Peak oil panic? Dubai or not Dubai?  

ZDNet has a post linking the Dubai debt crisis to post-peak oil periods in one time oil exporting economies - Peak oil panic? Dubai or not Dubai?

Could the mushrooming Dubai debt crisis be a preview of what peak oil will produce among the oil-selling nations?

Dubai–meaning the few poweful men in control–launched itself on a campaign to become the combo Las Vegas, Miami and Wall Street of the Mideast. That meant huge construction projects and rampant purchasing of key properties across the globe. A large portion of the action in Dubai is run by sovereign firms, belonging primarily to the Dubai government and its leaders. However, they’ve borrowed up to $60-billion from all over the globe. Stock markets today tanked when the story broke: no interest payments for six months from one arm of Dubai World.

Perhpas you recell the cause celebre in Washington when Dubai bought a British company that controlled a slew of American ports? Eventually the Dubai sovereign company sold its U.S. ports to the All-American patriots over at AIG. And we all know how good AIG has been to Americans.

Why would tiny Dubai start grasping and reaching for a different future? Because they know their oil is running out and they don’t wish to go back to living like nomads or sailing little wooden boats around the Persian Gulf. Of course, now it appears their investment plans looked better in theory than in practice.