dubai_phil

Well, probably.... But maybe not the way many think, more likely designed to spoil someone else's Eid..... and Thanksgiving.....

This isn't perfect but it is a bloggers simplification of what is going on. The problem is REALLY big and could cause global meltdown part two. Little Boys shouldn't play with Matches. They sure as sh*t shouldn't be allowed to play with matches surrounded by Gasoline. So, where to start? At the beginning maybe. The base law here is that any "immigrant" is only a visitor and must be sponsored by a UAE National. No right of citizenship. That extended to ownership of business - so that to have your own business you need an Arab who must own 51%. To get around this and become a business hub, Dubai launched Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone where you could have 100% ownership. Technically JAFZA operate as the overall sponsor. That helped cause the first Dubai boom, which was strengthened by all the other FTZ's Internet City, Media City etc etc. At no time could anyone except a local own any property. About 6 years ago Dubai "bent" the FTZ rules to allow "leaseholds" to be traded. ie you could take out a 100 year lease on a property in specific zones, but you could never own the land. For many long term businessmen, residents especially from Asian sub-continent this was what they wanted, security of tenure. In very quick order that bending of the rule got bent again to allow "freehold" but with very tight rules. The developer sells the freehold, but is the "technical" sponsor, so there are restrictions - the property could only be sold 2 or 3 times or had to be sold back to the developer. Now, add to this mix of local demand for long term tenure the "Madness" which afflicted most of the Western world - "Property Prices will always go up", the ease of credit and the lack of fear of debt. Stir with careful marketing and branding and woosh.... The land was allocated to the Prime Developers, they they sub-sold lumps to sub developers. The pent up demand saw 200% profits on off plan sales in 6 months. People couldn't stop making money. They bought one villa due for completion in 4 years for $1mil, paid 10%, 6 months later they had to pay a further 5% and the next day sold the villa for $2mil, making $850k profit. That allowed them to buy 2 villas in the next launch and on and on and on until you had people who started with a $150k bank loan signing up to build entire skyscrapers...... It was pure greed, the foreigners never bothered to check out the laws here, they just "assumed" it was the same as back home, and even IF we told them, they were so blinkered by the greed or the property always goes up they didn't listen. So the master developer launches a 1Billion project. He gets 10% up front, when he has that he uses it to... yep, launch a 2billion project. he gets 10% up front and uses it to launch a 4billion project. All the time, the money is spent on marketing, promotions, huge bonuses for the launch salesteams... And of course, alongside them are the Goodwins - free money for Brit bankers - property development in Dubai - have $1bil Bond for which the banker bags a $1mil bonus cheque. The Europeans couldn't give YOUR money away fast enough. It really was like the Emperor's new clothes, another week and DubaiLand, Bawardi - 4 km of Hotels in the desert, another Palm Island, Hell towards the end they planned to demolish 1/3rd of the old Dubai in order to start on a $100 billion property development... Jumeirah Gardens. Of course, EVERY development was "Executive Style Housing". Not ONE area designed as affordable for Middle Management, let alone normal White Collar workers to live... How could they expect to fill accomodation for 2.5 million "Upper Middle Class" people? and not one room for a worker? Add to this mix, more greed, corruption, bribery, doubling the build density so that the infrastructure (roads electrics sewerage power supply) isn't adequate..... Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah joined the party... all fed by "idiots who don't even check the local laws" pouring their pension funds into the place. Now, with the bubble and the debt, if you do not keep rolling forwards you crash and burn. Lehman Bros was crash and burn time. For those who had invested in "off plan" with many of the smaller sub developers there is no chance of them getting their money back and in many cases ever seeing a property. There is NO consumer protection legislation - Caveat Empor you muppets. For those with the bigger developers they will get moved around, they need to keep some cash flow coming in. So, today the basic rule is if they started pouring concrete into a hole in the ground then it will get finished. Anything else - forget it, they say "projects delayed" they meant cancelled. Here is how insane this was There are over $300 BILLION of "delayed" construction projects. What the HELL were you all thinking? Not just the guys down here, but all those "overseas investors" For us, Schadenfreude is the best term I have seen, this city filled with the get rich quick scum of the planet in the past 5 years. Living the Hello magazine lifestyle, when at heart they were just chavs. No respect for culture, people or even business sense, they happily paraded their credit card based wealth, and now go moaning to their rediscovered Daily Mail about how badly they have been treated and how awful it was to have to leave the Ferrari at the airport, their dogs in the desert and their Maids and nannies dumped as homeless immigrants, while they return to their caravans in Skatesmouth. I'll blog about some of the other drivers for the property bubble and ideas as to why Dubai chose to make their announcement on Thursday later

Ah, where to start..... Let's leave it with the old timers' standard comment down here Told ya so... more later :-)

We had a UFO once down here. Wouldn't have been of interest except for the fact that it was seen by a Brigadier of Police and a bunch of tourists. Benji, get on the email thingy to the Telegraph, they have a big thing about doing UFO stories, hell they may even pay the beer bill for the next away game. Bit worried that Hamster may be a closet Skate, living in a caravan?

