london:
Posted by Commie B on May 24, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Consumer, taxpayer, same difference. If you live in the UK (especially London), you’re constantly getting (mind the language, please) f#cked. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while – ever since this recession story made headlines – ever since Lehamn Brothers and Woolworths went out of business, but I’ve got my own battles to fight.
Long since my reading about Fair Tax in the United States, I have been a fan of the Fair Tax Proposal. Fair Tax essentially states that you only pay tax when you buy something. This is great for the consumer; it means you spend carefully. Suppliers are motivated to provide better products and services or you could go international and the government has reason to support businesses – the former only makes money if the latter are doing well.
Although I’m not saying that the theory of fair taxation is a flawless one – it has yet to be put to test – the democratic economic system (or whatever the hell you want to call it – it’s certainly not capitalist), followed by primarily most of Europe or the UK, is nothing short of hedonism.
Most of the so called developed world, and Europe today is the leading continent with that title along with our American friends (as eastern nations witness the dark ages), financially and emotionally violate their citizens. Now I haven’t lived in other parts of Europe, so I will stop alleging that they are categorical cheats. However, it saddens me to say that the British Government, the parliament, the bureaucracy – they all function with this one motive – screw the middle man – many of these middle men are so silly they don’t realize they’re getting screwed over in the process. I am sure you all are already familiar with this and if you aren’t, well, maybe this will explain why neither the liberals nor the conservatives of Britain stuck to their principles come election time. They are all out to get you. That is their greater purpose.
OK, so I will build the entire argument on a £3,000 per month pre-tax earning. Let’s say you earned that amount this month. Now, we’ll assume that you’re not one of those compromising residents of London who’s decided to live in shared accommodation. If that’s what you aspire for, you’re most likely happy being ravaged. Some of us have a little more ambition than that.
Out of this £3000 you will end up paying over 30% in PAYE and National Insurance. Many will actually pay more than this. The small business gets penalized grossly for hiring British employees – the government’s first step to ruin the economy and promote outsourcing to the Indias and Pakistans of the world. So, back to our simple mathematics, you are now left with £2100 (if you missed it, that’s £900 for the government). Don’t know about others, but my council tax is about 5% of what I earn pre taxation. That’s another £150 gone. Now, let’s talk about VAT. Almost everything has VAT, with an exception to some of the basics. Say you spend £600 on taxable groceries. Out of this, you’ve paid 17.5% VAT. This means you’ve paid another £105 to the government. This means that so far you’ve been robbed of £1155 (that’s £900 in payroll taxes, £150 in council tax and £105 in VAT on basic household items). Now, if you have a car, you are spending another £15 a month on road tax. If you live in London, you most likely also need a monthly ticket for the tube. Now there’s no tax on the train tickets, but you don’t exactly have a choice but to buy this. It is the price you pay for living in London – pay for a seat on the tube you will hardly ever get. It’s generally called overselling and is punishable under the law (in a fair and just system) but on the London Underground it’s called ‘moving right down into the carriage’. What a load of crap – pay £150 a month to COMPROMISE on the tube. If you live in your own flat or house on that salary, you’re probably living in zone 4+. So that’s another £135 for the train pass. It goes to TFL which is a puppet of the government, so the money essentially goes in the political basket – God knows they don’t fix the trains or the tracks. Wait, we all know that.
Let’s do a recap. How much money has the government taken from you so far, between travel, groceries, national insurance and payroll tax? £1,305 out of £3,000. That’s 43.5%. Can you believe that? Pure tax or overhead for living in the UK. You get absolutely nothing out of this money. For every £100 you earn, you literally have to give £43.50 away. Now I know we’ll have those fascists out their who will claim that the UK is the ‘leading’ European country because Germany’s taxes are in the 50% range or Scandinavia is 55%. Well, let me tell you something: who gives a shit. We’re talking about the UK and London, so let’s stick to the topic at hand.
If you can manage to do much other than paying rent and buying a movie ticket or fuel for your car from the remaining 56.5% of f the money you have left, you’re probably living in shared accommodation. But read on, you’re still getting screwed.
So the fact that you don’t have much money left to spend is just the beginning of how you, the British consumer, faces the shaft. You have credit cards, a car payment, or mortgage, don’t you?
The government takes your money and invests with banks, pays ridiculous salaries to MPs, bureaucrats and council employees – many of which are hired to make sure you get threatened and penalized if you don’t pay these taxes. That’s what happens with your council tax pounds and that’s what has happened with the billions in rescue funding for banks.
