flywildcamel,
good post. Lots of guys I fly with say the same thing. If you are single and were smart enough/lucky enough to purchase a few years ago then Dubai might be a good place to make some money. For the rest of us the price of rent, schooling, and virtually everything else is rising at an alarming pace. Certainly more than the 3.5% increase we received last year. I'm afraid once the expo is announced it will be a green light for the landlords/business owners to send the cost of everything except petrol into orbit.
Dubai is set up nicely to keep the money in circulation. They pay you what seems like a great salary but you put it right back into the economy by paying 20AED for a cup of coffee, 60 for a cocktail, 300 for dinner, and 3 million for a shoddy townhouse.
I wonder how Emirates is going to respond? Once the job market recovers in Europe/NA there could be a mass exodus.