The price of Dubai’s bailout
A look at Dubai’s financial situation, plus the cost of increased airport security.
And we’re back! Admittedly it is a week earlier than I expected, but a recession recovery waits for no-one, does it.
Hope you’ve all had a good holiday season. It has been relatively quiet on the business front, until of course another burst of activity from Dubai. Nothing to do with the debt crisis this time, but rather the opening of the tallest building in the world … a building which was renamed at the last minute “in honour” of the ruler of Abu Dhabi!
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I was on air for Al Jazeera news when it happened, and I must admit I struggled to hide my cynicism. For so long, we have been wondering what the price of the Dubai bailout would be … and really, the name of Sheikh Khalifa, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, all over Dubai’s pride and joy – well if that is not a high price (pardon the pun) then I don’t know what is.
Anyway we’ll look at that through the prism of Dubai’s still-very-real debt problems, along with even bigger debt problems in Greece, which kind of got overshadowed by the Dubai story.
Also, we’ve got an in-depth look at airport security in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing in the US. Think about it – full body scanners, increased security, it’s all going to cost. Will it cost us when we buy our plane tickets?
And for anyone with an iPhone – myself included – we look at the potential ‘iPhone Killer’ released by Google (an iPhone Killer being something which might end that product’s domination). It is called the Nexus One and, as a fully paid-up member of the Apple Fan Club, I just don’t see it being that popular. It looks and acts a lot like an iPhone … but I guess the deciding factor could be the price. Make it cheaper and easier to use on different networks and then we might have a fight on our hands.
Anyway, enough tech-nerd ramblings … see you on the show!
This episode of Counting the Cost aired from Saturday, January 9.