So, what do the banks do with this money? They gamble and loan. The money the government takes from you and gives to the banks is EITHER loaned back to you for your mortgage, car, or in the form of a credit card or is loaned back to businesses (who may be your employer) for a hefty interest charge.
In the event that you are loaned the money, basically, the government has taken your money, put it through this ‘system’ of taxation and loaned it back to you with interest you will pay to the bank, who will then fund the election campaign with part of that money or loan the interest back to your employer who will then again deduct tax from your salary and pay it back to the government again, creating wealth from your poverty inducing 43.5%. Exciting, isn’t it. So you are not only paying 43.5%, but when you get that 43.5% back as a loan, you again pay your credit card or loan interest, in many cases up to 20% plus, back to the bank. So, in essence, you paid 43.5% + 20% of this 43.5%. So your 43.5% is actually costing you over 52%. It’s either this or some twisted denomination thereof.
Let me make this simple and clear. The government takes literally over HALF of the money that you earn. They then piss this money way on gambling, election campaigins and sham programs that have to do with community improvement or whatever rubbish they can come up with (I wish they actually implemented any of these!). In many instances, the government will give your tax money to the bank, who will then give this cash to another international bank, which will then loan the money out, at, say 20% and give your bank 10%. Your bank is making 10%, but they don’t actually have any of this cash. Hell, they’ve even take the money you’ve put in your savings account and gambled that away -all with the consent of the government. It may very well be that your bank has taken all of your money and loaned it to your friends in the form of credit cards. Because your friends are law abiding citizens, they default on the card payments - so not only is your bank unable to pay you the .8% interest it promised you in exchange for the 28% it was charging your friends, it doesn’t even have the original amount. So when you go back to claim the 50% of your salary that you had claim too, the bank collapses. Enter recession and turmoil. It’s also called horse shit.
Guess what happens next? 43.5% of your next pay cheque will go towards stablizing the bank. I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, you’re kind of, sort of screwed!
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Posted by Commie B on October 12, 2008 at 11:30 am
I haven’t written a whole lot of articles recently, owing primarily to the fact that I am putting together a new design for Asifism.com and completing an accounting and small business series of articles for the new section that goes with the new design.
However, I miss publicizing how pathetic the world we live in has become, hoping invain that maybe those of us who can afford to will take a step to curb the pitiable existence or retreat from the disaster that has become society.
I have previously been very critical of Britain. Cost of living, bad customer service, miserable people, etc. etc. But what has frustrated me most about this country, especially in the city of London, is the widespread level of incompetence and plain evil in the acts of the millions of people who inhabit the streets of London.
For those of you who are familiar with Ayn Rand, her philosophy of objectivism, and her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged, you may agree with me when I say that it is highly likely that Ayn Rand is looking down upon those of us who have an IQ of more than 50 with a cynical smile over her face suggesting, if not saying,”I told you so.” Her depiction of the world, and in specific New York City in Atlas Shrugged, so accurately depicts the current state of affairs in present day London (and possibly the rest of the world) that it is sadly fascinating.
What finally prompted me to write this article is the incident in London where an incompetent London Borough Council and its single digit IQ employees gave away a 7 bedroom GBP 12,000 per month house to a single Afghan mother with seven children with a net compensation of GBP 170,000 per year. To top all this off, the mother of 7 equated this waste of hard earned taxpayer money to winning the lottery and declaring it her right to have this house, with her probably shame of a son stating they had to turn down other houses because he needed room to park his car. Worst yet, this is a house that the Council should have been paying GBP 4,000 per month for, but because of their plain stupidity (the low IQ comes to mind here), they ended up paying some landlord GBP 12k per month.
In all fairness, in a society and city where people have some form integrity, the council employees should be dragged out to make an example of, the Afghan family should moved into a 1 or 2 bed council flat (with the sons put to work) and the landlord should be made to pay the GBP 8,000+ rent plus interest back to the council for extortion. But of course, all that would happen in a society where integrity and morality were important. In London, and in the UK, apparently, they are important no more.
Parliament is voting on whether parents should be allowed to slap their children. What a world! The police in this country is afraid of dealing with the children, the teachers in schools are petrified of children, and now, even the parents are not allowed to discipline them. Does anyone else see a problem here? This is supposed to be a first world country that others are supposed to look up to, yet the young and future of this country seems to lie in peril, crime, racism, and incompetence.
It is true, as was seen in Atlas Shrugged, that weight of the world, or the weight of any one society, is carried by the few in that society who really know what they are doing. 99% of the people are simply coasting along, mooching off of others, fighting, stealing, simply living. It is the 1% that strive to make a difference, and it is that 1% that makes the world go round and makes sure that the economy keeps ticking and 99% of the slack is able to eat three meals a day.
