Bubble has busted!

It started in the US, where the property sector fell to the ground in flames. Then, from some reason or another, in the UK and Europe, banks suddenly fell like flies. Across the Atlantic, large banks in the US filed for bankruptcy. The American Congress is deliberating for a huge economic bail-out for main industries that are gravely hit by the onslaught of the recession. Consequently, the rest of the world was in a scramble, looking for cover from the economic fall-out.

Some said that there were signs that a recession is ahead. Politicians and economic managers somehow, according to their ulterior motives, ignored these signs, or rather, brushed it under the rug.

Like a tsunami, it hit the coasts of far-away regions and swept away billions upon billions of dollars, reducing the coastline into a damaged and impoverished wasteland.

Lo and behold, Dubai is the beach-head of the UAE, splendid, high and rich as it is, crumbled to the ground, breaking into pieces, severely maligned by this global catastrophe. Hundreds of expatriates were immediately laid-off in this great city alone. The economic implications are staggering in magnitude. All sectors are affected, one way or another, in more ways than another. No one is safe now.

Dubai is hardest hit of all the emirates in the UAE because it is more exposed in the global financial market. An anomaly in the worldwide trading system has serious, and now, as we are presently experiencing it, have negative repercussions here. Experts say that we are in an unprecedented downward spiral towards global financial collapse, and no one can predict when the recession will last.

None in this once proud city, do not know someone who were recently re-trenched or worse, downright fired. Hiring in companies is stopped. Job contacts were suspended indefinitely. Some people may estimate it to 97% of all projects in Dubai are either on-hold, shelved, stopped, cancelled or a variation thereof. The construction industry is literally in a stand-still.

Traders are now demanding for small change unlike before, it is easily forgiven. Credit cards were relaxed in their payment collection whereas now, a few days of delay would warrant you to be threatened with incarceration. Banks now are very stringent in the approval of personal loans, or worse, as the gossip grapevine suggests, they are not lending at all. Accommodation annual rentals may not go up, but landlords demand 100% payment instead.

Where to find money in this cash bereft city?

The bad times are undeniably and unmistakably here.

Is this the very end of the “Dubai Dream”? Maybe it is.

Of all the worries going around, one thing is for certain. The dream of Dubai that was, the wonder that sparked imagination, and the glittering thing that attracted countless many is all but no more. The financial plague consumed it. The bleak reality has set in. The bubble has busted and we can do nothing about it.