^^ mad because the only businesses taxed were banks.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Again, you're arguing a straw man, Java. I never claimed it was a place to "look up to." All I stated is that they were blowing China - one of the fastest growing economies in the world - out of the water.

For a completely different, and far more positive, view on Dubai's foreign worker situation, see:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/casey8.html

Also, this raises a question WHY ARE THESE WORKERS COMING TO DUBAI WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE TO IF THEY'RE TREATED SO POORLY? Well, because it's worse or just as bad in their home countries, as the following article states:

"It's fair to argue what distinguishes a citizen from a non-citizen in a state where there's no democracy at all. The power of Dubai's absolute ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, could be defined as Genghis Khan-like. But if you're an immigrant coming from Iran's theocratic nationalism, India's bureaucratic nightmare or Pakistan's barely disguised dictatorship, the last thing you'll want is an interventionist state. So Deng Xiaoping's dictum - "to get rich is glorious" - ultimately prevails. Lee Kwan Yew applied it in Singapore - and it worked marvels.

Racism in Dubai - as in the US south - is pervasive, but off-limits to discussion, even as the fragile social pact between citizens and foreign residents, which in essence means "shut up and do your job", is faltering. A 15% minority could not possibly impose either its language or religion on a cosmopolitan majority - especially when religion is the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. Thus (Western and Arab) men can get drunk in licensed bars, pubs and restaurants and (Western only) women can wear bikinis on the beach."

Rest of article at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF07Ak01.html

THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE THE ACTS OF THE GOVERNMENT, but it does explain why these people are putting up with such treatment. They can simply make far more money in Dubai, tax free, than they can make under their own corrupt fascist or collectivist governments. It's just as easy to be mistreated in either place - but one place offers you the potential to improve your economic situation.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Dubai or Dubayy is par tof the united arab emerites and is hardly a model of anything but how one can attain great economic gains by using slave labor...in short truth bringer is cheering for slavery.

THen there is the issue of unregulated banks acting as money launderers for the international drug cartels in Southeast Asia....hmmm how much of that growth comes from that I wonder!

current situation: the United Arab Emirates is a destination country for men, women, and children trafficked from South and East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for involuntary servitude and for sexual exploitation; an estimated 10,000 women from sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, South and East Asia, Iraq, Iran, and Morocco may be victims of sex trafficking in the UAE; women also migrate from Africa, and South and Southeast Asia to work as domestic servants, but may have their passports confiscated, be denied permission to leave the place of employment in the home, or face sexual or physical abuse by their employers; men from South Asia come to the UAE to work in the construction industry, but may be subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude as they are coerced to pay off recruitment and travel costs, sometimes having their wages denied for months at a time; victims of child camel jockey trafficking may still remain in the UAE, despite a July 2005 law banning the practice



snip


the UAE is a drug transshipment point for traffickers given its proximity to Southwest Asian drug-producing countries; the UAE's position as a major financial center makes it vulnerable to money laundering; anti-money-laundering controls improving, but informal banking remains unregulated
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...k/geos/ae.html


How big an issue is slavery? Lets look at housemaids. It is estimated that 300000 work in Dubai which accounts for 20% of the workforce....so no wages, prostituted, abused and if the complain killed or deported....hmmm once again one has to wonder how much of that 16% comes from the use of slaves rather then paid workers. Now I know that the right has no problem with wage slavery how do you all feel about physical slavery?

China produces alot of crap you have in your house/use daily with the use of labor in what are bascially concentration camps/gulags.
IOW physical slave labor..

__________________
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"We make war that we may live in peace"
"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever."
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add up the oil money

250k barrells per day @ $60 per barrel adds up to $5.5bn in oil revenues alone. $5.5bn is 12% of $46bn . add in the gas revenues and that percentage is even higher.

even in the wikipedia article it says:

"The government's decision to diversify from a trade-based but oil-reliant economy to one that is service and tourism-oriented has made real estate more valuable, resulting in the property appreciation from 2004–2006".