Today, the world has come to the point where politicians make meaningless statements in fancy language without saying anything of substance or dealing with any of the issues at hand. Take the presidential debate in the USA; it was a mere mudslinging content, and although Barrack Obama from time to time gave out some substance, ultimately, none of the important questions were dealt with. It has come to the point where politicians and people alike thing that throwing money and grandeur at a certain problem will resolve it. Pumping GBP 500 billion into the British economy will help save the banks; pumping US $ 700 billion into the US economy will help save the banks, but Ealing Council’s overspending to get someone a 7 bedroom, GBP 1.2 million is absolutely fine.
It is this mockery by government, this misuse of power, the pathetic attempts by futile minds to divert the attention of the simply minded population from the issues at hand (like possible corruption at councils, etc.), that so accurately resembles Rand’s depiction of the government in Atlas Shrugged. People who were absolutely incompetent were put in positions of power and paid massive amounts of money to basically talk shit and waste taxpayer money, running the country into the ground. That’s what Ealing Council here has done. The result, in a decent society, would be that the resident’s of that particular council stop paying all Council Tax. A government that misuses the power and money given to it should be stripped of all power and money. What ultimately happens is that the people who are paying the most amount of tax withdraw themselves from that society, thereby crippling the council or government. Of course, that happens where people have shame, morality and integrity. In Ealing, apparently, they don’t. I presume there are thousands of people paying massive amounts of rent in Ealing who cannot afford to have a car, when some stupid kid has the ordacity to refuse free housing because he cannot park his car.
To top it all off, these are supposed to be Muslims. Lashes then, is what such people who steal from others would deserve under Islamic Law. Maybe I haven’t gotten to the stage of withdrawal yet, but when I do, there may be nothing more entertaining than watching a society of incompetence and character flaws that struggles to survive when you can just sit back and watch. Disaster, for even something on such a small scale, if it continues to evolve, is inevitable.
I’m still not sure why Council Tax makes sense in the UK. The culture of something for nothing is what has killed this country, and it seems like nobody really cares about the country. Not the government, not the citizens, not the residents. Everybody is here to make a quick buck and nobody cares about the land that feeds them. Alas, this behavior will bring Atlas to his knees, even if he was simply shrugging in Rand’s depiction of the 60s.
I’m not even going to get into more details about how the financial rescue plan will or will not help the economy. At the rate of incompetence and corruption that’s currently rampant in this society and among others worldwide, I’m not sure if those who make up the Atlas in today’s world will put up with the weight of the world for too long. The lights may go out when Atlas Shrugs, but who knows what will happen when Atlas is brought to his knees.
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Posted by Commie B on June 19, 2008 at 12:51 pm
When I was making my move to the UK, I had a very difficult time finding the right resources and the right guidance. It was very difficult to get hold of information like ‘how to open a bank account’, or how phone service in the UK works, or what are the best resources to look for work or accomodation. I’m now in my 6th month of arriving in the UK, and I think I’m ready to put a rather comprehensive guide for somebody moving to the UK (particularly London). Now, please keep in mind that my background (when making comparisons) is US, UAE and Pakistan based, so most opinionated statements here may not apply to people moving from other parts of Europe (if they share the same system as Great Britain does).
The Basics
So, you’ve finally arrived (I’m going to skip the visa, if needed, plane ticket, etc. etc. because if you’re unable to arrange that, this guide probably doesn’t apply). Now, what are you supposed to do next? Well, if you’re anything but normal, maybe you’d want to start with communications and finances to get going.
UK Mobile and Landline Telephone Services
Okay, if you’re new, the good news is that you can use almost any GSM/GPRS enabled cellular / mobile phone in the UK, and mobile phone service is very cheap to start with. You can buy T-Mobile, Vodaphone, O2 or Orange SIMs for a pound, and that means you can get started with the phenomenon of pre-paid or pay-as-you-go mobile phone service. Be weary of who you call though, because outgoing call rates are outrageous, sometimes costing as much as 20p a minute (which is approx. 40 US cents). Please be aware that, depending on your carrier, it may be cheaper for you to call the US than it would be a UK number from your mobile phone.
Also need to get a landline? Well, you don’t have much choice. Just like you were screwed with Etisalat in Dubai, you’re going to get screwed by British Telecom (BT) and their highly, incompetent, un-educated, not-trained, low-life customer service. But, if you want to live a comfortable life in London, you need a BT Line, because half of this so-called metropolis is not wired with cable, which means that everything (your phone, internet, TV etc.) will all eventually be delivered through your BT Line in the event that you live outside of Zone 1 or Zone 2 in London (which most people do). Getting a BT line is not so difficult, it’s ONLY painful; just visit bt.com or call them. Best of luck!
