So Dubai isn't a wonderland and actually is a vast petrol- and credit-funded nightmare that is on a knife's edge of sinking into the sands, forever gone? I'm shocked! Who could have thought it.

If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues – if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."

— The dark side of Dubai (in The Independent) via The Cartoonist (see also Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down)

Here's a thought. Don't build a big city in the middle of a desert. And here's a prediction: Dubai will be gone in 50 years.