Picto Diary - 02 May 2013 - Yaz Island, Abu Dhabi
Above: Good morning from the observation lounge of the Seven Seas Voyager! Abu Dhabi. 02 May 2017
We're just being joined by another ship!
Sitting at the empty bar, mood music wafting through the lounge, I work/write here from very early in the AM.
Contrarian Mwah (sic)... rarely anyone but me here in the AM. — at Port Zayed Abu Dhabi.
Above: View from hotel room. Yaz Island Viceroy Hotel. Abu Dhabi. 02 May 2017.
Marina Circuit. The only F1 Grand Prix track in the world with a hotel inside the track circuit.
Cars in images are people doing track days in F1 cars.
We've only been here for a couple of days... but, just about everything you see has a superlative aspect, not unlike our hotel sitting inside Marina Circuit.
Nearby isFerrari World, the world's first Ferrari theme park. What's next?
Above: Ferrari World, file copy.
Above: Jose. Bartender. Cheesecake Factory. Yaz Island Mall. Abu Dhabi. 02 May 2017.
We had to do it. Ritual is good.
Jose, Filipino UAE guest worker, bartender/server.
"We like Dutarte. He's getting rid if all the drug dealers. Crime is down 85%."
Classic burger an exact copy of what I get in SLC. Cheese'... great food, great execution. Check out the bill written partially in Arabic. Best trained wait staff of any chain short of Ruth's Chris.
According to Jose, there are four Cheeses' in UAE. Three in Dubai and the one here in Abu Dhabi. To be opened soon are another in Dubai, one in Doha, and one in Bahrain.
Cheese' move into the Gulf is testimony of the point I made about Carrefour. If you want to grow you have to do business below the 35rh parallel. If you don't grow, you die.
80% of UAE population of 10 million are guest workers. They are mostly from India, Pakistan, and PI.
UAE guest workers are paid (well) only wages and have no benefits... retirement etc. They can only stay in the country as long as they are working. Job ends? They have to go back where they came from. They benefit from good salaries, no income tax, no sales tax. Their permission to stay is renewable every three years. Most of them, of course, remit a good portion of their earnings to their home country to help relatives and to create a retirement nest egg for when they have to leave the country. There is no possibility for them to become citizens of UAE and most seem to have no problem with that,, considering that their situation as legal and appreciated guest workers is far superior... at least in terms of earning power... to how they would live in their home countries.
The US should look at UAE as an example of a working guest worker program. Guest workers should not have to work under the shadow of being illegal. Employer certified, three year renewable, biometric (non forgeable) work permits should do the trick. Guest workers who wish to become US citizens can join the quota queue. Aside. I am a strong proponent of increased US immigration quotas, mainly H-1B visas, but, also across the board. Considering the failure of the millennial generation, America needs hard working people to fill the gap. Even without the millennial deficit, America should control immigration and increase immigration. The assimilation of immigrants into the American system is the source of America's vitality. Meanwhile, grandfather my social security payment.
Addendum:
The glorious massacres of September 11, 2001 and the tens of thousands following, met with an incoherent, feeble and apologetic response, has fueled the new-found energy and vitality of Islam. By default, Islamic supremacy surges.
Hoops,
Pelham, NY