For pay month mobile services, you have contract and contract free options depending on your phone needs. Mobile phone service is expensive when compared with the US and some other countries, and if you are moving here from the States, get used to horrific customer service. The customer comes 3rd, not 1st, in the UK. Read all your terms and conditions whether it’s for your mobile or broadband service, especially when going with big companies like Virgin. They’ll try and stiff you whenever they can. In my opinion and experience so far, O2 has been good, both for mobile phone service and broadband. They provide reasonable quality and good, consistent pricing.
The Bank Account
This one is extremely important. The UK is a country where virtually every service you use has to be paid for by Direct Debit. So, chances are, no bank account, no internet, no TV, no BT Line, no monthly mobile/cell phone service, no life. But here is the kicker, to open a bank account, you’ll need a utility bill in your name for proof of address, or you will need a foreign bank statement (from your old bank) addressed to your UK residential address. That doesn’t happen at many international banks, so you’re basically screwed when it comes to proof of address.
Also, almost every UK bank will require you to have a job before you can open an account (how pathetic is that!). Can’t get paid without a bank account, and can’t get a bank account without getting paid. I wonder who came up with these pathetic rules. NatWest is probably the only bank which will allow you to open a full checking / current account without a job, which means you can have a cheque book, debit card etc. with it. Steer clear of the introductory accounts, which only give you an ATM card. They’re absolutely useless and are the banks’ way to take your money and restrict your access to it.
If you already have a job line up when you move to the UK, a letter from your employer will suffice for the purposes of opening a bank account.
You will also need an ID (your passport) to prove your identity.
Now, how do you go by getting your proof of address? You’ll have to get an existing utility bill amended at the place where you’re staying for it to reflect your name. That’s the only way it’s going to work. If you will get a BT Bill changed (mind you, internet service does not count as a utility in the UK), be aware that they will give you a run for the money. They will, in all likelihood, add your name as a c/o, and the bank will not accept it, so make sure they get it right. It’s easier to write to them rather than getting it done over the phone, because over the phone connects you to India, and that just doesn’t work. Also, note that BT will charge you upto GBP 5.00 to mail you a copy of the updated bill (or you can wait 3 months for bill to arrive, since most BT billing is done quarterly).
National Insurance
National Insurance is the US equivalent of Social Security. Both are rather wreckless tax policies, but they are nonetheless the law and you must abide by them. Note the YOU. You’ll have to call the local job centre in your area to make an appointment, where you will have to take the appropriate documentation that establishes that your presence in the UK is legal and that you are allowed to work. If you can convince the NI staff that you’re not here to rob the UK, they will issue you a National Insurance number, which will arrive at the address you provided via your proof of address when applying for your National Insurance Number (NIN).
Please note that you do not need to have an NI number to start working. You can start work, and your employer will apply for your NIN. However, the employer will deduct NIN from your pay cheque starting day one, irrespective whether you have or don’t have a number. When the number is issued, your employer would submit the contributions tot he government against your NIN. Please note that you don’t need the NIN to start working, but you need a National Insurance Number to continue working in the UK. So, don’t delay it.
Looking for Work?
Well, work ethic for recruitment consultants in the UK sucks. They’re paid to promote a very good picture and not necessarily deliver results, and nobody will give you good advice. Having your CV looking right is very important in the UK, and the American format will do you no good here. The more valid, relevant information you have on your resume/CV, the less chance you will have of getting an interview. The more short, ambiguous and unexplanatory your CV, the better off you are. It’s a dodgy job market.
Prepare in advance, get ready to wait. Consultants make you wait in London, and you must be prepared to survive 3-4 months without earning a penny, unless you are entrepreneurial and have other legal means of making a living, which London provides plenty of opportunity for.
Note that London is a good place for self employment. The level of incompetence (and I say this without much sarcasm) is pretty high (comparable with Dubai), and there is a lot more need for competent, professional people, which means that if you’re good at what you do, there is money to be made in the UK.
Remember, the UK is, in the words of some Britons, in many ways “a third world country masquerading as a developed nation.” This means that 8 out of 10 times when looking for a job, it’s not what you know, but who you know. Make friends with recruitment consultants; that’s the best way to get interviews if that’s what you’re after.
Bargaining?
