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Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down
- mavelikara 18y agoAn article about foreigners in Dubai managed to get written without interviewing a single Indian - amusing. I was under the impression that Indians constituted a large portion of the foreigners in Dubai.
- gms 18y agoThe Indians usually work in more menial jobs and aren't in a position to flee.
- jhancock 18y agoDon't confuse "menial" with "low paid". I'm sure there are many Indians working in Dubai that do just as much non-menial labor as others and simply get paid a lot less for it...just as in other parts of the world. Also, try not to degrade "menial" labor unless you've spent a few years digging ditches yourself. Your perspective may change.
- JoelSutherland 18y agoI don't think he was degrading the work. The definition of "menial" is: "of or relating to servants" He was saying that many of the Indians there are working under conditions that can make it impossible to leave weather they would like to or not. That is not a comment on Indians in general nor on the value of digging ditches. Rather it seems to be a comment on the terrible societal problems in Dubai.
- potatolicious 18y agoAnd also don't confuse "Indians" with "low paid". I'm not Indian myself, but I've had plenty of colleagues who are, and get paid as good a salary (if not better) than most Americans in the same job. I'm not sure I like this constant association with being Indian and being paid in pennies.
- mynameishere 18y agohttp://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=55704 http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=55704 It's the great escape by Indians who've hit the dead-end in Dubai. Local police have found at least 3,000 automobiles -- sedans, SUVs, regulars -- abandoned outside Dubai International Airport in the last four months. Police say most of the vehicles had keys in the ignition, a clear sign they were left behind by owners in a hurry to take flight.
- jgrahamc 18y agoDubai always looked to me like it was some sort of Las Vegas without gambling, alcohol or sex. i.e. a hollow shell. Now it turns out that it isn't even that. Can't say I'm sorry.
- fiaz 18y agoSurprisingly, there's plenty of alcohol and sex there. Gambling is a separate story.
- jonknee 18y ago... Compare it to Vegas. Alcohol is banned most places in Dubai. In Vegas there aren't even open container laws, you can walk around with a cocktail. As for the sex side, how many strip clubs are around? How many escorts? You can't walk down the strip without being offered cards for call girls. In Dubai you can't even kiss in public.
- ehedberg 18y agoStrictly speaking, Vegas does have open container laws. You aren't allowed to carry a beverage within 100 feet of an establishment with an off-sale license. Of course, enforcement of that ordinance is another question.
- wallflower 18y agoDubai's "seedy" side is that it seems like a theme park for a modern city more than a modern city. ""There is also another side to Dubai’s booming market. Most large hotels are little more than dens of prostitution." http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/ http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/ "It was difficult at the time to get any sense of realism from the city. You’d try to apply for credit cards, and find that nobody at the banks were really interested in giving you one — they had bigger fish to catch... It was that way with houses and apartments you wanted to rent. The landlords never bothered to follow up on whether you wanted it, if you thought it was a reasonable price. If you had a problem with it — with handing over US$50 000 in one cheque, for example (they have a practice of paying for yearly rental in one or two cheques at a go), then it was your fault, and you had suck it up if you didn’t like it.. It felt unreal... Nothing about this city is sustainable. The property boom, led by the multi-million dollar apartments along Sheikh Zayed Road, are perhaps doable in the upturn. They were built for investment, not for living." http://popagandhi.com/932/dubai-redux/ http://popagandhi.com/932/dubai-redux/
- dhimes 18y agoA new draft media law would make it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000). That'll inspire confidence.
- justindz 18y agoBy my reckoning, if the law passes it would immediately apply to the people who wrote the law. Now that's leading by example.
- sethg 18y agoDubai has debtors' prisons! Wow.
- yesimahuman 18y agoAnother crazy non-secular society.
- fiaz 18y agoDubai is a constitutional monarchy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy But this doesn't excuse the fact that "debtor's prison" is a horrible, horrible, horrible concept in place in Dubai.
- yesimahuman 18y agoBut Islam is probably forefront in their decision making. It doesn't matter what the governmental system actually is.
- 1gor 18y agoAs a mental experiment, let's imagine there were debtors' prisons in the US. Do you think this would restrain consumer credit card/mortgage borrowing and prevent people form getting into the current mess?
- wallflower 18y agoA large number of citizens might be under house arrest, as I think spending against future earnings is part of our culture.
- sethg 18y agoVery few people borrow money with the expectation of not being able to pay it back.
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- endtime 18y agoNot surprised...Dubai has sounded way too good to be true for a long time. I doubt you really get cockroaches coming out of the plumbing, but I would believe that the palm island is sinking. I wonder if it was really a con (which implies intent from the beginning) or if they just got carried away and were then in denial that they were seriously overextended. “Before, so many of us were living a good life here,” Mr. Thiab said. “Now we cannot pay our loans. We are all just sleeping, smoking, drinking coffee and having headaches because of the situation.” Dare I suggest that all the coffee and smoking may be responsible for the headaches?
