Dubai

  • 04 Jan 2010 at 11:35 AM

The Extremely Responsible Government Of Dubai Would Like To Remind You That The Empire State Building Opened During The Great Depression

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burh.jpgNot compensating for anythingHow’s this for bad timing?

The world’s tallest building is set to be opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.
More than 800m (2,625ft) high and clad in 26,000 glass panels, Burj Dubai has 160 floors and more than 500,000 sq m of space for offices and apartments.

Some 90% of this ridiculously tall building’s units have been sold, or so they say. They also thought that Dubai ought to be–and could be–a financial center on par with New York and London. So take it with a few hundred trillion grains of sand.

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  • 22 Dec 2009 at 1:25 PM

Sell! Sell! Sell!

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dubai2.jpgIt turns out tiny Middle Eastern emirates don’t need two stock exchanges. Especially when the second can only muster three listing. And even more so when that tiny emirate has very little to offer except creatively-shaped artificial islands with default notices looming.
Nasdaq Dubai is set to be bought by the Dubai Financial Market for $102 million and a 1% stake in itself. Which means that the good people at Nasdaq OMX get to experience what everyone else who invested in Dubai experienced: a 70% write-down.

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  • 17 Dec 2009 at 4:56 PM

Sinking Ship Values Relationship With Tiger Woods

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tigerwoodsarms.jpgWhat this joyous news you hear? Dubai has added itself to a small but fierce list of people who have pledged not only to not judge Tiger Woods’ life choices, but to stick it out with him in his time of need. Maybe it’s because Dubai knows what it’s like to be publicly humiliated, or because the Big D feels it has some wisdom to impart on those who’ve (probably) contracted several strains of the clap. WHO KNOWS. Doesn’t really matter why. The point is that like Ken Lewis, Dubai is not ashamed to have its name associated with T Dubs.

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  • 01 Dec 2009 at 12:36 PM

The Global Reach Of Jim Cramer’s Insanity

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They may have their differences on other matters, but Jim Cramer and Dubai leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum are of a piece on the issue of what people understand.
In a word: Nothing.

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  • 30 Nov 2009 at 12:56 PM

The League Of Nations Didn’t Work Out So Well, Either

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dubai-lagoon.jpgNow renting at a steep discountNot to pile on Dubai today, but we thought we’d offer a hearty congratulations to the crowd of media-hungry, isolationist, rabble-rousing politicians who fought so hard three-and-a-half years ago to keep American ports out of the hands of Dubai Ports World, a subsidiary of Dubai World, formerly thought to be a subsidiary of the Dubai government.
Now, we know their concerns had more to do with the unpleasant prospect of Arabs running out ports than with an impending debt crisis in the emirate, but bravo. Your racism has helped insure our shipping industry isn’t relying on a bankrupt disaster of a company.
Who wound up buying those ports, again? Oh, right. These guys.

  • 30 Nov 2009 at 9:54 AM

Stumbling Towards Buenos Aires

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palmisland.jpgSeemed like a good idea at the timeThe United Arab Emirates–of which Dubai is one of seven constituents–is going out of its way to stand behind its all-important financial-services sector. By contrast, Dubai itself is running from its own company as fast as it can.
The emirate has gone on a spending spree in recent years, building such total necessities as the world’s largest building (in a city with a population roughly equivalent to that of Queens) and largest man-made island (in palm-tree form). Much of this has been done through Dubai World, the state-owned company with its hands in everything from shipping to real-estate to golf to investing. But now that Dubai World has hit the skids, the emirate wants everyone to know that the country merely owns the company, and the relationship goes no farther than that now that Dubai World is on the brink of default.

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  • 19 May 2009 at 10:00 AM

The Trouble With Dubai

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Dubai isn’t having the best day. Debt piles up. Their reliance on foreign workers, both of the white and blue collar variety, is just fine, until those workers begin to discover that the Western enclave in the middle of the Middle East lacks anything resembling a Western legal system. Now, more disturbing tidings:

In a surprise move, the Dubai government Monday removed Nasser Al Shaikh from his position as director general of the emirate’s finance department, raising questions about the stewardship of its economic restructuring.
No reasons were given for the decision, which comes just months after he was appointed as a key official in Dubai’s efforts to restructure its economy to cope with the global financial crisis.
A statement on the official Emirates News Agency said Al Shaikh was replaced by a royal decree from Dubai’s ruler by Abdul Rahman Saleh Al Saleh. Al Shaikh will assume a minor role as assistant director in the office of foreign affairs in Dubai.

Has anyone else noticed that the vast majority of skylines of Dubai one sees are artist renderings?
Dubai Removes Finance Director Al Shaikh [The Wall Street Journal]