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The Dubai Debt Trap

economist.com

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Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#201

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#202

Post by throwaway_dcnt »

_hhkg wrote: post #103
bigthymer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt is not illegal in Islam.

You’re right, just reading more on the topic now, it’s a punishable offense, not illegal. My mistake thanks for pointing this out

Interest is punishable, debt, not so much.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#203

Post by LightG »

feupan wrote: post #184
mrwnmonm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What a weird comment full of assumptions and hatred. Nothing in the parent comment warrants what you said. What happens in practice is that being white in poorer countries makes you stand out and sometimes this comes with negative feelings of being unwanted there. This is just a fact being told and it doesn’t justify a “you guys and your politics” comment. It’s just to point out, perhaps, that some places are more we…

From my point of view, I could say "What a weird comment full of assumptions and hatred" about the parent comment.

I've travelled back and forth from Dubai for business and other emirates and countries and never had that experience.

When you say "fact being told", you actually mean "anecdote being shared".

Nothing from my experience indicates an automatic feeling of hatred towards me and my wife when going to these countries. In fact, the opposite.

And don't get me wrong. I have my issues with these countries and their governments, just like I have my issues with many other countries, but that doesn't mean you dismiss the entire population.

Maybe it's time you engaged with the cultures. I'm sure it'll be "No thanks". Surprise me.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#204

Post by dahdum »

Teracotage wrote: post #187
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…

For those who did not bother to read the article, it is about fraud during the financial crisis. I feel sad for Cornelius and wish he is set free. As a resident of Dubai for 30 years, I am always curious to learn things that I may have missed about 'my city', yet this article is misleading in many ways, its few first paragraph where it states that Ryan Cornelius 'thought the authorities had simply made a mistake;' Re…

Yeah, they really buried the admission of fraud pretty deep in the article. They forged invoices and spent 342m on unauthorized riskier projects. Sounds like the sentence may be excessive, but not the conviction.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#205

Post by aliswe »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #113
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.

> plus it's absurdly hot Most of the places people visit and live aren't absurdly hot. The largest cities in the middle east BY FAR are Ciaro, Tehran, Istanbul, and Baghdad. Cairo is hot most of the year - but one of these places are hotter than Phoenix - which is currently one of the places people are moving to in droves in the US Tehran & Istanbul, for example, aren't even much hotter than Los Angeles: https://weat…

Someone I know would never move to Riyadh because its too cold - it goes down to zero some winters!

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#206

Post by BeetleB »

knownjorbist wrote: post #127
apohn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the face of all of this, the US remains the most desirable place to emigrate to. The logical conclusion here is that the impression you have from news is not the complete picture. The US is massive and diverse. If you go by the county level, the US contains the highest HDI areas in the world.

Eh - Dubai is a lot more diverse than the US. A similar comment could be written about it.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#207

Post by prewett »

zaphod12 wrote: post #84
apohn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know about number 7 - most of the USA is actually pretty nicely temperate. There are some exceptions like death valley (3000 sq mi) or the chihuahan dessert (about 25000 sq mi in the USA), or some parts of Alaska, but we're talking about a very small area of a 3.7 million sq mi country. If those aren't your thing, I do recommend skipping them. UAE is only 32000 sq mi and it's all very very hot. Otherwise that…

Texas is 100+ for three months of the year, and Minneapolis had an average of about 10 degrees this January, with lows in the -10s, I believe. And I think Mississippi in the summer is probably pretty miserable, it's probably as close to 100+ as the humidity will let it. I think most of the American West is about 100 in the summer and cold in the winter, due to not having the ocean to mitigate the temperature.

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#209

Post by justinroberts22 »

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…

So you don't recommend even for just travelling? It is a safe country for tourists?

Re: The Dubai Debt Trap

#210

Post by mrwnmonm »

feupan wrote: post #184
mrwnmonm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What a weird comment full of assumptions and hatred. Nothing in the parent comment warrants what you said. What happens in practice is that being white in poorer countries makes you stand out and sometimes this comes with negative feelings of being unwanted there. This is just a fact being told and it doesn’t justify a “you guys and your politics” comment. It’s just to point out, perhaps, that some places are more we…

Arabs are mixed-race my friend, some of them are white.

Your comment reflects your lack of knowledge about us.

I don't hate western people for being western or white. I respect a lot of them and would love to learn from them.

Some places are more welcoming because people have more knowledge about dealing with foreigners and know more about their culture. So it comes back to education and being open to other cultures as I said, which dictators will never care about. They take money and weapons from you, then tell the people a lot of nonsense about you. People don't really know you. Then when someone tries to tell you this, you say your comment is full of assumptions and hatred.

Also, your media plays a big role in making people see us like animals, watch "bad reel arabs" and it should tell you more about that.

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