.afp.com/sheikh-mohammed-did-not-say-great-...
- itsoktocry 3y ago>You’re generalizing nearly 20 million people in Saudi Arabia alone Yes, this is how you compare populations.
- zaphirplane 3y agoHow so ? How is hating 20 million people for your view of their government reasonable
- itsoktocry 3y ago>The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future There are all kinds of promises when times are good, that change as soon as the economic winds change. This project is more evidence of that.
- keiferski 3y agoIf the collective financial portfolio of the Gulf countries goes away, you’ll have much larger problems to worry about. This project was a side project and always has been. Its success or lack thereof has very little to do with the overall financial position of the country.
- tomp 3y agoSwitzerland isn't the most progressive of countries (it only gave women the right to vote in 1971) but AFAIK you don't go to jail if you fuck a man in the ass, in contrast to UAE. Not something that directly concerns me, but I'm personally more worried about restrictions on freedom of speech, but regardless not somewhere I'd be willing to live (I currently do live in Switzerland).
- keiferski 3y agoI used Switzerland as an example because of its financial industry. I wasn’t making any commentary on the culture. Presumably if the UAE is the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean, it’s more adapted for that cultural environment and not for what Westerners are looking for. These laws are also pretty much never enforced in UAE, as far as I understand.
- Symbiote 3y agoThe laws are enforced enough that the British government gives a warning about them for visitors to the UAE. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/united-arab-emirates/safety-and-security https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/united-arab-emirate...
- keiferski 3y agoGovernment websites are known for giving warnings about lots of things that aren’t a big deal in real life. I am basing my opinion on people I know that have been there, plus topics on Reddit, etc. But of course your mileage may vary and it’s reasonable to be worried about such laws if they might apply to you.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>These laws are also pretty much never enforced in UAE, as far as I understand. They are never enforced, until you become a target, then you're arrested and charged with a list violations. I mean, we do this too, to some degree. But this is naive.
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- dindobre 3y agoWill the world's criminals start storing their money there or did you mean something else with Switzerland of the Middle East?
- keiferski 3y ago> The U.S. is the top destination for stashing money illegally, according to a new report from a pro-tax advocacy group. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-coalition-report-us-money-laundering/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-coalition-report-us-money-...
- trissylegs 3y agoStart? Uae is a place known for storing and moving shady money. Very few extradition treatys.
- dindobre 3y agoI didn't know that, but I guess that's not too surprising.
- benterix 3y ago> Very few extradition treatys. Which is also excellent not just for stealing, but also for murder. Half a year ago a German-born Pole killed a family in a car crash and run away to UAE.[0] They tried to extradit him but without success. [0] https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/accidents/suspected-fatal-car-accident-culprit-on-the-run-after-buying-dead-company/ https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/accidents/suspected-fa...
- inslee1 3y agoThat article says he was trying to flee to the Dominican Republic, not the UAE.
- benterix 3y agoThe article is from October - in the meantime it turned out he actually fled to UAE. The Polish government tried to extradite him but failed. There are many sources on that, unfortunately in Polish only.
- somewho 3y agoYou wrote the 40M comment!
- ayewo 3y agoI just noticed the roll over to comment id 40000000 and came here, albeit 2 days late :)