"The Price$ People Pay"

At the opening of the Atlantis on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, Bloomberg met with Sol Kerzner (CEO of the Kerzner Group who financed 50% of the project as well as the launch. Here's what he had to say:

``We're very aware of the fact that the economy is not great,'' Kerzner, 73, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Nov. 18. ``Nevertheless, compare that to the $1.5 billion investment and the importance of the return and the coverage that one needs to achieve it, one believes we've built something that's quite unique, on a grand scale, and that deserves and will grab the attention of world media, that's the best way of marketing and launching the product.''


Perhaps more disturbingly however, is the standpoint of Nakheel on this and their spending. The article continues:

Nakheel is among Dubai state-owned ``highly leveraged companies'' that need capital restructuring, Citigroup Inc. said in a Nov. 18 report. The ``Dubai dream'' may be over as lower oil prices will leave smaller fiscal surpluses among its crude- exporting neighbors to invest in the emirate, the report said.

Sultan bin Sulayem, Nakheel's chairman, declined to discuss the weakening of the real-estate market, responding only, ``I don't think it will get worse.''

He doesn't think it'll get worse... For those who don't live in Dubai, let me put things in perspective. There are a lot of rumours going around Dubai on the number of people that are being fired on a daily basis in companies' attempts to cut costs. Losing jobs, losing livelihoods. People who can no longer afford the roof over their heads, the education of the children and will have to most probably leave the country and go somewhere else to seek a life that is much below mediocre just to be able to make ends meet. Among the companies that are downsizing is the company that financed 50% of the 1.5 billion dollar project. Now I don't see anything wrong with that, the project is something that started way before the crisis and needed completion. What I don't understand is when in the past two months it is rumoured that you've fired over 1000 employees because you can't afford to pay their salaries anymore, why do you go and spend OVER 10 MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!! to finance half of the needlessly extravagant yet very impressive launch ceremony?

The average salary of a Dubai employee excluding labour is $2500 / month. Multiply that by 12 and it's $28,000 per year. So at 10 Million dollars, the company could have afforded to keep over 350 of those that got fired covered for an entire YEAR!!!!!