Anyone who has had the extreme fortune to watch Tiger up close on a Golf course would know that in actual fact he is actually an inconsistent Driver.... coat get early night

Bart is 22, he has more than 16 years ahead of him in his career as a keeper. That is a LOT of learning still to do. He will not be perfect every week, he will not be Banks/Shilton/Seaman from the moment he goes on the pitch. But I have no doubt that he will do a good job for us, is far better than anyone else who is currently available to clubs at our level, his inclusion is a strong message that the new management trusts the younger players to step up when the club needs them, which will have a knock-on effect on the morale of the club. Shoouldn't have to go out of our way to get behind him, he's our number 1 now and it will be up to KD to get fit and then get his place back. As others have said, let's hope KD has a real fight on his hands as it means we'll be doing well

Put the OP into a different perspective GM. Portsmouth get bought by someone with money and they survive in the PL. The owner plegdes to build the 45,000 seater stadium for the World Cup after all. Meanwhile, the economic crisis enters it's bigger second phase causing havoc amongst European Banks and Heavy Industry. Through no fault of his own, Markus is forced to seek to liquidate assets and has no option but to agree to a ground share at the new Pompey World Cup stadium releasing SMS back to re-development to save his core businesses..... Would any SAINTS fans travel to Poopey? No, so the scenario of ground sharing is as likely as ML having to sell up in a fire sale That is NOT to say it doesn't make financial sense, in fact a mega stadium could have been built half-way between the two cities and released money for the teams, but it won't happen thank God.

he he. assuming it is true of course Damn I wish we were allowed to gamble down here.... ok so I said UEFA Pro licence but still a paperwork screw up that prevents him being manager straight away... Now, is ANYONE surprised that the Skates are having problems with their paperwork and "Corporate Processes"

TBH the Mail have continually taken the "bash Dubai" line of late. Primarily because most of the "brainwashed idiots who KNEW property prices could only keep going up" represent their core readers. In fact the Mail was one who kept telling everyone to jump on the band wagon 4 or more years ago. The old timers down here just keep saying - serves you greedy feckers right. In plain English. There were no property laws. There was no consumer protection legislation. There were no laws to ensure completion of a project in a set time, there were no laws to ensure audited accounts. There was no track record of the market. There were no laws that ensured even IF you owned property you would be able to stay if you lost your employment. There were no laws to say you had the right to resell the house, there were no laws of succession if you died, the developer had the right to charge you ANY figure they liked for "service charges" with NO Service Level Agreements that you would expect. Building Standards were minimal. Properties were delivered of completely different SIZE, SHAPE and FINISH to the brochures. All with NO protection. Did the lawyers or accountants in UK sign up with any local firms to give advice - did they hell they all did it themselves GREED GREED GREED It wasn't just the buildings that were created on sand, the collective insanity that made Brits (and others) who had NEVER been here queue up to tell us all how much money they were making in property - It was also built on sand. Nobody CARED about the laws, they cared ONLY about what they could make. And teh same went for the bankers, Hell they were begging construction firms to take out Eurobonds and double the construction density. This is not Dubai's problem, it's much bigger than that, no matter how many times the Mail reprints the ****** about Ferraris getting dusty at the airport. The Mail is so aggressive as they helped to keep that insanity ball rolling. Yes it will impact the Skates and possibly even us as it will make money even MORE difficult to find... The guys down here are already working on the recovery, it will not be quick, hysterical headlines - well they create panic. Better get your cash out the banks this afternoon

