Thread: Foreigners Flee Dubai, Leave Cars at Airport

Foreigners Flee Dubai, Leave Cars at Airport

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:33 PM

By: Gene J. Koprowski

Foreign workers — most of them white-collar professionals — are fleeing the one-time economic mecca of Dubai as the economy goes into free-fall and laid-off personnel fear being thrown into debtors' prison if they can't meet their mortgage payments.

Local and international news reports indicate that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by debt-ridden foreigners who would in fact be arrested and jailed if they failed to pay their bills.

Some foreigners are said to have maxed-out credit cards, and taped desperate notes of apology inside the windshield of their cast-off cars.

Real estate prices rose precipitously during Dubai’s six-year boom but have dropped 30 percent during the past three months in some parts of the city. Last week, Moody’s Investor’s Service announced that it might downgrade its ratings on six of Dubai’s most prominent state-owned companies, citing deterioration in the economic outlook.

So many used luxury cars are for sale they are sometimes sold for 40 percent less than the asking price two months ago, car dealers tell reporters.

Unlike Abu Dhabi or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, Dubai does not have its own oil and has built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Many expats there talk about Dubai as though it were a con job.

Wild rumors spread as fast as the desert wind: The Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s landmark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches pour out.

Overseas markets are being dragged down, experts note, because of the toxic assets forced on the banks by Washington’s real estate boosters and then resold, without conscience, by some on Wall Street.

"The result of such speculation by thousands of Wall Street gamblers was that millions of Americans who played by the rules, and put money each month in their 401(k) plans and elsewhere, lost much of their retirement savings. Many likely will have to keep working well into their 60s or 70s, and delay passing on their jobs to a new generation awaiting employment," writes Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review online.

"Financial wizards like Robert Rubin at Citicorp, and Franklin Raines at Fannie Mae — whom made millions as they left behind imploding corporations — had degrees from America’s top universities.â€

Dubai?

Isn't that where the elitists have, allegedly, everything in place to relocate when the wheels fall off in the US and plan to be living in their own private Utopia while the rest of us endure food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?

Originally Posted by azwreath

Dubai?

Isn't that where the elitists have, allegedly, everything in place to relocate when the wheels fall off in the US and plan to be living in their own private Utopia while the rest of us endure food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?

yep... thats the place

Sounds like Dubai got plenty of economic advice from the GWB gang. And I saw a program on Dubai's efforts to build fake islands for luxury resorts was the stupidest waste of money I have heard of. As far as roaches falling out of faucets, in my hotel in Cairo, the two-inch bugs couldn't wait for me to wake up and turn on the faucet. They didn't fall out but politely waited on the sides of the sink. Then breakfast was delivered to my room, with fresh bread, butter and jam. But you had to pick out all the weevils from the bread before eating. It was not a first class hotel, which I could not afford. but you know it is time to move on when you begin talking to the bugs.

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

Originally Posted by azwreath

Dubai?

Isn't that where the elitists have, allegedly, everything in place to relocate when the wheels fall off in the US and plan to be living in their own private Utopia while the rest of us endure food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?

yep... thats the place

Talk about trouble in paradise, huh?

Thanks AB

What a sob story.

I will continue to focus my anger at the financial wizards and the crooked politicians that have created this mess. Lame fodder aimed at evoking sympathy........?........ ....

[quote="vortex"]

Sounds like Dubai got plenty of economic advice from the GWB gang.



And plenty from the Clintons as well, who are hip deep in dealings pertaining to, and with, Dubai.

Yet there's Hillary, sitting on the new administration's throne in Washington.

Wonder if her royal sash reads "hope" or "change"?

left by debt-ridden foreigners

This is what we have to look forward to by the millions of illegals in this country!

Foreign workers are fleeing the one-time economic mecca of Dubai

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

Originally Posted by azwreath

Dubai?

Isn't that where the elitists have, allegedly, everything in place to relocate when the wheels fall off in the US and plan to be living in their own private Utopia while the rest of us endure food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?

yep... thats the place

Talk about trouble in paradise, huh?

Thanks AB

My, my...what will the poor elitists do without their slaves?!!!

Originally Posted by carolinamtnwoman

Foreign workers are fleeing the one-time economic mecca of Dubai

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

Originally Posted by azwreath

Dubai?

Isn't that where the elitists have, allegedly, everything in place to relocate when the wheels fall off in the US and plan to be living in their own private Utopia while the rest of us endure food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?

yep... thats the place

Talk about trouble in paradise, huh?

Thanks AB

My, my...what will the poor elitists do without their slaves?!!!

They probably just figure there are billions more where the first batch came from.........