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The Dubai Debt Trap

economist.com

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Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#171

Post by _hhkg »

bitcharmer wrote: post #145
_hhkg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, it's entirely fair. You just refuse to appreciate the dissonance between the country that lets you live a comfy life and actual evil that happens there on daily basis. There was so much media coverage about human rights violations and slavery you'd have to put in a lot of effort to not see it.

I appreciate the dissonance just fine. I live here and face it every day when actually interacting with people. We go out of our way to support them as much as we can (buying furniture and things for those who cannot afford it, proving financial and emotional support, and just hanging out with them).

As I’ve mentioned now several times, I’m not blind to it. The UAE has engaged in many poorly made decisions, however I was simply trying to engage in some conversation about something the western media doesn’t often talk about - the positive things the UAE does. If your response to that is, “the UAE is entirely negative, why engage in anything positive”, then I’d suggest seeking information on the positive things the country has done for others. Maybe it’ll broaden your horizon and bring some nuance. I’d state more positives here, but I keep getting called names, so I won’t list any more positives.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#172

Post by tristor »

logicchains wrote: post #129
ceejayoz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59845833 > The United Arab Emirates has announced that it will ban citizens who have not had three doses of a vaccine against Covid-19 from travelling abroad. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uae-mandates-covid... > DUBAI, May 26 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates said vaccinations against COVID-19 will be mandatory for people attending all "live events" from June…

That's like saying Florida has vaccine passports because Biden said the US will. The individual emirates, like Dubai, have even more independence than US states. I actually live in Dubai and there's zero usage of vaccine passports for anything. The emirate of Abu Dhabi is very big on them, but Abu Dhabi is not Dubai in the same way Washington DC is not Texas.

Based on your first comment, I already knew you were neither intelligent nor being reasonable, but this comment also shows you have no idea how even basic things work.

The Federal government in the US controls the borders and a Federal agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enacts border policy. Just as in every country in the world to legally enter that country you must pass through customs and passport control in any airport, seaport, border crossing, or otherwise. Whether that's in Florida or elsewhere.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#173

Post by loljustice »

apohn wrote: post #60
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.

I say this as somebody who lived in one of those Middle Eastern countries for a good period of my life. I'm not a white person and at that time I didn't have a US/European passport, so I didn't lead an extra privalaged life there. Here's what you can hear about the USA. 1)Endless suburban sprawl, resulting in massive environmental destruction. Illegal immigrants heavily involved in the construction industry, leading…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#174

Post by tristor »

kevingadd wrote: post #156
tristor wrote: post #143

I don't think this justifies his treatment, but the article starts off by essentially saying this man did nothing wrong and was forced into signing a confession without a lawyer present in a language he can't understand. It's not until you get more than a third of the way into the article that they point out he was convicted in a civil case brought by the same complainant in British courts of committing financial fra…

"he was convicted in british courts" is exactly the wrong kind of reasoning here. Sure, this guy probably did it, but for every person who probably did it there are likely 9 or even 99 innocent people who spend months rotting in jail and being abused - or in the US, dying in jail - awaiting a fair trial because we tolerate violations of law and mistreatment of prisoners. "he would have been murdered rather than impri…

To be clear, I don't think this is okay. My comment is more pointing out that the article goes out of its way to act as if he's innocent only to later reveal he was actually convicted of the crime by a more trustworthy entity. It's a criticism of the article, not a justification of the treatment of this individual.

It's clear that debtor's prison, en total, is unethical. It's also illegal in most of the Western world. And for cases where someone is imprisoned for any crime, the sentence should match the crime, and the treatment within prison should be humane.

