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Cairo Station
A cool fridge of capitalism on a hot socialist platform
4:12 am on Saturday 11th April by TheMoosra
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by TheMoosra at 4:10 am on Saturday 27th December

So a few reflections on the journey and the Emirate:

I started a week ago in Mancs airport, shtandard KLM WBC (naturally smuggled that Bols gin filled porcelain house with me).

The flight itself was fairly un-noteworthy. Bloody decent food though (3 star Michelin) and their Argentinian vintage probably deserves a mention.

The flight went straight over Sukhumi! For those of you not really that interested in geopolitics, Sukhumi is the "capital" of the soon to be independent (from Georgia) Abkhazian republic. A dangerous place to be... Then to make things worse, we flew over Iraq!

Looking out of the window while flying over Iraq is a thought provoking sight. You can literally see NOTHING at nighttime... no soft glow from street lamps, nor residential lighting. Its a barbarian country, set back into the middle ages by the war. The only things visible were the flares from the oil drilling rigs! We later flew over Iran, which is incredible in another manner... grid streets and lighting as far as the eye can see.


Arriving in Emirati skies, it feels almost surreal. The streets, buildings and roads are almost TOO perfect. As a result it does rather feel like a film set or a model village. Every tree is carefully planted in perfect alignment, every road is perfect and every car is new. This is wholely the result of the entire city-state emerging from the 1998-2008 boom. The last time I was in Dubai was in 1992... and I can clearly say I have scarcely seen development on this scale.

Dubai is the future. There is simply no other way of putting it. Every facet of this state is perfectly aligned to the capitalist dream. Every road is perfect, every house well built, every tower taller than any foreign competitors, every law freer, every regulation more sane and of course... no income tax. Its a strange fact that Dubai's oil revenue is a mere 10% of income for the Sovereign. Thus to have accomplished such a feat is nothing short of miraculous. I must conclude that the Arab system of governance is overall simply more efficient.

The Sheikh of Dubai is a man of extraordinary vision, and as a monarch is able to enact it without any of the petty squabbles that democracy brings. The Sheikh created the basic infrastructure that success can grow from : road, electricity, power, water, sewage, environment (trees etc). He then allowed business to move in, and treated them well (0% tax). This in turn brought in the affluent of all nations, ready to earn and spend their money in Dubai.

The net result has been the transformation of a desert city into the strongest, most advanced state in the world. Once they stop building, it will certainly be the most beautiful and affluent. If we considered it impossible to terraform the desert into a garden; then how far ahead of us is the Sheikh if he has managed to build a hundred skyscrapers, industry hubs, healthcare systems and infrastructure to support them all?

Yes, there has been a "correction" in house prices here- 40% at last glance. However the real value of what is being created here is the intangible... it is that sense of limitless potential that results from the intoxicating blend of selective immigration, forceful leadership, economic liberalism, legal conservatism and top notch physical infrastructure.

Its worth taking note. The case study of Dubai will be invaluable when it comes to building up future empires. Every skycraper here is build manually, using primarily Indian labourers- approximately a million of them. My grandfather said it best... "Apne hi logon hai, jo yeh sab banda te hain. Humara desh main aisa kyun koi nahin kar sakta hai? All we need is an iron leader to enact a plan which clearly works."

4 comments posted so far
Anish wrote at 7:52 pm on Mon 29th Dec -
Awesome articles from The Moosra and SS!!
SS wrote at 7:33 pm on Tue 30th Dec -
But where is the substance? Once the oil runs out, all that is left is tourism. And how will the tourists get to Dubai if there is no oil to fuel their airliners?
Moosra wrote at 2:34 pm on Wed 31st Dec -
They only get 10% of their income from oil. Big C if it runs out- just before it does itll hit $300 a barrell, which will tide them over until the end of time lol.

Who knows about future transport. Im thinking a new form of propulsion based on hydrogen (created by fusion reactor power).
SS wrote at 3:32 am on Sat 3rd Jan -
Sure, but to house fuel cells of enough size to power an airliner, they would only have passenger capacity sufficient for at most ten people!

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