- cabalamat 18y ago> I wonder if it was really a con (which implies intent from the beginning) or if they just got carried away and were then in denial that they were seriously overextended. I think the latter. It's far too elaborate for a con. And people are very good at persuading themselves that bad things won't happen.
- netcan 18y agoI'm not sure if they meant con in the premeditated, organised sense. But there are probably all sorts of shady dealings going on. Economies like Dubai's (& Hong Kong & other gateways) tend to attract money launderers, scams & other such 'cons.' There were probably builders that knew it couldn't last but built anyway.
- trevelyan 18y agoHong Kong is a working city and a great place.
- netcan 18y agoHong Kong has a far longer history of prominence then Dubai. It grew slower & it has lost its position slower. The underlying reasons for HK's importance have been dissolving. There is no reason to use HK as an intermediary for dealings with China. There is no reason not to establish an office in the mainland. But being in slow relative decline meant has meant that they fared alright. (a) Decline Relative to China can still be reasonable growth. IE they can have a smaller share of a bigger pie. (b) The secondary industries: Tourism, financial services, consultancies etc. have had a chance to have a go on their own.
- saljar 18y agoWhile in the hindsight Dubai turned out to not make sense as a "global" city, it still might make sense for its vast "region". I mean for the 2.1 billion living between Europe and South East Asia, (with a combined economy worth $1.8 trillion in terms of GDP, growing until recently at an annual rate of 5 per cent.) namely: North and Eastern Africa, the Levant, the Caspian, the Indian Subcontinent and the GCC States. Dubai is not Las Vegas/Miami/New York, but for these 2.1 billion, a tuned-down version of these, even blended chaotically in a small city-state, would still completely make sense. I am long Dubai.
- potatolicious 18y agoThis makes no sense. Vegas is popular because it is a central destination that is both cheap to get to and has a wide "scalability" in terms of spending. You can go as lavish or as run-down as you feel like, and that's part of the charm. It's pretty darned expensive to get to Dubai from southeast Asia, and not to mention if you're talking about "hub of entertainment" you already have major cities like Shanghai and Macau. Why would the 1.6+ billion people living in China head all the way out to Dubai when there are plenty of "global" cities right on its doorstep? Not to mention these cities are actually based on real industries, real exports of real goods, and have an economy that doesn't rely on hype and speculation. Dubai has no future. It doesn't even have that many oil holdings, nor does it sit in the middle of a large industrial economy. It has no reason to exist at the scale that people seem to think it deserves.
- ijntybvrt 18y agoIt's a safe (politically, legally, physically) place in an unstable region to base your headquarters or send your workers for R+R. Monaco has survived for 500years for similar reasons without a great deal of mineral wealth.
- gaius 18y agoAll of those things you describe need to be underwritten by solid economics. Rather than Monaco, think Switzerland. Or better yet, Malta.
- daniel-cussen 18y agoIt's Potosí for the new millenium. Super ghost town. If they knew their history, they'd know that having beautiful architecture can't save you if there's nothing to do.
- titocosta 18y agoFunny how about less than 3 months New York Magazine came out with this article "Escape to Dubai": http://nymag.com/news/features/52180/ http://nymag.com/news/features/52180/
- josefresco 18y ago"Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out." Absolute garbage reporting, Robert Worth and the New York Times should be ashamed of themselves. I read the NYT for quality articles with solid investigative reporting backing them up, not FUD and gossip trash like the quote above (regardless of it's merit)
- ijntybvrt 18y agoIt's reporting that there are rumours = telling you something about how the locals feel. That's the reason for newspapers and reporters (and spys) instead of just reading raw data feeds. What people are saying - true or not - is the important news.
- ahoyhere 18y agoIt's not garbage reporting, it's a badly written sentence that makes it read as if the "lurid rumors" part only applies to the first part (sinking), not the second (cockroaches).
- nlanier 18y agoAs the old saying goes, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."
- riffic 18y agowhat if it never seemed good at all?
- blackguardx 18y agoHalliburtan just moved their headquarters to Dubai. I wonder what they are going to do now.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- yesimahuman 18y agoThis is why you stay away from these countries. You don't have the same rights and can't expect sane legal proceedings like you can in America.
- tsetse-fly 18y agoMake sure you're an American though, or else you might end up at Guantánamo- well, pre-Obama you might have. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/nationalspecial3/02gitmo.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/nationalspecial3/02gitm...
- ahoyhere 18y agoNo amount of money would lure me to a foreign country with debtor's prisons, where people go to jail for having a tiny speck of marijuana leaf found on the bottom of their shoe: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23436226-details/Briton+jailed+in+Dubai+after+officials+find+cannabis+weighing+less+than+a+grain+of+sugar+under+his+shoe/article.do http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23436226-details/... I do wonder what people were thinking.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoSome of the prescription meds I take would have me arrested upon landing in Dubai. Scary stuff.
- ewiethoff 18y agoGet thrown in the slammer for 4 years for eating a poppy seed roll. Ouch.