What are the odds that it will burn me twice?
Do you remember that time when you were about 6 years old when you wondered just how hot the iron was? Do you remember touching it and experiencing a pain of such magnitude that disembowelling seemed like a preferential option? After the blister had gone down do you remember telling yourself that, under no circumstances, would you ever touch the 7 trillion degrees iron ever again? I bet you do.
Touching the iron was a mistake, and it’s a good thing I did it too otherwise I’d be sitting here, aged 28 and a bit, wondering just how hot it is really was. Oh how the doctors would laugh at me as I pathetically explained that I was curious. We all make mistakes and they really are the best things in the world. Without having made an error then we would have no reference, no experience and no right to pass on knowledge. I warned someone the other day not to change a lightbulb that was still hot, why? Because I made that mistake myself once. It is a right of passage.
Of course what separates the wise from the… err…not so wise…is the ability to learn from ones mistakes. If you make a mistake you learn from it and don’t repeat it. If you keep making the same mistake over and over again then frankly you’re not really showcasing yourself very well.
I want to make it absolutely plain that I am no economist, nor am I business man. In fact, I’m a narrow-minded idiot who kids himself that he knows far more than he actually does. But I have some questions about a recent announcement that was made.
In light of a recent decree by a top official from a certain country that shall remain nameless I am sitting here in fear that the Apache helicopters are going to start circling and a SWAT team are going to burst through the door and take me downtown. As a result I cannot afford to be too open about who I’m talking about in the following paragraphs.
Do you remember a few years ago when Fred and Bob Lehman collapsed? It was all over the news. Anyway, there was a city called…Mubai…that was hit pretty hard. In a nutshell they were royally f…screwed. Such was the economic devastation that thousands of skilled workers lost their jobs, big companies folded and the city remains a half-done building site to this day. It was only thanks to a $44 billion bail out from neighbouring Babu Crabby that stopped it going completely bankrupt. You see, Mubai was built on credit. It never had the starting capital to build tall skyscrapers and things; it was relying on future investment and tourism. Oh how it learnt the hard way.
It came as a complete surprise to me this week that a raft of projects worth billions of Wirhams was commissioned in Mubai. The projects include the expansion of something called the Wadinat Pumeirah and the construction of a pedestrian bridge over Mubai Creek, which is really a river. Also, a multi million Wirham residential complex is planned for public sector law enforcers and of course the widening of a canal.
It all sounds great and there are no problems with the projects, but they are all jolly expensive and I can’t help but worry that Mubai hasn’t learnt from its past mistakes. We’re in 2012 and the global financial meltdown was only in 2008, 2009 before it really took its toll. That is still very recent. There is no way that the $44 billion loan has been repaid to its neighbours so really, what’s going on?
The old saying of you have to spend money to make money is lovely, but it’s meant in context. You can’t afford to spend beyond your means. Mubai already has enough attractions and gimmicks to raise its profile. Yes, more fancy hotels and bridges would be lovely in the future, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Don’t forget that the Wirham is pegged to the Dollar and the USA has trillions worth of debt. If the unthinkable happens and the Dollar goes for a burton then Mubai, like a house of cards in a force 9 hurricane, will we wiped off the map completely. Then the bailiffs will be around with their vans…who the bailiffs will be remains to be seen.
Just remember the parable of the Martin and the iron. Burn yourself once out of curiosity, burn yourself twice out of stupidity.