The oil argument is not "blown out of the water". Everytime you fill up your petrol tank, you're making it easier for Dubai to buy up your ports and your assets.

Thank you for pointing out Singapore, DuH. We're getting to the next point.
How free is a market when the people who work it are not free?
The "Asian Tigers" followed a scheme of free trade but coupled with semi-authoritarian-to-authoritarian social regulation... That created strong growth.
It's the same model China adopted (though it still likes to call itself communist for control purposes) and Dubai has. Capitalism seems to work well within dictatorship... Of course it does... Part of the point of democracy is that the lowly workers have a say.
The ideal environment for economic growth is a totalitarian capitalist state... one where worker's rights are limited, speech is limited, and the state will enforce the dissolution of unions. Is it a shocker?
Of course the "Asian Tigers" have been leveling off... seems totalitarianism is as limiting as communism itself in the long run.

But that's the problem. This kind of laissez faire capitalism is not compatible with representative government... that would require the people who are screwed in the system to support it as is... not likely.
Also incompatible with any really libertarian ideal. I would figure libertarians would look down on forceful ending of worker demonstrations and forceful dissolutions of unions... and yet these things are necessary for a system such as Dubai's to function as it does.
You do pay for economic growth, you know?

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"It's never over... BOY!"
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Wrong. You conveniently failed to mention my refutation. Again, if oil is the answer for Dubai's growth rate, then why are other countries with more oil not experiencing the same growth????

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Glad someone brought this up, although I disagree with calling them slaves. If I am not mistaken, more than 90% of the population is contract workers. The high paid engineers that operate the oil rigs ($200,000 per year), and the maids which make about $300 per month. That may look like slavery to you, but it is darn good salary for both categories. Much of the world survives on $1 per day, so $10 per day is big money to a poor women from some third world Muslim country.

However, the big point here is how Dubai manages to use contract labor - via an agent and a written agreement with rules and cultural training...to their benefit. In the US we sort of a bastardization of the same thing with illegal Latinos coming across our border.

My point is, once you put aside your bleeding-heart towel, a lot of the world really wants the chance to earn good money in a first world nation. If the US could only control the ebb and flow of contract workers legally, then theoretically, everyone would benefit. Oops, not everyone, the lazy lout that would prefer to stay on the dole might not like the competition. That does not make my American capitalistic heart cry.

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Charter member of 'Republicans Who Hate Bush" Club

And here's our socialist lying demonic fraud right on queue... Unpaid workers are a minority in this country. It does happen, and it's wrong, but it is not the rule, it's the exception.

Drug money is being laundered in practically every country on the face of the earth.

Women used for sexual slavery, although a terrible and abhorrent practice, has no bearing on the economic figures. And thousands of women are "trafficked" in many other countries as well. It's not just the UAE.


Ah, so your source is a government agency, AN AGENCY WHICH RELIES ON TAX MONEY FOR ITS EXISTENCE, so now you have a problem called CONFLICT OF INTEREST in their criticism of a country with no income or business taxes and very low overall taxes.

Also, the CIA has killed over 6 million people. Not exactly poster boys for criticizing others for lack of morality:

CIA Murder - over 6 million people killed
http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle4068.htm

300,000 housemaids in a population of 700,000 to 1,000,000 people? So a third of all workers are housemaids? ROTFLMAO Yeah, right... Let's see your source for that one. The CIA again, right? LOL.

A very small percentage.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

not wrong. I didn't say that oil was the reason for Dubai's growth rate. But Dubai doesn't need high rates of tax because they have lots of oil wealth.


Besides all that money that is coming into Dubai is leaving Dubai. Its a money laundering scheme for corporations.

We do the same scam here in Ireland. Its called international cute-hoorism. Its all about smaller countries taking a few crumbs for themselves while pretending to rise into economic superpowers.