Nowhere did the financial crisis expose dreams as fantasy more starkly than Dubai and the Gulf. But perhaps nowhere, not even China, is the new world order that might result more clearly visible.
In the early months of the credit crisis, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Gulf states seemed immune.
Energy giants such as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi saw their sovereign wealth funds swell from the upwards surge of the oil price.
Dubai real estate, leaping skywards both physically and financially, enjoyed a final blowout in early 2008. It seemed an exciting alternative to wobbly stock markets for what investors' cash remained in the system.
But after September, it all turned out to have been a Ponzi scheme in disguise. Dubai's trademark developers had been encouraged to sell off-plan sites low to create a feeding frenzy of "flippers" who sold unfinished properties to each other at ever higher prices........
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