Wowza. Didn't see that coming... but 50% down in Burj Dubai??!?!?!? That's insane

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It will settle down and all the insane price inflations will be stripped off... and it'll still be fine.

Says I with sweet bugger all knowledge of it.

It's just going to all slow down a bit and take longer to make money from, and perhaps mean a bunch of places remain empty for a while before they become fully occupied.

But they've built too much stuff there for it not to still be an attraction for the world. The idea to create a place of world interest to last them after the oil has gone is a smart one... perhaps not done in the most environmentally or socially responsible manner... there are many other things that insane amount of money could have been spent on to create... but hey, they've created something pretty unparalleled in history... so kudos for that at least.

I wouldn't put this in Islam. It's solely focused on the capitalist nature of risky ventures.

They're insisting it'll all come back when the article states "They don't have enough oil to pay for it".

Yeah, that's good enough for me! I'm getting my money back from my Nigerian banker's son friend and running RIGHT over to Dubai to invest it there!

I love how news organizations treat economic turn downs as apocalyptic events when it was predicted this was going to happen in the GCC for years.

Dubai is mostly invested from other oil rich states in the GCC like Kuwait. So this is not that bad as they make it out.

This is actually good as Dubai has been having unreasonable price bubbles in real estate for years now.

>> ^CaptainPlanet:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Couldn't agree more. Screw Dubai and everone who vacations in Dubai.

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Maybe now I can afford that island in the shape of a palm that they made.
I've always wanted that thing.

I've always had this fear of Dubai becoming one of the most impressive ghost towns in the world. With all that super high value property, I was always wondering who is going to live there, are there even enough rich people to fill all that property? But one hears that these properties sell out in days, well apparently not to people who are going to live there, but to investors.
We'll see how this works out. It will probably settle if the crisis doesn't last too long. Remember the Empire State Building was finished during the Great Depression and got the nickname the Empty State Building, but it seems to have worked out in the end.

I wonder what the boatloads (literally) of Pakistani construction workers are going to do now?

They should film the next Resident Evil movie there. all the half-finished buildings as a background would make a pretty cool set. But then again, all the r-tards will protest about the zombies looking arab.

Stuka wins for that post. One of the best poems ever and entirely relevant here.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^CaptainPlanet:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Couldn't agree more. Screw Dubai and everone who vacations in Dubai.


I can't understand sentiments like this. Probably cowboy americans firing their guns into the air and dancing a jig. This is why the world hates you. You dislike something because it seems to show prosperity to a greater degree than your own. You hate a people because they look like some people who once hurt you.

----

On another note - dubai is a good idea poorly executed. Yes they need a good source of income once the oil is gone. But seriously, a world-wide tourist attraction will not happen in a highly religious, highly divercially intolerant, highly alcohol-free country/capital. And their punishments for what they percieve as crime?

The knowledge of dubai i have comes from saudi arabians who live now in england, they're extremely good friends of mine. The stuff they tell me is outrageous. Young men and women (like 18-25) are not allowed to go and talk to each other in a social setting. They have to rely on stuff like "dropping pieces of paper with their phone numbers on the floor" when a group of guys spy a group of girls on the other side of the mall. If the authorities suspect any of this behaviour, they get in serious trouble.

I've been told how the law enforcement around dubai go around "picking up" random foreigners (white women/men) and taking them to the square where corporal punishment is carried out and making them watch, then letting them go and basically saying "remember what you saw".

That's not even half of the stuff i've heard but this post is getting long.

World wide tourist attraction to provide them with the money oil will not forever provide? Not unless things change. But i'm not an authority here, i only pass on information provided to me by people who grew up there.

Good.

Having seen those documentaries about the absolute waste that happens in Dubai I'm happy to see they got what was coming to them. More specifically, those stupid man-made islands and peninsulas that can be seen from space in the form of a world globe and those palm trees. Why... just why. With all the problems in the world it is just a symbol of waste, greed, and ultimately the unfeeling nature of those involved.

To think of what could have been done with the unimaginable amount of money that it took to make a barren row of excessively large houses in the form of a palm-tree that can only be appreciated from a plane. My only regret is that the assholes responsible for these black holes of expendable income are probably still rich enough that they will just have to give up burning money for fun.

Wow danny,

Let me clarify:

Rich americans (and others) are the ones vacationing in dubai and investing in the properties there. The whole thing just seems like a wasteful overindulgence to me. I'm happy that the people there have jobs and that it helps their economy but if I know rich developers(and I'm a construction manager in NYC), they're not paying very much.

