James Pethokoukis

David Goldman sums it up:

Far more worrying [than Dubai] is the commercial real estate problem in the United
States, the continued high rate of homeowner deliquency, the huge
backlog of foreclosures–in short, the whole range of problems that stem
from an effective unemployment rate (including “discouraged” and
underemployed workers) of 17.5%. The cumulative effect of the popping
of innumerable mini-bubbles, none of which are large enough to take
down the system but all of whom together constitute a millstone around
the neck of the banking system, will keep lending weak and the economy
in very, very prolonged recession.

Some great stuff from the great John Carney:

The market has recovered from the initial panic over a possible default on debt issued by Dubai World, and many are assuming that the United Arab Emirates will stand behind the bonds.

But under Islamic financing rules, creditors may be required to take a haircut. Guarantees on debt are prohibited by the shariah, which requires investors to accept risk in exchange for profits. Indeed, there were already questions about the legality of Dubai World’s debt arising from the principal guarantee of the bonds.

In recent years, there has been something of a backlash against some of the more aggressive types of Islamic financing, many of which have been structured to mirror Western bonds to make them more attractive to Western investors. Abu Dhabi, the UAE state expected to bail out Dubai World, may be hesitant to do anything that would be seen as disrupting the profit and loss sharing required by shariah.

My pal Felix Salmon makes a good point about the dollar and Dubai. The greenback initially slid on the news. But isn’t the greenback supposed to be a safe haven. Felix opines as follows:

Needless to say, this isn’t exactly a classic risk-aversion reaction: when the markets are really scared, they tend to flee to the safety of the dollar, rather than to the Japanese yen. So my feeling is that this — along with the relatively modest stock-market reaction in New York this morning — counts as a sign that Dubai really isn’t all that bad: it shows that markets are trading the news, rather than panicking.

On the other hand, it’s clearly not good news that a severe-if-not-life-threatening shock such as this one sends the dollar down rather than up. The immense fiscal cost of the financial crisis has hurt the dollar’s standing as the global reserve currency, and if I were at Treasury right now I’d be very concerned about this reaction. Not that there’s much Treasury can do about it.