Posted on 11/27/2009 7:06:06 PM PST by Orange1998
Published: February 11, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage.
An abandoned car in a parking garage in Dubai. One report said 3,000 cars were sitting abandoned at the Dubai Airport.
Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Persian Gulf city — or worse.
“I’m really scared of what could happen, because I bought property here,” said Sofia, who asked that her last name be withheld because she is still hunting for a new job. “If I can’t pay it off, I was told I could end up in debtors’ prison.”
With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.
The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obviously she hasn't fully internalized that "all cultures are equal" stuff.
A house of cards collapses.
Excellent. That “all cultures are equal stuff” really works in the real world doesn’t it? I don’t think so.
This is what’s so dangerous about Obammy and the left. They don’t know reality from their elbow.
Can’t their “brothers” in Saudi Arabia spare a dime?
The US Taxpayer has poured $8 billion into this craphole via Citibank. I’m certain the unpaid US contractors will demand the Gov’t make them whole.
I can't help but feel some schadenfreude...
How you doin’?
Reminds me a little of Nicolas Cage’s excessive spending like there is no tomorrow.
Wait for Stimulus #2 all will be ok
Let’s see - Muslims invade France, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Australia, etc etc,the UK and get ENDLESS benefits? Ditto with illegals in ObamaNation aka formerly the USA.
But if you get into debt in a Muslim country you go to jail?
A house of cards collapses.
Let us hope it is cards, and not dominoes.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
not that much different than Detroit.....
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article6934261.ece
I like a person who knows how to use words like pomposity, hubris and schadenfreude in one post.
I also like to throw in smug, arrogant and condescending when I’m talking about “liberals” and the Dims.
When I’m talking about the MSM I have been know to throw in “cultural and artistic hegemony” too.
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