Dubai

KillerGremlin · 12-01-2009, 04:21 AM

Total, epic failure.

Typhoid · 12-01-2009, 04:41 AM

Care to elaborate?

Professor S · 12-01-2009, 10:09 AM

How did they get into this mess? Don't they have billions in oil revenue?

Maybe they should have rethought the whole "lets build some islands" thing...

Angrist · 12-01-2009, 10:40 AM

Somebody mind what's going on?

KillerGremlin · 12-01-2009, 12:43 PM

Dubai, the "desert paradise:"

The Dubai Government or city or whatever they have going on over there has managed to sink into a 60-billion dollar debt (thanks global economy!), and they cannot pay creditors until May of 2010 at the earliest. Their primary sources of revenue are oil and tourism, I assume the city is fucked. Talk about poor money management. Not to mention tourism as a primary source of revenue? You can't even wear a bikini to the beach in Dubai, you'll get your appendages chopped off by pissed off Muslims.

The city is a joke. It was built by slave labor. It is a financial nightmare. The government/area doesn't make money. It's going to be a ghost town in 100 years.

Even construction on the Burj Dubai has been stunted due to the financial meltdown.

KillerGremlin · 12-01-2009, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor S

How did they get into this mess? Don't they have billions in oil revenue?

Maybe they should have rethought the whole "lets build some islands" thing...

I'm not sure what they were thinking. There is a reason this type of massive construction doesn't go on anywhere in the world. It's not so much that there is a "creativity drought" in the architecture or engineering world, it's that there is a lack of funds or a realization that constructing a tower requires tons of funding.

I'm sure it is much more complicated and in-depth than that, but the bottom line is Dubai would be better nicknamed the "desert mirage" instead of the "desert paradise."

manasecret · 12-01-2009, 02:11 PM

Must have been nice while it lasted.

I'm not sure on the details and who is giving money to whom, but from NPR I've heard some snippets that the Dubai government is going to bail out the banks, which has supposedly brought their economy back just slightly from the brink of collapse.

Bond · 12-01-2009, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor S

How did they get into this mess? Don't they have billions in oil revenue?

Maybe they should have rethought the whole "lets build some islands" thing...

Dubai actually has very little oil, if I recall correctly, which is why they went the tourist route. The other emirates of the United Arab Emirates derive their wealth from oil, and I believe they are going to back Dubai's debt.

KillerGremlin · 12-01-2009, 07:04 PM

The solution is simple! Legalize drinking, smoking, sexing, and gambling!

Typhoid · 12-01-2009, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

The solution is simple! Legalize drinking, smoking, sexing, and gambling!

Asking a nation to give up it's religious beliefs for debt is asinine.

Vampyr · 12-01-2009, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Asking a nation to give up it's religious beliefs for debt is asinine.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not.

But in case you aren't, a nation shouldn't have a religion.

Professor S · 12-01-2009, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyr

But in case you aren't, a nation shouldn't have a religion.

Keep in mind separation of church and state is a uniquely Christian ideal that spread. According to most histories, Jesus was one of the first religious figures ever to say the religion was beyond politics.

Islam (at least fundamental Islam) does not follow these ideals. Church and state are intertwined. This is why we see Islamic/Muslim special interest occasionally pushing to be held to Islamic law and not secular law in Western nations. Asking muslims to remove religion from governance is like asking them to stop being muslim.

ZebraRampage · 12-01-2009, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

I'm not sure what they were thinking. There is a reason this type of massive construction doesn't go on anywhere in the world. It's not so much that there is a "creativity drought" in the architecture or engineering world, it's that there is a lack of funds or a realization that constructing a tower requires tons of funding.

I'm sure it is much more complicated and in-depth than that, but the bottom line is Dubai would be better nicknamed the "desert mirage" instead of the "desert paradise."

That's exactly right. Whenever there's a project under construction, it is never built to be the best it can be, because that's not possible with a limited amount of funding. Dubai should have built this city up more gradually. And yes, it is pretty much slave labor. The wages are terrible, and the amount of workers is immense.

Just a side note, here are some really neat pictures of Burj Dubai currently, and the construction surrounding it.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...06899&page=403

Typhoid · 12-02-2009, 03:40 AM

Quote:

But in case you aren't, a nation shouldn't have a religion.

And Genocides shouldn't take place - but the world still turns.

Strangler pretty much nailed exactly what I was getting at.

Vampyr · 12-02-2009, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Typhoid

And Genocides shouldn't take place - but the world still turns.

That really doesn't prove anything about anything. What's your point, that "life isn't fair"? Perhaps, but the concept of fairness has been pretty important throughout history - people have fought wars and died because something wasn't "fair".

Also, Mr. Christ preached about a lot of things - love, tolerance, etc. I don't think that makes those ideas Christian. Not to mention the world saw many incarnations of Christian rule: the Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, kings ruling by divine right.

The separation of church and state hasn't come about due to religion, it's come about due to the evolution of ideas of philosophers and politicians, some of which happen to have been religious.

I'm not arguing that separation of church and state isn't against the Islamic religion, but rather the world shouldn't, and doesn't, care. I find it hard to believe that 100% of the people that live there are Islamic, and therefore those people -should- be spoken for. This isn't a matter of what your religion approves or disapproves of, it's a matter of human rights.

I think that history has proven that separation of church and state is the right thing to have, despite what a religious doctrine may say, just like history has proven that tyranny and communism are not efficient methods to run a government (but that doesn't stop people from trying, does it?).

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on foreign government, but there are nations out there where the majority of the population is Islamic, but they are still secular - Turkey and Azerbaijan are a couple.