It seems like you're railing me for my comments but then going on to list a bunch of negatives about the country? Not sure I follow the logic there.

PS: I realize that you're probably exposed to the worst of my culture every day but I'm kind of offended by your overgeneralization. I'm a hard-working stiff like most of the rest of the world, only with the advantages afforded me by being a US citizen. I can't remember the last time I took a vacation and I couldn't even afford a gun. Oh, and I don't dance.

If I judge solely by your comment, it would appear to me that the reason the rest of the world hates america is ignorance. There are real people here you know.

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^CaptainPlanet:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Couldn't agree more. Screw Dubai and everone who vacations in Dubai.

I can't understand sentiments like this. Probably cowboy americans firing their guns into the air and dancing a jig. This is why the world hates you. You dislike something because it seems to show prosperity to a greater degree than your own. You hate a people because they look like some people who once hurt you.
----
On another note - dubai is a good idea poorly executed. Yes they need a good source of income once the oil is gone. But seriously, a world-wide tourist attraction will not happen in a highly religious, highly divercially intolerant, highly alcohol-free country/capital. And their punishments for what they percieve as crime?
The knowledge of dubai i have comes from saudi arabians who live now in england, they're extremely good friends of mine. The stuff they tell me is outrageous. Young men and women (like 18-25) are not allowed to go and talk to each other in a social setting. They have to rely on stuff like "dropping pieces of paper with their phone numbers on the floor" when a group of guys spy a group of girls on the other side of the mall. If the authorities suspect any of this behaviour, they get in serious trouble.
I've been told how the law enforcement around dubai go around "picking up" random foreigners (white women/men) and taking them to the square where corporal punishment is carried out and making them watch, then letting them go and basically saying "remember what you saw".
That's not even half of the stuff i've heard but this post is getting long.
World wide tourist attraction to provide them with the money oil will not forever provide? Not unless things change. But i'm not an authority here, i only pass on information provided to me by people who grew up there.

Does that mean that Burj Al-Arab is only 50% as tall now?

They need a Dubailout.

There is a quote from the region that goes something like:

Our grandfathers rode on camels.
Our fathers rode on bicycles.
We ride in Mercedes Benz's
Our children will ride in camels.

I tend to agree with that.

Upvoted for comments and poem.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
Wow danny,
Let me clarify:
Rich americans (and others) are the ones vacationing in dubai and investing in the properties there. The whole thing just seems like a wasteful overindulgence to me. I'm happy that the people there have jobs and that it helps their economy but if I know rich developers(and I'm a construction manager in NYC), they're not paying very much.
It seems like you're railing me for my comments but then going on to list a bunch of negatives about the country? Not sure I follow the logic there.
PS: I realize that you're probably exposed to the worst of my culture every day but I'm kind of offended by your overgeneralization. I'm a hard-working stiff like most of the rest of the world, only with the advantages afforded me by being a US citizen. I can't remember the last time I took a vacation and I couldn't even afford a gun. Oh, and I don't dance.
If I judge solely by your comment, it would appear to me that the reason the rest of the world hates america is ignorance. There are real people here you know.


You've really changed your tune from your first post here to your second. Or you've given the wrong impression in your first. Firstly, you're agreeing with someone saying "HAHAHAHAHAHA" because dubai's prosperity is on the fall, so that doesn't put you in good moral standing, but then you say "screw dubai".

So exactly what is your opinion? Are you laughing at their declining prosperity or not? It appears you are, and then it appears you're back tracking. So clear it up and fix your comments if that's not what you meant.

I'm railing you for your random celebration (as it appeared to me) at the declining prosperity in dubai. Then i'm explaining why i think the idea is doomed to failure - because they are exlusive (in a literal sense, excluding of others/other things), insular, occasionally archaic (by the standards i hold), often racially discriminating, and they fight to remain that way.

I base that on evidence, and facts that have been presented to me by people i trust, i do not begrudge them their prosperity and i do not rejoice or mourn their lack of it. I simply have an opinion about whether their plan will work. I also have an opinion about the way they run their country and their people, which i am entitled to, just as you are. And in fact, you're entitled to rejoice and celebrate at their lack of prosperity - you're under no obligation to impress me. I just happen to have an opinion about people who rejoice at another people's lack of prosperity too.

I think our disagreement is that i railed you for rejoicing, and you say you didn't. I hope you understand why i thought so.

