Dear Higgie,
Higgenbotham wrote:That had to be what Citigroup, with
its firsthand expertise with bailouts, must have been thinking
when it lent $8 billion to Dubai last year. Oh, and here’s an
interesting fact: Citigroup made the loan to Dubai on Dec. 14,
2008. Take a look at the calendar — that’s after it received tens
of billions in TARP funds. Citigroup’s chairman, Win Bischoff,
said at the time, “This is in line with our commitment to the
U.A.E. market in general, and reflects our positive outlook on
Dubai in particular.” Good call.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/busin ... odayspaper
Now I'm starting to get angry! Where is the oversight? Bailout
money goes down the rathole in Dubai. Where does this
end?
Not sure why you're just getting angry now -- I've been furious and
disgusted for a long time. And the end is nowhere in sight.
I've referred to the Dubai development as the most extravagant real
estate project since the ancient Pyramids.
I wonder how many Pharoahs went bankrupt building the Pyramids? There
were tens of thousands of laborers, who all had to be housed and fed.
Many of the laborers would have to have been "borrowed" from other
regions of Egypt, and so there were enormous prices that had to be
paid in one way or another. With all those huge amounts of resources
sloshing around, the level of corruption must have been enormous. I
wonder if some kind of ancient credit bubble was created by the Nomad
generation of the time, possibly involving some kind of ancient
securities market. I wonder what happened when the market crashed?
Or maybe the Pyramids were built by Martians. Gerald?
http://www.outerworlds.com/likeness/aliens/aliens.html
John