Will American be like Dubai???
June 14, 2009
– Comments (12)
TMFRhino wrote a great piece titled Dubai, How Bad Is It? which included the following:
The article paints Dubai as the collapsed poster child of the credit bubble.
Its airport: riddled with abandoned cars of fleeing foreigners who fear imprisonment from debt loads accumulated through speculative real estate transactions and job losses.
Its malls: empty.
Its real estate market: collapsed and in a continued downward spiral.
The government: hiding the extent of the problem and eliminating transparency.
Bleak stuff.
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=212542&t=01008488005900316388
If you think about it, are we really any different???????
This from Calculated Risk:
A recent book, “Retrofitting Suburbia,” by Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, notes that in 1986, the United States had about 15 square feet of retail space per person in shopping centers. That was already a world-leading figure, but by 2003 it had increased by a third, to 20 square feet. The next countries on the list are Canada (13 square feet per person) and Australia (6.5 square feet); the highest figure in Europe is in Sweden, with 3 square feet per person.
Note that the article above stated there were 20 square feet of retail space per person in shopping centers in 2003 - and that was before the more recent building boom.
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=212542&t=01008488005900316388
Just the building out of this space created an INCREDIBLE number of jobs, purchase of building materials, profits for corporations, and tax revenues for government over the past 20 years.
Much of which was dependent on people simply borrowing money they didn't have and advancing generations of purchases into a few years......
Now we are forced to deal with the aftermath..... vacant malls across the nation, massive job losses and wage cuts, thousands of businesses going bankrupt, and tax dollars to government evaporating.
In the interim we built up a HUGE government infastructure that we can no longer afford....a Trillion dollar defense budget, a multi trillion dollar welfare budget, and expense accounts for our politicans that would make most monarchs jealous......
Unlike Dubai, whose citizens DON'T pay much in taxes, the citizens of America are breaking their backs simply to pay for an unsustainable government infastructure.
At practically every level....local, state, and federal.....our government is running out of money because we are not giving as much anymore......and soon politicians will need to get more from you to keep on keeping on.......the only problem is you don't have enough to give them.......even if they took all you had........
The BIG question NOW is what are they going to do now that we don't have enough to give?????????????????????????? Could a WAR be a possible good way to keep us busy and their lifestyle intact?????
Prepare.
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