I'm not a big fan of misms

I didn't play golf today I had to prune the Bouganvilla instead boo

Fahim is nothing to do with Dubai Inc.... Sheikh Mo, made it pretty clear yesterday that the "people who got them into this mess" are now persona non grata" by announcing the firings. I can assure you that the powers that be have not, nor would they ever have looked at Portsmouth. They had people looking at football clubs (the head honcho is an Arsenal fan), but their critical factors were "Added Value" "Sustainability" and "Long Term Benefit to the citizens of Dubai". Portsmouth offered none of that. All they could have offered was a really band hand in a money ****ing contest with Abu Dhabi. Considering Dubai's need for support right now, that was never going to happen Fahim did not have any backing from any "Powers that be" in Abu Dhabi. Although it would never be believed, he had less far less backing and "technical support" than Whacko Jacko. Fahim worked at Hydra in Abu Dhabi, he did not leave a trail of success there. So, did he THINK he had more influence than he really had? Did he THINK that the powers in Dubai would have come to his rescue - that's quite possible, but after their experiences with Liverpool & Charlton, Dubai wasn't ready for a loudmouthed self publicist like Fahim to bring them an expensive "trinket", and, TBH if he had asked the question before his ego trip he'd have known it wouldn't happen. So, Dubai owes $89billion. Most of that is DP World, yet they still managed to put on a damned good show last weekend with the Race to Dubai/Dubai World Championships...... When you owe so much money, you get to pull the strings. What happened yesterday is more of a warning shot across the bows of a few bankers. These guys know who their friends are, was it any co-incidence that Sheikh Mo was in London last week meeting the Queen, Brown & Cameron? Your press have had a field day in rushing to the defence of greedy morons back home who poured their life savings into a market that they did no research on and took no legal advice on. Personally I think they've enjoyed giving them a scare.... and doing it the day before most of Dubai shuts down for a week with Eid & National Day was pure class. Because believe me, if you thought the recession was over or wasn't so bad, if Dubai really decides to default for real, then the collapse so far will seem like a walk in the park. Dubai may OWE $89bil, but how many people bought property here that is now worth 40% of what they are having to pay for it, you could double that figure with ease in the paper trail of cash that has been lost, and a great deal of those bad loans will be yep, in Blighty. You guys got any tax revenue left to shore up the banks AGAIN? Nope. So in answer to the question. What is MORE likely to happen is that the anti-corruption team down here who arrested many heads of companies here recently will start to look at Abu Dhabi and ask how Fahim managed to boast about 200 million bonus cheques...... His clock is ticking but from a different direction

Will we need sopcast or tv ants or will it be on a straight link?

Well, for the first time in ages I'm batting two for two or whatever the darned Yanks call it, Sultan Bin Flop & Hartdepart... Now I suppose the wish list would be Sk*tes climb out of the bottom 3 over Christmas, the few go on crazy celebratory benders and tell us they'll be playing CL football in 2012, Grant gets to show off his new signing and THEN they go into admin 2nd week of Jan... (That was wishlist of course, not reading the internet like my first two)

Affankyou

Did somebody mention golf? Will check the calendar, would be great to try and help out, but would hav eto link it in with work as with flights etc way too far in the future right now to plan a social return. Good luck with a very worthy cause.

Kindly explain the difference between the freedoms or the laws?

Adam enjoys his nights out in Bournemouth still. He is no doubt aware that he is still learning. He knows that only 3 months ago he was being branded qa liability by his own fans (including many on here) He will also know that he is not ready to play PL football every week. He will also have people around him who know just how good he could eventually become. If it is simply about money then he will go in January. If it is about ambition then he will know that he will continue to improve and his options in the summer will be better than they will be in January. IF we sneak up in the playoffs he may still until January '11 to prove he is capable of playing for a top half team rather than a scraping by team. But January, I think he'd be very unwise and as for Boro, how could he go clubbing in Bournemouth on a Saturday night where he is "The Man" you ever been on a night out up there as a southerner? Hmm oop north it is then

Why would a vet with a bad eye need to see a tortoise? And, should the tortoise be curled up fast a hibernating? Random? Good movie, one of Mel Gibson's better efforts, but his Family Guy was his best

Hmmm, how come when we were in the PL there weren't as many other "woeful teams"?

Ah, so you find racism as unpleasant as comments about health. So we don't have students? What on EARTH do you smoke all day long? Perhaps you may like to explain why you feel it unlikely that Arab Nationals are not worthy or should not expect a University Education? Was that not a racist comment? Your little Englander glasses got steamed up there? What about the children of expats born or raised here. Oh no don't mention health but let's make a racist comment about 2million people should be denied access to education because they live down here. Getting better and better

Thanks for making the effort TB. As a technical suggestion you should have a setting on your camera (even cheapie point & shoot) where you can change the ISO rating to HI when taking pics in poor light, less likely to get stick on here when you post them up in future

Students, a tad juvenile, well spotted.

A wealthy Skate passed away and left his entire estate to his beloved widow . . . but she can't touch it 'till she's 14. Two reasons why it's so hard to solve a murder in Skatesmuff: 1) The DNA is all the same 2) There are no dental records A new special by-law was just recently passed in Skatesmuff When a couple gets divorced, they are STILL cousins.

KD injury update will be on twitter after commentator has spoken to AP For those of you with 1-3 Bart has almost kept a clean sheet