If you’ve come to the UK from the US, change your shopping habits. This is not a country where all prices are fixed (except for big brand chain stores), and you must negotiate to not get ripped off. Remember, everyone who’s selling something to is out to get as much as he possibly can for it, and since the customer does not come first in the UK, you must stand up for yourself and bring the price down to what is right. Don’t get ripped off.
Cost of Living
Everything here costs double of what it should. Movies, entertainment, food, rent. It is an expensive country, and quite frankly, it does not deliver the quality of life that the States does, even at twice the cost of living. Therefore, get ready to overpay and complain. To give you an idea, a 2 bedroom flat about 40 minutes to an hour away from the Centre of London will run you about $ 2500+ per month. And this won’t be a big flat/apartment; the bedrooms will barely fit a bed. This brings me to the next thing to prepare for….
Personal Space?
Since the UK is short on space, and quality of life is irrelevant for most, get used to cutting down on all kinds of personal space, especially the space you live in. Flats, apartments and houses are tiny; and estate agents plain flat out lie when they call some a 2-bedroom unit. Look for yourself. Do not beleive photos/pictures, but keep in mind that you’ll pay just about double the rent for the same space compaired to New York City, and probably double the rent and half the space compared to to other major US cities.
0800 Numbers
This is one thing I hate about this country. Since this is a safe haven for businesses prepared to stiff the general public, most businesses in this country don’t have a normal telephone number. They will advertise fancy numbers like 0845, 0870 etc., which are all rip offs. My advice, if you can live without using a product from one of these businesses, do it, because these are vampiric businesses and companies and they are not around to provide you with a good product or service. Why is that? Well, 0845 etc. numbers work like the opposite of a US Collect call.
Say, if I’m calling a store on their number 0845 1234 5678, I get charged about 4p to 50p a minute in excess of my normal call charges (depending on whether you’re calling from a landline or mobile phone), this business that I’m calling gets to keep half of that money. So, not only will you overpay this business for a third class product, but you are also being penalized to call them and inquire about the very product they want to sell to you. Two words: F@#*king A$$holes who’s business will fail and they will rott in hell. That goes for all of them: the Ikeas, the sainsburys the Tescos etc. etc. There, I feel better now. If a business isn’t courteous enough to give you information about the product they sell for free, imagine what kind of shady, dodgy third class products they are selling. Woe unto them.
Also note that 0800 numbers which are toll free, are only toll free if called from a BT landline. If they’re called from a mobile, they will suck up your designated minutes and you will be charged a cost per minute, which can vary from 10p to 1 pound depending on your mobile phone carrier and the number you are calling.
It’s all a rip-off. And it’s even more frustrating because…
Lack of Good Technology/Ecommerce
Yes. The UK is about 30 years behind the US. Things are not automated despite what banks, utility companies, and online stores claim. Online orders time out, websites are browser incompatible, and very often after you complete an online transaction you will get a call asking you to complete the transaction, well, because the businesses are cheap and incompetent. Get used to living in the stone ages, even in a hiflying proclaimed city like London. It is, after all, an American Village.
The Train, Tubes and Subway System
If you live in London, you rely on public transport to get you places, because driving a car is neither cost effective nor healthy for those of us with shorter tempers.
Without a doubt, the management of a transport system that operates on the scale of London is a mammoth task, but it’s not done too well here. The main reason for that is lack of foresight. I’m going to compare the Underground to the New York Subway, and to fans of London, they were both built in 1863. It’s just that New York built their system better by adding redundant tracks, and London failed to do so. The result, after 150 years is that the London Underground suffers from serious delays, where as the New York Subway doesn’t quiite have the same level or scale of problems.
More need not be said. Get ready to be frustrated and late for a transport system that will overcharge the living daylights out of you and your hard earned money.
Conclusion
I’d love to spend more time writing about this, but I’m short on time and I’m sure you’ve noticed a common theme. Brace yourself! The UK is not all that it claims to be. If you’re moving from the States, expect disappointment. If you’re moving from a former English colony that’s a third world country, don’t expect much different.
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Posted by Commie B on April 25, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I recently wrote an article about why London will never be New York. The article was met with lots of positive and negative criticism; some love London, and others love New York. One gentleman was so furious he dubbed me an American who doesn’t know any better, because New York is nothing but a concrete jungle (as opposed to Liverpool Street or Holborn?). Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions.
As some of you may already know, I have spent a couple of years in Dubai. Although my experienced, possibly jaded opinion says that London will never become New York, I can comfortably tell you why, and how, Dubai may one day actually become London, and take away a good chunk of the tourists that come to London (that’s great for some Londoners, eh!).
