Oh Give Me A Home Where The Dromedaries Roam...

That sensation of relief felt over Thanksgiving that all will be well, and all manner of things will be well, with Dubai, may have been a teency-weency bit premature.

Nakheel PJSC creditors may win the right to seize a strip of barren waterfront land the size of Manhattan if the company defaults on the $3.5 billion bond backing the development.
Investors will be able to seek foreclosure on the property’s mortgages should the Dubai World unit fail to repay the loan, according to the bond’s prospectus. The debt is due on Dec. 14, after which Nakheel has two weeks to remedy a default. The property forms part of the Dubai Waterfront project, where Nakheel plans to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong. 

Now, I'm aware I'm just a layman sitting in the wilds of Tennessee, but did anybody bother to question why somebody might want to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong?  Did the kids with the B-school degrees who bought the bonds think to ask the obvious questions?  Who **!!***??** NEEDS another city twice the size of Hong-frigging-Kong? Who's gonna populate it?  What worthwhile activity will take place there that justifies its existence?  Why are we lending to sheiks sitting on oceans of oil?
Why aren't we demanding the freaking OIL as collateral, instead of empty desert islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Does common sense never enter the equation?

In the meantime:  Now the area is bare except for a cluster of partly finished low-rise buildings and idle cranes for hundreds of meters. Yesterday, camels roamed part of the land.

Dubai office values fell 58 percent in the year through September, according to Colliers International. House prices have plunged 50 percent from the peak last year. “If built houses drop 50 percent in value, un-built land will likely drop more,” he said. 

Maybe they can build a camel race-track! Float bonds for it! Those coked-up morons in New York will buy anything, Ahmed.

Go for it, big guy!