Wickedness Abides By James Howard Kunstler

[Crewleader]

on November 30, 2009 7:12 AM

"While Dubai is not big enough to set off financial repercussions outside the Middle East, the main fear is that investors could flee risky markets all at once in search of safer havens for their money." -- The NYT, Vikas Bajaj and Graham Bowley, reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/global/30contagion.html?_r=2&hp

Apart from the stark self-contradiction in this quote from The New York Times, you have to love the fatuous 'it's all good' self-assurance where global banking is concerned. No problemo y'all! A mere overdraft incident, a cash-flow hiccup... and yet "the main fear" is that investors could flee risky markets all at once in search of safer havens for their money . Gosh, well, as long as they don't flee the New York Stock Exchange, the Hang Seng, the FTSE.... And, hey, do you suppose anybody bought any credit default swap "insurance" on the deals that financed scores and scores of super-giant condominium skyscrapers and hotels amounting to the greatest spec construction folly in the history of the world?

Snapshots of the stupid fucking work-in-progress have been circulating around the Internet for five years, the disbelief was so monumental. I confess, when I first saw the Palm Island I was impressed at what a superb air-strike target it presented. And then, when the real estate assemblage of artificial islands arranged like a map-of-the-world came along, I could only imagine the megalomanical glee rising in the throat of a jet bomber pilot (nationality unspecified) as he closed in on it.

Whom the gods would punish, they first make completely crazy. That includes us, here in the USA, by the way, but pound-for-pound Dubai is the current champeen. The monstrosity they built in their waterless convection-oven of a city-state makes Las Vegas look like a mere strip mall in comparison. Throw in a few other affronts to nature, such as an indoor ski "mountain," a beach cooled by an under-the-sand refrigerated pipe network, golf courses that have to be hosed down with acre-feet of desalinated sea-water, and forget about "the gods" -- one begins to see the monotheistic hand of "Old Scratch" himself working the levers of the construction cranes out there.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/wickedness-abides.html#more