Originally Posted by
schismatic
In what way is Dubai worse?
Simple.
Larger drops in property prices. Up to 60% in some places. The rest around 30% so far.
Everyone agrees that property prices needed a correction - now middle class end-users are starting to be able to afford to buy.
Surely a good thing?
Much greater fall in the stock market. Well further than Dow or FTSE
most of the local companies are not even listed and are still majority government owned, so not the disaster that it appears if directly comparing with other markets
Much greater % of job lost. The unemployed figure is kept low by the fact that the unemployed have to leave so therefore are no longer counted.
But surely that makes the UAE better off? - they dont have to support a massive rise in unemployment and increased demand on welfare
As for new housing starts/approvals, Captial flows etc. All these type indicators would be horrific if they were published.
housing starts are at zero - but as demand has fallen not really a problem. It will be a problem in years to come when the economy picks up and there is increased demand but no building in the pipeline to support such a demand.
Thats how..
The UAE will have big problems but to claim that it is in a worse position than the established Western economies does not strike me as particularly convincing - whereas the Western economies will struggle under the mountain of debt and borrowing to support their increasing unemployment the UAE will simply export their problem back to the home states of its workers