Out of money in Dubai? Just drive to the airport, park your car, and get the hell outta Dodge!
- via the Spectre Event Horizon Group
- via the almighty http://nonsensenyc.com
***** Dubai Skips *****
http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/dubai-skips/
Previously
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/dubai_jumps_the.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/dubious-dubai-tower-starts.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/rem_koolhaass_d.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/dubious-dubai-hits-pause.php#ch01
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/rip-dubais-green-development-dre...
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67dYh4UQmUE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk9Sbpnkd-4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if2WHOxrXBI
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/02/12/foreign-workers-leave-dubai-en-mas...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/feb/13/dubai-troubles
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20090216_recipe_for_disaster_in_the...
Pricking Dubai's Bubble - Atlantis
http://www.snotr.com/video/1878
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article5...
Abandoned Mercedes Auctions
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/02/12/world/12dubai3.650.jpg
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/12/africa/12dubai.php
http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=55704
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article5...
"Police have found more than 3,000 cars outside Dubai's international airport in recent months. Most of the cars – four-wheel drives, saloons and 'a few' Mercedes – had keys left in the ignition. Some had used-to-the-limit credit cards in the glove box. Others had notes of apology attached to the windscreen. 'Every day we find more and more cars,' said one senior airport security official, who did not want to be named. 'Christmas was the worst – we found more than two dozen on a single day.'
Under Sharia, which prevails in Dubai, the punishment for defaulting on a debt is severe. Bouncing a check, for example, is punishable with jail. Those who flee the emirate are known as skips. Most of the emirate's banks are not affiliated with British financial institutions, so those who flee do not have to worry about creditors. Their abandoned cars are eventually sold off by the banks at weekly auctions. Those recently advertised include BMWs, Porsches and Mercedes."
Formal Denial
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/02/07/10282898.html
"Only 11 cars abandoned at airport in past year"
Discreet Bankruptcy
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4sAgqSD_LIA
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apH5q_lAc_G8
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article5...
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851370,00.html
http://in.reuters.com/article/asiaCompanyAndMarkets/idINLI80654920090218
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090219/BUSINESS/150814564/1137
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090219_united_arab_emirates_financial...
United Arab Emirates: The Financial Crisis and Abu Dhabi-Dubai Relations
"The power-sharing arrangement between the al-Nahyans and the al-Maktoums has been the political foundation upon which the United Arab Emirates has not only maintained domestic stability, but also emerged as a major international economic and financial player, acquiring assets around the world. This was the case up until the global financial crisis began spreading throughout the world. Abu Dhabi has not been immune, as is evident from the need to inject cash into the emirate's banking system. But Dubai has been hit the hardest because of its exposure to the international markets, and particularly because its real estate bubble crashed when global credit that had been used to fund enormous, fanciful construction projects became scarce. Due to the relative lack of transparency, the extent of the financial carnage in Dubai was not readily apparent.
But on Feb. 2, the international credit rating agency Moody's announced that it would be downgrading the ratings of six of Dubai's largest state-owned firms, including global port operator Dubai Ports World and Emaar Properties, the developer responsible for the partly-constructed world's tallest building, located in the city's center. Utility operator Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, conglomerate Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group, industrial park and trade zone operator Jebel Ali Free Zone and Dubai International Financial Center Investments, a branch of Dubai's 4-year-old international financial center, also are in line for downgrades."
Local Views
http://sethstate.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/dubai-the-collapse/
http://1426.blogspot.com/2009/02/abandoned-cars-in-dubai-as-indicator-of...
http://shoppingmallsheikhdom.blogspot.com/2009/02/dubai-ghost-town.html
Dubai Shopping Festival (70 Percent Off)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-shihabeldin/has-dubais-overblown-bub...
Has Dubai's Overblown Bubble Finally Burst?
By Ahmed Shihab-Eldin / February 18, 2009
"Despite having never seen the property, or even the floor plan, they stood in line, among hundreds of others (many with briefcases packed with cash) hoping to be early enough to score a piece of property. "We knew if we wanted to have a chance to buy, we had to show up the night before," she sheepishly said. "The line was ridiculous, people slept in their cars, but when the office opened, they told us all the properties had already been sold - it is all corrupt," she said, referring to the shady and often staged real estate transactions made in Dubai.
The mood around dinner tables, at local school events, and at surprisingly vacant lavish beachfront sports clubs, such as the famous Jumeirah Beach Club, suggests that the crisis has in fact hit Dubai. Not only are some foreigners fleeing in hopes that by hopping on the first outbound flight they will dodge Dubai's strict laws on defaulting on debt, punishable by serious jail time, but also the number of tourists frequenting the once booming emirate have tapered off too.
I won't exaggerate. It isn't a ghost town by any means. But it is nearly impossible to miss the nervous mood that has consumed the emirate recently. As one cab driver, who came to Dubai 30 years ago to work as a fisherman, told me, "Business is not good like before. Too many people are leaving," he said. "Even when I drive home to Ajman (a neighboring emirate) there is little traffic. Little traffic and little business." A short stroll from the beach into the main shopping strip near JBR confirmed the difficult realities facing Dubai. In the middle of the day, I walked around the new Saks Fifth Avenue store in the complex for 15 minutes without anyone else in there - it was like I was P.Diddy for a minute - on my own private shopping spree (with prices slashed up to 70 percent).
The 32-day Dubai Shopping Festival ended last week, and while the numbers have yet to be reported, the budget for this year's festival was slashed by just over 10 percent. Whether or not the raffling off of luxury cars and deep discounts at many hotels will be enough to change the negative outlook for the emirate has yet to be seen. But it seems inevitable that as fewer people flock to Dubai, especially those who come to escape the cold European winters, the economy, like many others in the world, will continue to struggle."
------
XXXXX SPECTRE PRIORITY XXXXX
Before we had a name, the Spectre Event Horizon Group used to meet at a bar to commiserate about the news. At some point we set up a way to send emails to each other, and that grew into an open forum for knowledge-sharing and what our business friends call best practices. The group has expanded online, but it remains premised on smartening the crowd mind. There are no subject limits; our favorite is our sci-fi present, and we like anything that goes toward a better understanding of human behavior and ecology. Our basic idea is to connect minds with mind-blowing information and create a space for the informal trade of specialized investigative research, presented for the non-specialist.
The Spectre email list, which is a separate group from this column, is a moderated open forum. People are encouraged to join and to post. This section is compiled for Nonsense by J. Sinopoli. Contact us at http://spectre.event.horizon.groupgmail.com or http://spectregroup.org. Some of what came in this week:
