{"id":2714,"date":"2009-12-16T16:55:06","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T21:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=2714"},"modified":"2009-12-17T08:32:43","modified_gmt":"2009-12-17T13:32:43","slug":"if-it-sounds-too-good-to-be-true-its-probably-a-sales-pitch-from-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/2714\/if-it-sounds-too-good-to-be-true-its-probably-a-sales-pitch-from-dubai\/","title":{"rendered":"If It Sounds Too Good to be True, It&#8217;s Probably a Sales Pitch from Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out money can buy neither happiness nor certainty.\u00a0 As <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/2009\/12\/16\/the-city-of-gold-turns-to-dust\/\" target=\"_blank\">information continues to leak out<\/a> about the desert kingdom\u2019s financial mirage, the overleveraged city state of Dubai is proving to be an object lesson in the importance of free markets.\u00a0 In about five years\u2019 time the second largest member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) went from off the map to the center of attention for the world\u2019s glitterati.\u00a0 In the face of opulence, many disregarded obvious contradictions.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Neo-conservatives were willing to overlook its dictatorial government on the grounds that it promoted an alternative to political Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also overlooked were the inhumane conditions inflicted on the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, most from India and Pakistan, imported to construct the place to awe-inspiring effect. Nature was stage-managed at great expense, both financial and environmental: lush golf courses in the desert; a ski hill inside the world\u2019s biggest shopping mall; sand rearranged on offshore islands that replicated a map of the world (with Israel notably absent). No expense was spared to bring celebrities to burnish the Dubai brand\u2014among them Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, and Clinton. Dubai proposed a new oxymoronic economic model: state-owned capitalism. It was a trade-off: personal freedom for the promise of the best \u201cquality of life on the planet,\u201d like George Orwell\u2019s 1984 with Gucci, McDonald\u2019s, and a happy ending.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet, the end to Dubai\u2019s financial crisis is far from happy; especially if negotiations with other UAE members stall, and Dubai seeks a bailout \u2013 and closer ties with \u2013 Iran.\u00a0 Like security, many people (and nations) will trade their freedom for \u201cguaranteed\u201d prosperity.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope that in the wake of <a href=\"http:\/\/apnews.myway.com\/article\/20091216\/D9CKDCJ80.html\" target=\"_blank\">Iran\u2019s latest missile test-firing<\/a> Dubai doesn\u2019t increase the Islamic Republic\u2019s sphere of influence any further down the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out money can buy neither happiness nor certainty.\u00a0 As information continues to leak out about the desert kingdom\u2019s financial mirage, the overleveraged city state of Dubai is proving to be an object lesson in the importance of free markets.\u00a0 In about five years\u2019 time the second largest member of the United Arab Emirates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[652,130,653],"class_list":["post-2714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-dubai","tag-iran","tag-uae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2714"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2721,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions\/2721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}