| ...it has to do with financials tripping over themselves to get their hands on some of those petro dollars. Like whores decending on a city during a convention
It's so sad. |
Posted on 05/26/2008 12:38:31 AM PDT by Squidpup
Dubai is picking up the mantle of the financial capital of the world, as global banking sectors London and New York continue to fade on the back of the global credit crises.
The new mantra in New York and London is "Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai or goodbye", as job losses mount in both cities while opportunities in the east continue to rise.
Lehman Brothers on Tuesday became the latest investment bank moving one of its most senior positions to the UAE. Philip Lynch, the bank's co-head of equities for Europe and the Middle East, will be relocating to Dubai after serving more than two decades in London.
The US investment bank, which has axed over 6,000 staff in the last nine months, said the move was aimed at serving the growing needs of clients in the Gulf region and the wider Middle East.
Lynch will find himself in good company. Barclays last month dispatched Roger Jenkins, one of London's highest-paid bankers, to the emirate as chairman of investment banking and investment management.
Earlier in May Citigroup, which has so far cut 1,500 jobs because of the global credit crisis, announced it would send Alberto Verme, co-head of global investment banking from London to Dubai.
He follows Makram Azar, head of the media, consumer and retail investment banking team in Europe and the Middle East, to take the role of global head of sovereign wealth funds.
The bank has also switched Perry Hoffmeister, co-head of investment banking for Europe and the Middle East, to run its investment management arm across the same regions.
The relocation of roles from London and New York to Dubai, and to a lesser extent Mumbai and Shanghai, reflects the reshaping of global opportunities for investment banks.
With a surge in oil revenue, rapidly rising infrastructure needs, and the emergence of sovereign wealth funds at the head of M&A activity, the Middle East and Asia have become crucial for global investment banks looking to remain profitable.
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive, is on record as saying the Middle East is the bank's priority in its focus on growth opportunities overseas.
Countries in the GCC will spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure in the five years, according to figures published by Société Générale Asset Management, based on research by HSBC Global Research, Middle East Business Intelligence and Thomson Datastream.
Cerulli Associates, a US and Singapore-based research firm, estimated total managed assets in the six GCC countries and Egypt to be more than $1.6 trillion at the end of last year.
Doesn’t surprise me.
We have environmentalists.
Britain has environmentalists.
Dubai doesn’t.
Do the math.
Two years ago, they were claiming it was all over for NYC and London was going to be the financial center of the universe.
In two years, they’ll be claiming its all over for Dubai and ______(insert flavor de jour city) will be new financial center of the universe.
This has nothing to do with who leads finance, it has to do with financials tripping over themselves to get their hands on some of those petro dollars. Like whores decending on a city during a convention.
ping
As long as jihadists exist, Dubai is a financial center built upon an an unstable foundation. Islam is the official state religion and there are Sharia courts.
Former Commerce Secretary and uber-capitalist Peter G.Peterson said recently that, buried under our mountain of debt, the USA will in ten years become a Third World country. We’ll see, but if we get to the point where our only major export is agricultural products, we’ll begin to look lke some kind of colony. In such a circumstance, there is no inherent reason that New York should remain a financial capital - especially if most of the money lies elsewhere - in Dubai, Shanghai, and Mumbai.
Let’s relocate the U.N. there as well! Kick their arses out of the U.S...
I remember about a year ago, Donald Trump said you can’t do business here unlike Dubai where they want it.
Since 2000 the US has been a net importer of food. Government regulations are killing domestic farming, as planned.
Or are these guys playing "hide the file cabinet" with U.S. prosecutors, regulators, and auditors?
Halliburton moved a big chunk of operations to the M.E. a couple of years ago, when they began to get hit with subpoenas and demands for inspections of their books.
Where the sleaze is sleazier, the scum is scummier, nothing *isn't* for sale, and you can buy a 12-year-old girl every month to keep yourself young.
And dump her afterward, no questions asked.
Literally dump her. Like in Juarez.
Yeah, the values of the marketplace are 5,000 years old, maybe 8,000 -- and the values propagated by Moses and the Noahide Laws were supposed to be antidotal, as were the laws built on them.
On a related subject, is anyone talking in the press about the massive coincidence in timing, that saw Gov. Spitzer of New York, a known prosecutor of financial bad guys, getting punched out on prostitution charges, one week before the Bear Stearns takedown and "rescue"?
