[financetechbro]

Dubai is absolutely economically broken lol. The city was built on cheap foreign slave labor. And the luxurious amenities of the city are only for the wealthy royal and foreigners. Their main export besides oil is the illusion of a thriving metropolis

[Cyph0n]

The example I like to use to demonstrate how broken labor vs. service costs are in the UAE is to compare the price of a Big Mac meal to the price of a standard manual car wash (closer to detailing tbh).

In the UAE, a Big Mac meal costs approximately 35 AED ($10). On the other hand, a manual car wash - approx. 1-2 hours of labor - can cost you around 20 AED.

In other words, you could get almost two manual car washes for the price of a Big Mac.

[robkop]

Can you elaborate? I would have thought the main driver for the price of a service is the labor?

[ineedaj0b]

You can probably get that here in the US near a high school during team sports donation times.

Not a great car wash but probably $5-10 on the low end.

One should be uncomfortable the Arab States are doing so well. They have no democracy but seem to be thriving. Not expected post 9/11 imo.

[maxglute]

AKA the most sensible economic model for Dubai. It's a nice enough metropolis for the desert, entices enough high end talent to live there to supplement frankly undereducated population a few generations away from nomads, and locals are comfy. What else they going to do with oil money in the desert.

They're just arbitraging cheap labour in your face instead of some farm field or factory overseas. For resource to local population ratio, it's supremely optimized - cheap migrant workforce does all the shit job locals don't want to do, don't have the numbers to do, without need for onerous social safety net of citizenship.

It's economically "fine", as in as "fine" as can be trying to pivot desert city from oil. It's morally broken because labours occasionally be slaves, even though largely everyone wins. UAE gets cheap labour, labour countries get remittance, labourers get life changing pay.

Like west already does this shit in some sectors (agri) and get cheap calories, UAE can't supply enough labour in all sectors and get cheap everything.