Living in Dubai made me quite Anti-Arab, and on many occasions, anti Muslim. Ultimately, I was extremely frustrated with the general incompetence of systems, the bad quality of service, general lack of common sense and common courtesy, and people’s undying, inevitible ability to do everything wrong an average of three times before getting it right. Hoarding money, overcharging, ripping off residents and immigrants, lying, cheating, deceiving, and not thinking through what the hell it is that they’re doing are among some of the common mistakes they made in Dubai. I’m sure they still make them. When I lived in Dubai, I compared everything, civil infrastructure, Information Technology, shopping experience, quality of life, cost of living, etc. with the US, and Dubai lost on practically every ground. I was never sure where the Arabs & Muslims had come up with their system, their costing & pricing, their inefficient ideas, and their con-like way of life in Dubai. I used to blame them and their kind for it.
And now, I realize, that on some level, I owe them an apology for criticizing them for making Dubai the way it is. Well, maybe not. But what I have realized is that comparing Dubai, or any other part of the world for that matter, with the US way was a mistake. I knew nobody in the Muslim world (except maybe Iran) would make effort to reinvent or recreate the wheel, but I always assumed that Dubai was trying to mimic New York (with Sheikh Zayed Road being their pride and all), but they failed miserably. Well, that was my mistake. I hadn’t experienced London yet.
And now that I have, well, Dubai is really not that bad. When I compare the way of life in London to the way of life in the United States, I see the same fallacies that I saw in Dubai. The same traditional cultural hoardiness, sticking to culture and tradition (which nobody really knows much about, in London or Dubai – don’t get me wrong, there are people who do, but most are pretty lost), sitting on money, enjoying other people’s misery, lying, deceiving the public, being overcrowded, etc. etc. My, I thought, am I making the same mistake that I did in Dubai?
Probably. Comparing London and New York is not necessarily fair. The cities emerged differently, were built by different people with different visions and served different purposes in different cultures for different people with different mentalities and ideologies. But Dubai, gosh! Dubai is a hotter, modern, dusty, inexpensive, (maybe) glamorous (dare I say), cleaner (definitely!) version of London. How, you ask?
Well, London is built with one aim and one goal in mind: impress those who visit and take as much money as you can from them. But what you build is what you get, i.e., that is also the mentality of the people who live there. I’ll continue this attitude of the people later, but Dubai does impress a lot of tourists, and with the certain allure it has created, people spend a lot of their money in Dubai, which what their ultimate goal is.
Dubai is ultimately built by the British. You see British civil engineering at work in the Dubai road infrastructure, you see the British bureaucracy/systems in place when dealing with most day-to-day things (getting a landline telephone – the equivalent of BT in Dubai is Etisalat, getting a mobile phone, paying your bills, banking, etc.). Basically, Dubai is a carbon copy of British systems, and that’s because it’s built by the British. In that British re-creation of Dubai, you see some efforts to rectify the mistakes in London, and as a result of that, the wow factor that Dubai offers for some people may be more than what London can offer. Of course, Dubai doesn’t really have a history, and it will always fall short of London in that department.
But where Dubai really succeeds is in having used the American system to successfully market. It seems like they may have solicited the British and other European nations for help when it came to developing their city, but the Arabs know and believe that no one is better at positive marketing than the United States, and this could be the one biggest factor why Dubai can cause quite a dent in London’s tourist revenues.
So, how does Dubai compare with London?
Just Visiting?
When you’re visiting or passing through, be it for leisure or business, you want it to be cheap, efficient and fun. You want to be pampered and you want to feel important, and you definitely want to make the most of it, right?
Hotels
Okay, London has a fine line of great hotels, but then so does Dubai. In fact, with the Burj ul Arab, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Madinat Jumeirah, Royal Mirage and a plethora of others, Dubai has a collection of modern five star hotels with a traditional touch that will dazzle just about any visitor. What else? Dubai offers add ons with your hotel service like buttlers, which will make even the most seasoned traveler feel like a king. Dubai can do this because they’ll charge you over GBP 500 per night for your hotel room, while the guy who will carry your luggage, clean up, and do all the dirty work will get paid less than GBP 300 a month! That may be a violation of human rights on some level, but it certainly works well for visitors and tourists. I remember an uncle of mine telling me about his visit to Grosvenor House in London in the 80s, and how he had to carry his bags up to the room himself. In Dubai, you’d never do that.