Anybody talking about that?
Oh, and the "D.C. Madam" committed suicide in Tarpon Springs, Florida, a few days later. Just couldn't live with herself any more. Wonder how many times she shot herself?
But I digress. Maybe.
</OT>
I just got back from Dubai three days ago, and it’s harder than you might expect to find an Arab. Islam seems more like a visitor or a background thread than something that is a vital piece of who they are. Most of the residents seem to be Indian, Pakistani (doing the Mexico-America thing), and Persian-Iranian. All of them are eminently practical. Even the Sheikh of Sharjah, who I met with (I got the real backstage tour) is much more interested in how to deliver math and science education to children of the region than in how to impose Shariah on anyone. Finally, you can’t throw a rock without hitting something under construction, or a Dairy Queen, or Burger King, or Indian restaurant. The skyline looks like something out of the year 2040, and all of the buildings are holding companies or trading companies - money safe from the western socialists and the mideast tyrants.
One more thing. I can’t IMAGINE how our troops handle that heat. I tried to do a two mile run - what a joke! I had to duck into a department store to cool down after 1.5. It was only 105 that day. 70% humidity or so.
>>>>>Peter G.Peterson said recently that, buried under our mountain of debt, the USA will in ten years become a Third World country.
The situation is now irreversible.
All of our politicians (both sides) have let us down. Or better yet, “We done it to ourself.”
Tell your kids to learn Mandarin.
Actually, it has to do with the war in Iraq and the changes in the global trade patterns.
W enabled peace in the Gulf and loosed the fabulous wealth pent up by fear to be shaken loose and grow.
The Arabs are doing what they have always done and do very well. They sit on major trade lanes and facilitate trade.
The Bear Stearns thing really rattled the NY finance guys. Good thing they were still all giddy and giggles over Spitzer—or some serious panic could have set in.
Thanks for your posts. The forum needs first hand reports from the area. Many of us remember days gone by in the region but lack knowledge of today.
Most here are terminally biased and won’t believe what you report, but there are several who like your reports.
I take your point about learning Mandarin. Short of that I would hope that our kids would at least be learning Calculus, and short of that, at least be learning proper English. But I’m afraid you’re right - the situation is probably irreversible.
Erm... as I keep reiterating ad nauseum, the USA manufactures 25% of the global manufacturing output, more than Japan, China, and Germany (in descending order) COMBINED. That proportion of the global manufacturing output has not changed since 1970.
Food for thought.
btt
Dubai is to India and the ME what Hong Kong is to China, hence the boom
Mandarin — though I think the Hong Kong dialect may win out over Mandarin, just my opinion. Besides which, English will be a major trade language along with Chinese + Spanish —> as India is part of the Anglosphere. However, the rise of those two Asian giants is inevitable. Remember that until the 1800s, these two accounted for over half of the world’s GDP, falling down to a low of 8% in 1973 but now have picked up again. Does this mean that the rest of the world has to sink for these two to rise? No. the US will remain pre-eminent economically for most of this century. It may lose it later on with the rise of those two countries, but neither will ever be a sole superpower like the US is
bookmark
IMHO, 80% or more of Americans, and a good majority here on FR, too, don't see it. I think even if people don't "See" it yet, they can certainly begin to "Feel" it.
This is what Fred Thompson was talking about on the campaign trail as he was taking the nation's pulse.
| ...it has to do with financials tripping over themselves to get their hands on some of those petro dollars. Like whores decending on a city during a convention
It's so sad. |
| buried under our mountain of debt, the USA will in ten years become a Third World country.
Lemme get this straight. You're concerned that guys whose major export comes from extracting minerals from the ground are getting to be "where the money is," while if we export food we can grow over and over again forever, we're hosed? Again, do you realize how stupid that sounds? And that's without even challenging your patently false assertion that food is becoming our largest export. Foods and feeds are about 5% of the exports from the United States. The reason I can say that is that I bothered to look it up before shooting my mouth off. You apparently did not. |
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I so miss the good old days, when Freepers were still capitalists. Back then, sending your best salesman to where the customers are would have been considered smart business. Now it's 'whoring,' and the real reason they're doing it is some combination of greed and a desire to avoid the good and proper oversight of Senator Schumer. On this thread we even have a Freeper who believes that in their pursuit of Evil Profit, the capitalists are killing people.