Fellow reader “James” posted this comment on my blog post “The Collapse of Dubai” that I wrote about 6 weeks ago.

This article continues on the blogging trend of 2009: the Dubai bashing bandwagon.

Your post has done zero research. Neither did time magazine. 5,000 a day leaving? From where? Have you been in the Dubai airport lately?

Being in Dubai for a couple of days hardly qualifies as a visit. For example, starting a business is relatively easy and only in some circumstances do you need to be linked to a UAE national (no relationship to the royal family needed).

Yes, the situation in Dubai is bleak compared to 2008. But it’s in no danger of being buried by sand.

And the Debt-Repayment-Default heard around the world today is shaking world markets:

Dubai World, the government investment company burdened by $59 billion of liabilities, sought this week to delay repayment on much of its debt. The yen pared its advance after Japan’s Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said he may contact the U.S. and Europe to act on currencies, signaling concern that the yen’s ascent will hurt the economy by crimping exports.

All I can say to James is that I don’t need to spend months there to know what my eyes, ears, nose were telling me about Dubai.  It was in a stratospheric bubble that was bound to burst.    James called the situation bleak so I wonder what he considers the situation now?   DW wants six months to help start repaying the debt they owe but how is rolling billions of debt and interest payments really going to help?

If this panic spreads worldwide then the US Dollar is going to rally hard so it would be a good idea to be positioned accordingly.

Dubai may not be buried by sand but it is being buried by debt and there is no question of that now.