Shopping & Fashion
There were days when the world came to London for shopping for the latest fashions and gadgets. People still come to London for that, but I’m not sure they come with the same expectation or enthusiasm anymore. Dubai has successfully marketed and built itself several world class shopping centres, and interestingly enough, some products may even cost you more in Dubai than they would in London. But that’s not true of all the products, especially once you learn the right areas and the right places to shop in Dubai. Even though I’ve seen that the same shops in Dubai don’t get the latest products that they would stock in London or New York, Dubai has definitely entered this market, and quite possibly has a much better pricing position than London for a multitude of reasons (no tax, no excise and customs etc.).
We know that the fashion headquarters of the world are London, Paris, Milan, New York and maybe Los Angeles. Dubai has made a serious effort to enter this market, and they’ve certainly gotten somewhere. Dubai regularly hosts fashion shows, and the biggest designers do not mind hosting and displaying their products in Dubai. That’s a big attraction for tourists and visitors, as trivial as that may be for some of us practical people.
Living or Working in Dubai?
If you move to Dubai from London, you won’t find much of a difference in the culture. Neither of these places are by any means American in Corporate Culture, and that may very well be a cultural and traditional gap for the best. Londoners will not find it very different in Dubai, except that if you go to Dubai from London, chances are you will get VIP treatment and your quality of life may improve, although for someone who is well settled in London, the kind of life Dubai offers may very well be trivial.
The area Dubai lacks in professionally is, well, professionalism. There is a serious lack of professionally competent people in Dubai, and although London has its fair share of incompetence, it generally has a much better employee set than Dubai. So, naturally, for the striving, aspiring person, London has more to offer: access to a bigger market, access to more resources, better facilties, etc. etc.
Education, you say?
Education is certainly a developing area in Dubai, but it’s no where close to being acceptable at this point. I won’t say any more in this section, except that London and it’s surrounding areas house some of the world’s best educational institutions. Dubai doesn’t have any decent higher education yet, but I believe it is in the works.
Cleanliness
Well, Dubai takes the lead here easily. It’s very clean, especially the areas all the tourists and western people visit. All such areas are practically spotless, although they come at the expense of slave labour. Of course, most people are oblivious to things such as slave labour, so this is a big plus point for Dubai. Parts of London have become extremely filthy, and I needn’t comment more on this. I said plenty about it in the article that compared London with New York, and there’s no point in repeating myself.
Traffic
What can I say? Both London and Dubai suck. Road tax is killer. Tolls are killer. London has better public transportation, but Dubai intend to roll out their fancy planned metro in 2009. That will certainly create cultural and class issues in Dubai, the effect of which remains to be seen. This blending of the racial discrimination of the east and west sides of the Dubai Creek could make or break the comfortable working class of Dubai.
Why won’t Dubai Compete with New York?
Quite simply, because Dubai isn’t marketing itself as an American city. It offers facilties like London, it offers services like London. The flat, housing and apartments feel more like London than they do like any part of New York or other American cities. But Dubai is using the grace of New York. It is painting itself the metropolitan image that London lacks, and it’s doing a fantastic job.
Fancy skyscrapers, a tube / subway system, big roads and highways, the world’s biggest businesses (even if they don’t any business and get rent free buildings to fool everyone else), and the image of success. It’s a very well told lie, and a perfectly created fassad, created by the British and Europeans for and by the Europeans, and you can see it has been a successful venture so far. How long it lasts will be interesting, but Dubai may never make it because it’s very difficult to gain a sense of ownership or ‘homeliness’ in Dubai. A place that will never call you its citizen, a kingship that will never treat you as one of its own, will never get the dedication of the people who reside there to make money; it’s that simple.
Where Dubai Fails?
Well, there are several pitfalls Dubai needs to overcome before it can consider competing with London. Among them, a legal system, decent education, more condusive laws for business people, and less lying.
Major businesss in Dubai were given free buildings to move in in areas like Dubai Internet City, so that other striving and aspiring businessmen follow and pay the outrageous fees. The fassad worked, but I don’t know when people will start to see it isn’t what it claims to be. Most of the businesses, even if they are functioning in other countries, fail to take off in Dubai because they’ve bought into this lie. This needs to stop; Dubai needs to help develop business inside rather than make it fail.
Laws are important. Company law that is 4 sheets of A4 paper typed in 12 point font with more grammatical mistakes than my 2nd grade english paper will not suffice for complex international business. After all, how long will businesses settle disputes in and according to the law of the United Kingdom in Dubai? Lawyers are full of crap, trying to offer you legal help on law that’s 4 pages wrong. Please don’t fall for this trap in Dubai. Lawyers are pathetic everywhere, but in countries where implementation of law is non-existent, and even worse, in countries like the UAE where law is non-existent, lawyers need to be booted.
