@Del
The problem is that it is in your face in Dubai 24/7. Such practices exist in many places to varying degrees, but given that Dubai is so small and holds itself up to be a paragon of moral and religious values it is initially a shock that all of the above are practically on open display.
Nowhere else that I have lived or visited, are the indigenous population so adept at using the legal system to their own advantage, in the full knowledge that it is weighted in their favour.
Example: I was there. 4 waiters in R'affa jailed for "stealing" 2 packets of Magi soup and 8 free BIC lighters!
Explanation: It was cheaper for the owner to accuse them of theft than paying the end of service dues and sending them back to Uzbekistan.
Proof: none Local owners statement was sufficient. We offered to pay the amount of the soup and lighters - offered refused.
Rational: The local owner had an offer to sell the property and the business, but the cost of paying off the workers and repatriating them would have seriously eaten into his profit (pun intended)
Outcome: Guilty as charges – sentenced to one month and deportation (they had already been locked up for 8 months) and now had no money to buy a ticket home. For all I know they are probably still there 4 years on.
Please tell me that anywhere else in the world where that would have been permitted? I can go on and on with actual evidenced examples, but unfortunately it only bores those who choose to ignore it and pretend that it does not happen, and ends up with me being labelled as a miscreant and wrongdoer myself (with special thanks to my fellow expat Brits) (and surprisingly some UK domiciled and resident non-expats - What’s with that?)
The reason this can happen is the 2 degrees of separation between each and every member of the lokal population. It is very basic - e.g. my brother went to school with a senior guy in the public prosecution who takes the complaint to his cousins’ friend who works in the police who reverses it into the police reports where they are duty bound to act on it as it came from the DPP. By the time it gets to court which can be can be 8-15 months later it is a foregone conclusion that they are found guilty and whatever the sentence, as they are guilty they are therefore deported (at their own cost I might add).
The reason that “we” go on about it is, I think, that we are a bit shocked and embarrassed that we bought into a dream based on what I believe is false advertising and as RK has inferred in describing Ponzi schemes one of the common features of a Ponzi is the embarrassment of those swindled, they are constantly in denial, until the full extent of the truth is revealed, and then they get angry.
There is also a “clubby” feel about being on the “inside” which is what draws a lot of expats together and the gossip does the rounds faster in Dubai than a DSS queue in Croydon! Everyone knows someone who knows Matt Joyce or someone locked up in the current scandal (wait, it will be someone else next week).
Unfortunately in my line of work the phrase “follow the money” always hold true. Same in Dubai.
Who owns the hotels that sell the Alcohol
Who owns MMI
Who provides the visa’s for the former soviet girls providing after hours secretarial support
Who has the magic wasta stick that sends certain contracts left or right
You know this list and argument as well as I do
Stop the supply, stop the trade. Stop the customers ? Cant't be done. Why do all those AD registered cars pile up to Dubai on a Thursday afternoon? A game of pool?
No one and nowhere is perfect but nothing gets your goat more than someone or somewhere that holds itself up to be just that. The biggest this, the fastest that, it’s all crap. How about building the world’s most eco-friendly and technologically advanced residential community, car free, non polluting, build something for the future children of the UAE if not our own – not a chance, it costs too much therefore the margin of profit is reduced. NEXT!
This game is all based on debt borrowing (not AD, Dubai) and they got caught long debt when the market tanked, and now the cost of refinancing is through the roof, the cash flows do not support further extensions, the LTV needs to be reduced which means that real cash has to be paid into refinancing to de-lever, this in turn sucks the money out of developments and freezes the continuation of construction. (Damn that bit bored even me!)