The collapse of the Sandcastles:
Castles in the Sand:
Thomas Pellow writes:
Yes, the Islamisation of the British economy continues apace, under the dhimmi ‘leadership’ of Labour PM Brown.
Here is an excerpt from an article by Dan Roberts, “Castles in the Sand”:-
“The Dubai crisis has also thrown a new name into the lexicon of toxic instruments. Just as credit derivatives helped to exacerbate the sub-prime crisis by obscuring who was ultimately exposed to losses, the use of Islamic finance has complicated the reckoning. “Sukuk bonds” are designed to get around religious laws banning the payment of interest for money lending. But one of the most volatile debts in the Dubai World standstill is a $3.5bn Islamic bond due to be repaid in December.
“Because Sukuk bonds replace interest payments with a promise to share profits, investors are effectively owners of the underlying assets, rather than traditional secured creditors.
“Default on this scale has never been tested before, echoing the nervousness in derivative markets when the banking crisis first started. HSBC estimates there is $822bn Islamic finance debt outstanding in the world.” Castles in the Sand/ The Guardian
UK: Treasury rewriting Britain’s tax laws to accommodate Sharia finance
Surrender. And they know the enormity of what they’re doing — that’s why they’re hiding it.
Absurd Britannia Alert: “Sharia Law Sneaked Into Labour Budget,” by Kirsty Buchanan for the Sunday Express, December 13 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
THE Treasury plans to rewrite Britain’s tax rules to usher in a new wave of Sharia law for the country’s financial system.
The one-line revelation is buried in the 212-page pre-Budget report.
It is among a string of startling details which barely merit a mention in Alistair Darling’s controversial mini-Budget – prompting fresh accusations that Labour is “burying bad news”.
The Government wants to tap into the fast-growing Sharia finance market, set to top £205billion a year, and turn London into the “global gateway for Islamic finance”.
Many conventional financial products are not Sharia compliant because Muslim clerics view conventional loans, which involve interest payments, as sinful.
The UK Government was one of the first Western countries to issue a state-backed sukuk, an Islamic bond. It now wants to rewrite tax laws to stop Muslim businessmen being unfairly taxed when they try to raise money on their companies.
Conventional loans allow them to take equity out of their business, using the property as collateral, but to be Sharia compliant a Muslim “sells” the business to the bank and then rents it back. That leaves the businessman facing a bill for capital gains tax and the Treasury wants to level the tax playing field.
Mohammed Amin, head of Islamic finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: “The UK has become the leading Western country in Islamic finance by taking a series of measures to ensure that Islamic finance is taxed no worse and no better than conventional finance.
“The pre-Budget report continues this progress by including measures to equalise the tax treatment of property refinancing transactions.” Ministers are also considering issuing Government bonds to Islamic banks to help them comply with new financial regulations….
Dubai: A disadvantage of a living under a “benevolent dictator.”
Harry’s Place
Dubai did not escape the credit crunch. Given that defaulting on debt is a crime punishable by prison sentences, expatriates in their thousands, laden with debts, drove their cars to the airport, left the keys in the ignition, skipped the country and left their debts behind them.
Rising property prices led to speculators rushing to buy apartments off plan in the hope of making a quick profit as they sold their acquisition on to someone else before completion. Westerners borrowed money from the banks to make these purchases and used their credit cards to spend money that was not theirs in the glistening shopping malls, bars and restaurants of Dubai. Live-in servants were installed in these gleaming apartments, paid a pittance and made to work exceptionally long hours in order that the good life could be lived. Time was whiled away when not working in a shiny glass office, swimming in the pool or wandering aimlessly around the mall that they had driven to in their gas guzzling four by four looking for shops where effective use of their credit cards was made.
The credit crunch hit hard. Demand for luxury properties in Dubai slumped while the supply was ever increasing. One only needs to be familiar with the most basic rule of economic theory to know the consequences of this, prices fall. And fall they did. Luxury apartments at the Palm Jumeirah fell 50% by February 2009, other developments fell similar amounts and prices continued to fall. The expatriate property speculators were committed to purchasing properties at prices they could not afford and they could not sell the properties at anywhere near the price they paid. With no way out of the bleak position they were in, it is not surprising that escaping the country became the attractive option.
With an orgy of spending, the ruler of Dubai aimed to turn his emirate into a global tourist and financial centre. Super luxury hotels were built with staff to cater for every whim of the guests. An indoor ski slope and golf courses were constructed in an area that was not that long ago a desert and man-made islands appeared in the sea where wealthy expatriates could live in magnificent villas in a zero taxation environment. The Dubai Mall, billed as “the world’s largest shopping and entertainment destination” could be built as well as a fountain that shoots water 500 feet into the air. Another project, due to be opened next month, has been the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper. An opera house. More hotels. More man-made Islands. Construction everywhere. Spending, spending, spending.
The credit for the recent expansion was given to Sheikh Mohammed, the absolute ruler whose image is visible on massive billboards and in hotel lobbies throughout Dubai. “If you build it they will come” was a mantra that he seemed to live by and so they kept building: bigger, better and more luxurious.
Such extravagancies have to be paid for and unlike Abu Dhabi, Dubai only had a trickle of thick black liquid money gushing from the ground. The construction was paid for with debt and the labour carried out by imported workers treated like virtual slaves who live in squalid labour camps, work in the searing heat and denied the right to a union or to strike.
As well as the general population and expatriates who felt the effects of the credit crunch, the government itself, through its reckless spending in related entities, found itself with too much debt and not enough income to service the debt. On November 25, Dubai World and its subsidiary Nakheel announced a “restructuring” of its debt obligations. This is what market participants commonly refer to as a default. But a stark difference is noticeable from a default by a government related entity and a default by a citizen of Dubai. In the latter case, as I have mentioned, the punishment can be a prison sentence, in the former case, even criticism of the ruler of Dubai is inappropriate.
Whereas in the UK and other democracies, if the government defaulted on debt, opposition leaders and headlines in the newspapers would be calling for the government to resign, this does not happen in Dubai. There is no opposition party and there will not be a headline such as “Sheikh Mohammed: Time To Go” in a local newspaper. Criticism of the royal family in such a manner would be unthinkable. The population can talk about a disaster and the possible effect on the economy, but publicly blaming the person most responsible for the mess is a taboo.
There are some that are prepared to sacrifice democracy and live under a “benevolent dictator” for the benefit of a zero rate of tax but that does not mean to say that everyone would do the same. Consider a theoretical example: Imagine in the UK a political party stood on a platform which said that they would cut income tax to zero percent and people could continue to live their lives with two exceptions: 1. The ruling party could not be criticised, 2. There will be no more elections as the ruling party will stay in power indefinitely. I would like to think that the party would get even less votes than the BNP if they stood for election. Am I right?
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OMG. When they get voted out soon [notwithstanding electoral fraud] this WILL BE overturned.
Castles on the sand have firm foundations compared to castles built on CO2 .