My latter commentary is about the risk factors that this person knowingly took on doing business in that region. I personally, having traveled extensively, would never engage in business in the Middle East because I understand the nebulous way debt is treated in the region. Usury is illegal under Islamic law, and generally speaking debt is only acceptable in the context of direct personal relationships, which means any dispute about it is taken as a personal insult. Taking on a debt from the finance minister and member of the royal family of a theocratic dictatorship is not a good life decision.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#175

Post by tzs »

moralestapia wrote: post #79
logicchains wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Yes, that is literally a written law that is being properly followed. Although the end result may be questionable, there is a legal framework by which disputes could be reasonably resolved, while trying to preserve the rights of all parties involved. In other places you have no such thing and, trust me, things are much worse.

That is not the law. The law is that such theft is a misdemeanor which caries up to 6 months of jail time and a fine of up to $1000.

They are not prosecuted in San Francisco because the DA chooses not to do so.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#176

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

parthdesai wrote: post #70
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 “…

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 becau…

[deleted]

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#178

Post by raziel2p »

tristor wrote: post #143

I don't think this justifies his treatment, but the article starts off by essentially saying this man did nothing wrong and was forced into signing a confession without a lawyer present in a language he can't understand. It's not until you get more than a third of the way into the article that they point out he was convicted in a civil case brought by the same complainant in British courts of committing financial fra…

It's kind of ironic that it required a wealthy british entrepeneur to be the victim of systems like this before this article could be written.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#179

Post by mbg721 »

mrwnmonm wrote: post #169
spiderfarmer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After some bad experiences I will never visit an Arab country again. They'll have to do something against the sexism, constant heckling and the bad state of law before I even think about going there. Or they can do whatever they want, they don't have to change just for me. I'm 6 ft 6 and I have a blonde wife who's just a bit smaller. Even though we behaved very polite and dressed like locals it was like we had a big…

Are you western? I get really bored hearing someone talking about us like this. While your knowledge about Arab countries comes from an all-inclusive trip to Tunisia or something. The west always plays a big role in keeping dictators all over the place, who don't care about education or anything other than their chair. People are ignorant and if you look fancy or different, even if you are native, they will look at y…

Where the Western "Oh god, it's so tiring vacationing amongst the sahhhvages. Pass the gin, darling?" reaction still happens, it's based on the perception that in the tourist's home country, the law means what it says, and in the visited country, context is king. That's a useful adjustment to make. However, law enforcement in the West seems to be catching up in that respect.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#180

Post by ceejayoz »

logicchains wrote: post #124
delecti wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing slavery to vaccines is simply absurd. Slavery is one of the worst things humans do to each other, and vaccines are one of our greatest accomplishments as a species. You can go through life as a walking petri dish for dark age plagues if you'd like, but I think it's good for society to keep you away from the rest of us.

>Comparing slavery to vaccines is simply absurd Comparing the covid vaccines to previous vaccines is simply absurd. You know what other vaccines do? THEY PREVENT YOU FROM GETTING THE DISEASE! The covid vaccines do not do this! Even if you get the covid vaccine, you can still get covid and you can still die! And not only that, the covid vaccines are at least an order of magnitude more dangerous than previous vaccines…

> You know what other vaccines do? THEY PREVENT YOU FROM GETTING THE DISEASE!

That's just an absurd claim. Even our best vaccines don't guarantee that, and some of them can even give you the disease. The flu shot has 50% efficacy in a good year.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/polio-cases-now-caus...

"More polio cases now caused by vaccine than by wild virus... In rare cases, the live virus in oral polio vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks. All the current vaccine-derived polio cases have been sparked by a Type 2 virus contained in the vaccine. Type 2 wild virus was eliminated years ago."

https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/polioviruscontainment/diseaseandviru...

"IPV does not stop transmission of the virus. OPV is used wherever a polio outbreak needs to be contained, even in countries which rely exclusively on IPV for their routine immunization program."

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html

"Two doses of MMR vaccine are 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps... MMR is an attenuated (weakened) live virus vaccine. This means that after injection, the viruses cause a harmless infection in the vaccinated person with very few, if any, symptoms before they are eliminated from the body. The person’s immune system fights the infection caused by these weakened viruses, and immunity (the body’s protection from the virus) develops."

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