---

As for people saying "good, i'm glad they're gonna phail" - well i'm not. I think the island was beautiful, i think any monuments and expressions of wealth and power are amazing. The seven wonders of the ancient world were built to demonstrate power and wealth, and nothing is better than humans acknowledging and marvelling at how far we can drive ourselves and what wonders we can create when we put our minds to it. It's a beautiful thing. In 2000 years, what will they have to remember us by? What will our 7 wonders be? I hope it's not starbucks. I want someone to build a hanging garden ala babylon. Only bigger, and more beautiful, and i want to walk in it before i die. I love grand and exciting projects for the sake of exhibition. They haven't killed anyone doing it. It's not like they've polluted or pillaged the land any more than we have in our quest for mediocrity - at least they're doing it on a grand scale! Even IF the product they sold for their money (oil) is responsible for heavy pollution and loss of the fauna of the earth, it's everyone's fault, not theirs. They had a product which people wanted and they wanted it bad. Don't blame them for providing us with the tools to pollute, we scurried our lives away to buy the shit they had to sell, and it's our fault as much as theirs.

How many lives have been lost due to our own religion, technological advances, armies, industrial waste, commercial and residential expansion, cosmetic testing, need i go on? We're as bad as they are but at least there'll be more beauty in the world. If we were making gorgeous buildings and glorious projects to enrich our lives and inspire ourselves at half the ecological and economical cost, you might have an argument. Fuck you for hating them because they want to make something special and secure their future.

I've gone on a bit of a rant here, but i couldn't give a fuck. Fuck everyone who's so bitter in their jealousy. And if you have a valid reason for rejoicing their lack of prosperity, then good for you, this wasn't aimed at you.

I fuckin pray less ugly, useless things are made in our countries (at little ecological and economical cost) and more beautiful, inspiration things are made in theirs (at greater ecological and economical cost). Little cost lots of times, large cost fewer times, it balances out, don't try and mount a false high horse.

Now I know where Half Life 3 is going to take place.

>> ^ponceleon:
Good.
Having seen those documentaries about the absolute waste that happens in Dubai I'm happy to see they got what was coming to them. More specifically, those stupid man-made islands and peninsulas that can be seen from space in the form of a world globe and those palm trees. Why... just why. With all the problems in the world it is just a symbol of waste, greed, and ultimately the unfeeling nature of those involved.
To think of what could have been done with the unimaginable amount of money that it took to make a barren row of excessively large houses in the form of a palm-tree that can only be appreciated from a plane. My only regret is that the assholes responsible for these black holes of expendable income are probably still rich enough that they will just have to give up burning money for fun.


I'm so glad dubai got slapped on the arse.

>> ^Raaagh:
There is a quote from the region that goes something like:
Our grandfathers rode on camels.
Our fathers rode on bicycles.
We ride in Mercedes Benz's
Our children will ride in camels.
I tend to agree with that.


wow ;-/

i guess this is the downside of "living the dream", eventually you wake up.

>> ^dannym3141:

Friends were telling you about Saudi Arabia. The UAE is one of the most liberal states in the GCC far more then Kuwait along with Bahrain. Men and women are allowed to mingle freely, there is alot of foreigners who are allowed to drink alcohol in complete contrast with even Kuwait. The most serious violations are import of drugs and scandalous behavour like fornicating in public and then disegarding and insulting the police when they tell you to stop.

The vice police you talk about is in Saudi Arabia who will beat women when they congregate with men who are not relatives, when without family man, and even convict women for crimes when they are raped by other men. Saudi Arabia's stance towards female rights and human rights in general are not addressed by any of the western states, even though strong relations are maintained between the USA and KSA.

I find it funny when a Sift comment composed solely of "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" gets at last count twelve upvotes. I'm hoping they're more for the "I agree" sentiment than because it's a skillful expression of an idea.

>> ^Farhad2000:

Friends were telling you about Saudi Arabia. The UAE is one of the most liberal states in the GCC far more then Kuwait along with Bahrain.

Uh, the UAE is an authoritarian hellhole.

^I didn't change anything in my second comment danny.^

I was just clarifying. I think the plight of the developers and tourists is funny, not the average citizens.

PS: Doesn't it seem like a double standard to you that someone can make a sweeping generalization about an entire country's population and in the same paragragh accuse them of bad "moral standing"? Don't give me the moral standing bullshit. I think we all know who's on the "high horse".

And I'm not having a debate here about the country's politics. Finding it humorous was my opinion. So you can leave the fucking "evidence" out of it.

Just saying.

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