Dubai disaster? Saw that one coming

by Matt Herron

For those that haven’t been paying attention to the news, Dubai imploded financially and the Dow tanked with it. Ironically enough, those man-made islands can’t keep their economy afloat.

This does not come as a surprise to me. I remember learning about Dubai for the first time in my Concepts of Culture class about a year ago. The article (which I tossed out as soon as the class ended) explained how Dubai was trying to bring all the world’s cultures together in an orgy of luxury and sell it as entertainment at Dubai World.

The world’s cultures are mixing. How good for multiculturalism! In class discussion, this was gravy for Canadians. It justified their cultural ideals. All I could think about was how Dubai World was going to fail as a business.

So, the recent news that the government of Dubai took over Dubai World and that they need to delay payments on $60 Billion in debt came as a relief instead of a surprise. A relief because, while I do not claim expertise in economic or financial matters, logic tells me that an industry relying heavily on tourism and consumer spending to make profit is bound to fail at a time when the world’s economy is stumbling.

But Dubai was a gamble to begin with. As Timothy Middleton points out, emerging markets like Dubai are “just as wild as they have always been.” They have even less of a chance to succeed when they are steeped in extravagance. Signs point to catastrophe when the worlds tallest sky scraper is built by imported wage-slave construction workers.

People may be attracted to extravagance, but the novelty quickly wears off. Any industry that doesn’t have a solid base will eventually sink. And this one was quite literally built on water.

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