Dubai was built by slave labor held at gunpoint and is going bankrupt. Maybe Bitcoin will save it from impending bankruptcy.

I've been to Dubai about 9 times mostly during the real boom and I'd have to agree with Evoorhees from personal experience. It wasn't any different than the majority of wealthy countries that outsource most of their labor. If you go to the middle east you're going to see Indian drivers and Philipino waiters etc. I got to know a few and they were all pretty happy to make a good wage (for them) and help their families. The are some shady stories but like Evoorhees said they're not the rule and every country has theirs the US included.

Jered

Well first, you say "why don't they" as if it's one big collective.  The property developers in Dubai are private companies, though some have ranging co-ownership by UAE government groups (the government there actually runs itself more like a business, generating profits instead of taxing the hell out of everything... it's nice).

But, any developer who hires a Pakistani instead of an Arab is simply making a rational profit-maximizing decision. The Pakistani is willing to work for less than the average Arab. They're not hired "because they're Pakistanis"... rather, they're hired for rational commercial reasons; the most cost-effective means of production will be sought out and utilized.

And you ask, "why do they pay so little when they have such wealth and opulence?"  Come on man... when you go to the store, do you pay what the bread costs? Or do you voluntarily offer to pay more? You, with your computer, are a wealthy and opulent person by world standards... so why don't you offer to pay more for things?

The same self-interest that you (correctly) exhibit is also exhibited by a group of people calling themselves a corporation. It's just a matter of scale, and until you offer to pay more than the minimum price for your bread at the store, it's hypocritical to chastise a company that pays the minimum price for labor.

cbeast, why do you want to bar people with little skills from selling their labor at market rates? If they can guarantee themselves a job at 2 dollars an hour, why the hell not? You seem like the oppressor. It seems you rather see them starve on the streets looking for a job rather than having one at an equitable rate.

Problems only come when government restrictions inflate the cost-of-living so people with little skill can't afford to sustain themselves; that's the true crime.

Tell me you're joking. Dubai is a hellish shit-hole. They foreign workers are abused and treated like slaves.

My father used to deal with property in Dubai and no way are they happy. They are forced into the crappiest situation. Many are starved, beaten or extorted. They have no due course with the law either.

Maybe the few forward facing workers packing bags at the mall are fine, but not the backend slaves. That's why Dubai has had numerous riots from the workers (who are jailed and then deported without anything).

The country is horrid for human rights. I hate the place and never want to go back. It's a gigantic artificial motorway complex with nowhere to walk and no natural beauty. Biggest hotel, biggest skyscraper, biggest shopping centre, biggest indoor ski slope, biggest artificial archipelago, biggest fake islands, and most retarded city built by uncivilised backwards sheep herders with more money than sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Dubai#Foreign_Workers_.26_Labor_Rights

I'm not joking. Certainly some people who visit Dubai hate it, and you're welcome to your opinion... it's a polarizing type of place. Personally, I loved it, although no place is without problems. Your generalization of foreign workers is problematic... certainly some have been abused by some developers. It's a minority, but of course thats what makes the headlines. Some abuse, I'll grant you, but "treated like slaves".... sorry, no. They were not captured at gunpoint from their lives in Pakistan and boated over on slave ships with chains and shackles and zero pay for all eternity. They were enticed to work by a salary that was greater than what they'd earn back home.



I didn't say the laborers were "happy," although I lived on a bloc where eleven 60+ floor towers were being built 24/7. I walked among thousands of workers every day. In general, they were smiling, joking with their buddies, drinking Mountain Dew and talking on their cell phones. It looked like hellish work to me, but to call it "slavery" is pretty disingenuous. You are trying to hold them against a standard that you as a Westerner enjoy. These are people who come from villages without running water, and here they are in Dubai earning enough money to support their families back home, they have water, electricity, food, and an environment at least as safe as where they came from.


As I said, I lived on a block of towers with thousands of laborers and I was around them for two years. I could see them working on site, during their breaks, and coming and going. Not once did I see a riot or a single act of violence against any worker (isolated riots have occurred typically due to a developer running out of money and not paying the wages).



To which human rights are you referring? Yes speech is curtailed, but not hugely. Yes, foreigners are treated more poorly than Emiratis. Yes, someone could get in serious trouble for illegal drugs. All of that I will not defend. However, unlike other "modern cities," Dubai doesn't routinely rob its population of wealth at gun point. What you earn, you keep. What is more of a human rights violation... Dubai which infringes on press freedom, or the US, which extracts wealth to pay for violence, murder, and pillaging of foreign countries? 

You call everything there "fake," but I call it man-made. Are you not sitting on an "artificial chair" typing on an "artificial computer"? Dubai has created a fascinating and thriving city out of what was a bleak desert 15 years ago. If skycrapers aren't your thing, fine, but there's plenty of beauty in Dubai, and for all the country's problems, it is doing many things right of which the rest of the world might want to take note.

You are not getting the point. It is very simple. The reason Dubai imports foreign workers to work for substandard wages and living conditions is because they believe the OFWs to be inferior races.

You are a smart guy, but your slip is showing. Meh, the filipinos have been conquered by nearly every major empire. They are indeed educating themselves and are doing what they can to survive. They are not a most favored nation, so they settle for what work they can get.


*chuckle* I wonder if those huts were in the brochure for the job posting.

I haven't actually visited Dubai but after reading this article, I will never again even consider visiting that wretched place.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

I hear they can find work in Dubai.