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The Dubai Debt Trap

economist.com

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Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#61

Post by Aspos »

hgomersall wrote: post #40
Aspos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those horror stories are mostly propaganda amplified in echo chambers of people who have never been to Dubai. Take this "slavery" nonsense for example. There is literally no difference between migration regime of a low-skilled worker and a highly-paid "expat". Rules are the same and they are way softer than, for example, H1B. Millions used to be spent on smearing Dubai, so we will be hearing echoes of those "horror s…

Ah yes, cultural relativism! Justifying barbaric behaviour since, well, the Barbarians.

Well, that is what I mean: some people divide the world to "civilized" and "barbaric" and anything that does not fit their world view must be barbaric of course.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#62

Post by whywhywhywhy »

refurb wrote: post #52
_hhkg wrote: post #25

As a Bay Area native who moved to Abu Dhabi / Dubai roughly four years ago, I have a lot of issues with the way the UAE is portrayed across sites like Hacker News and Reddit. A lot of them are in the comments for this story, focusing on all the negatives of the country, structural racism, human rights abuse, etc and we certainly have a right to raise these things (of which I actively fight against here every day). Th…

I upvoted you because it’s easy to shit on countries. Sure, Dubai may not reach the level Western democracies have, but they also didn’t start at the same point as well. That doesn’t excuse the shortcomings, but maybe explains them. Western democracies in Europe and North America didn’t spring up overnight. You’re looking at 800+ years of developing a broadly accepted set of human rights.

The mental gymnastics people will do to excuse that place are insane.

Honestly can't imagine anyone would be this forgiving of it's bigotry if it wasn't so rich.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#63

Post by [deleted] »

moralestapia wrote: post #57
ycombinete wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because almost no one who moves to Dubai for a middle class job will ever experience any of the things you’ve listed except for the heat. What they do experience is earning lots of tax-free money, and a vibrant city life. Obviously those negatives are all present but less of a threat than one might think from the outside. Perhaps that seems like too much of a risk to some people. But to others, who aren’t living in “…

>no one who moves to Dubai for a middle class job will ever experience any of the things you’ve listed Sorry, but that is just not true. You're always one mistake away from losing all your rights and going through a miserable experience. This could happen to anyone who is basically not royalty or extremely high ranks, I've experienced it first-hand. Everyone knows this, so people are quite afraid to mess up, at any l…

[deleted]

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#64

Post by _hhkg »

brthsim wrote: post #39
_hhkg wrote: post #25

As a Bay Area native who moved to Abu Dhabi / Dubai roughly four years ago, I have a lot of issues with the way the UAE is portrayed across sites like Hacker News and Reddit. A lot of them are in the comments for this story, focusing on all the negatives of the country, structural racism, human rights abuse, etc and we certainly have a right to raise these things (of which I actively fight against here every day). Th…

Anyone who says "We certainly have a right to raise [...] (issues with) racism, human rights abuse, etc." and immediately follows with "That being said however", is automatically not entitled to an opinion. You're clearly biased and enfatuated with the richness of the country and easy access to slavery and are more than content of looking the other way.

I don’t think that’s fair. You don’t know why I’m here and calling me an entitled prick is laughable because of your base assumptions. Maybe I’m here for humanitarian reasons and am trying to improve the lives of many.

I’m not infatuated by anything, I’m simply raising a nuanced opinion about a country that has many faults, but has some successes which are never acknowledged. And that’s fine.

Just thought it might be interesting to hear a viewpoint from someone who actually lives here rather than blindly reads the news and maybe has visited a few times. Labeling me and calling me names doesn’t help or bring anything useful to the conversation. If you can’t name a single positive thing the UAE has done, then to me, maybe it’s worth it to do some further investigation on the topic.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#65

Post by bigthymer »

_hhkg wrote: post #25

As a Bay Area native who moved to Abu Dhabi / Dubai roughly four years ago, I have a lot of issues with the way the UAE is portrayed across sites like Hacker News and Reddit. A lot of them are in the comments for this story, focusing on all the negatives of the country, structural racism, human rights abuse, etc and we certainly have a right to raise these things (of which I actively fight against here every day). Th…

Debt is not illegal in Islam.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#66

Post by mcv »

throw3838 wrote: post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

By taking everything you've got and more, locking you up for decades, fraudulently seizing foreign properties, and all without a lawyer, in a language you don't know.

I don't doubt the US legal systems has many problems, but I think it's still on a completely different scale than this.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#67

Post by mbg721 »

moralestapia wrote: post #57
ycombinete wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because almost no one who moves to Dubai for a middle class job will ever experience any of the things you’ve listed except for the heat. What they do experience is earning lots of tax-free money, and a vibrant city life. Obviously those negatives are all present but less of a threat than one might think from the outside. Perhaps that seems like too much of a risk to some people. But to others, who aren’t living in “…

>no one who moves to Dubai for a middle class job will ever experience any of the things you’ve listed Sorry, but that is just not true. You're always one mistake away from losing all your rights and going through a miserable experience. This could happen to anyone who is basically not royalty or extremely high ranks, I've experienced it first-hand. Everyone knows this, so people are quite afraid to mess up, at any l…

How does it compare to Singapore in that aspect? I get the same impression there when people talk about how it all works really well until it doesn't.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#68

Post by throw__away7391 »

CJefferson wrote: post #54
brthsim wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who says "We certainly have a right to raise [...] (issues with) racism, human rights abuse, etc." and immediately follows with "That being said however", is automatically not entitled to an opinion. You're clearly biased and enfatuated with the richness of the country and easy access to slavery and are more than content of looking the other way.

Does the same apply to America? Plenty of racism, people shot in their homes by police, Guantanamo Bay still open.

I really think an educational program is needed to take people from the US to visit some non-western countries with "human rights issues" and see what this actually looks like for a bit to cure this kind of whataboutism deflections that crop up anytime criticisms are made of conditions for people in foreign countries.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#69

Post by logicchains »

JohnGB wrote: post #7

One of many reasons that I will never enter the UAE. There is no rule of law, and so no protection if anyone decides to charge you for anything. I've read of women being raped and then being charged for reporting it which essentially admits sex outside of marriage, or of foreigners who get driven into by a local and then charged as if they were the ones being reckless. That's not even going into their de facto slaver…

>There is no rule of law

In San Francisco if someone walks into your shop and steals less than $950 worth of goods there's pretty much nothing you can do about it; is that rule of law?

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#70

Post by parthdesai »

ycombinete wrote: post #8
retube wrote: post #5

All I ever hear is horror stories about this place: environmental destruction, structural racism, serious abuse of human rights, culturally hyper conservative, corrupt legal system, plus it's absurdly hot. I can't believe anyone would voluntarily go there, seems like hell on earth.

Because almost no one who moves to Dubai for a middle class job will ever experience any of the things you’ve listed except for the heat. What they do experience is earning lots of tax-free money, and a vibrant city life. Obviously those negatives are all present but less of a threat than one might think from the outside. Perhaps that seems like too much of a risk to some people. But to others, who aren’t living in “…

I sort of grew up in Saudi, but we were as middle class as they come. I'm not sure if you're South Asian, but if you are I'm pretty sure you experienced it at some point as well. You don't need to look further than how those South Asian laborers are treat to see abuse in human right. Or those Filipino nurses and maids. As a South Asian, you would definitely get the sense that locals would think less of you just because you're brown. Race hierarchy is basically White > Arabs >> Brown. That literally both abuse of human right and structural racism right there.
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