Dubai needs to be less racist. The racism and discrimination is unacceptable at all levels of human decency; just because you’re brown or Indian doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be respected; Arabs certainly don’t have the right to disrespect anyone; let’s avoid this discussion, shall we? But Dubai needs to be weary of this; once the metro in Dubai is complete, it could lead to a blending of the eastern and western population of Dubai, that could make the latter very uncomfortable, and I’m not sure Dubai has a ‘plan b’ for that.
There’s a lot more to be said on this, but it can’t be said without me not being nice. I’ll take up more issues in the future, but I think if Dubai keeps on the right track and focuses on the right things, it may very well compete with London. It is likely that Dubai will overcome its fallacies, although there certainly are no guarantees about when and how. Then again, given the level of competence in Dubai, London may not have too much to worry about.
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Posted by Commie B on March 31, 2008 at 2:26 am
Well, you could say that’s because London is London and New York is New York. Let’s be honest: in the last few years I’ve heard and read various things like London stealing the financial business from New York City, London seeing more growth, London becoming a better all over experience due to immigration and America’s terrorist obsession, etc. etc. But, lets face it, London does not give you the experience New York does, and it never will. Why? Let’s see why.
Filth / Garbage
Well, I’ve been to New York City several times, and I’m not saying it’s like Singapore, but hey, it’s relatively clean, especially when compared to London. Have you seen the trash on the streets of London lately? What’s with all the chewing gum stains on the pavements and the roads? I don’t think New York has that kind of a stain infested issue, does it?
Then, how come people aren’t supposed to clean their dog poo and pee? What in the world is that about? I know this is the land of royalty, but can we please tell people to clean up after their pets? It’s only polite.
Mind you, I’m not saying New York is immaculate, but unless it has become filthier the last few years, I certainly don’t remember it being this dirty. I mean have you been to Marble Arch, Edgware, or Edgware Road lately? I’m sorry, but Edgware reminded me of Karachi for a minute!
Customer Service, you say?
Okay, call me spoilt, but the American saying “the customer is always right” does have its treats. It is so frustrating when you walk into a store in London that no one really gives a damn. The quality of service is horrible. Have you ever been to a bank in London? No one is at the counter, and you have to wait for more than 5 minutes before someone will come to attend to you. It’s the same everywhere you go. Cell phone stores, grocery stores, restaurants, banks, offices, etc., the service is nothing short of horrible.
Customer Service staff, that takes less interest in their lives than probably anyone does, try and lecture you on things like the Data Protection Act and other laws, when they really have no idea what they are talking about. Everyone has an excuse for doing something the wrong way, and no one needs an excuse for not doing anything! It’s a privilege to to get any kind of service in London when you are paying for it. Be it NatWest, Barclays, HSBC, Orange, O2 or any other business, their customer service sucks, which makes for a very unpleasant shopping or service experience.
The US is great at this. I don’t know if it’s because of the out-of-whack US liability laws or simply because they’re smart enough to know that happy customers make good customers, but they do everything it takes to get the job done right. I’m not saying that the level of customer service competence is better in the US, but New York makes for a much more pleasant shopping experience than London. Ask any Brit who’s been to New York. They only have good things to say about it. So many of them want to move there, despite what they think of George Bush and US foreign policy. Well, who can blame them, right?
Ofcourse, outsourcing of customer service over the phone is a problem in both cities/countries. But given the fact that the liability of bad service in the US is greater than it is in the UK, US outsourced customer service is much better. I guess this strings from the fact that no major corporations in the US are government owned or government vested, as British Telecom is, say, in the UK.
Who’s more friendly? New Yorkers or Londoners?
Everyone in London is upset most of the time. This may be due to traffic, poverty, expenditure, tourists, or whatever. But hey, New Yorkers are just as fed up of the crap at their end. But my experience is that Americans are generally much more friendly than the British. In school, we used to read of British Hospitality and all that good stuff. Well, most of it has apparently faded, at least in the working class. Who knows why that is. I guess life in London is more difficult than in New York City, which makes for crankier Londoners than New Yorkers.
If you’ve seen the phrase “Welcome to New York” used in movies when something goes wrong with someone in New York, well, it is just as suitable for London, if not more. But maybe Londoners don’t share the same sense of humour!
Rowdy Kids
Okay, this has a lot to do with the low drinking age and the excessive use of drugs. That’s just not cool, because kids get rowdy and rude and puke all over the place in London, which ads more to the existing dirt, which isn’t cool either. I’m not going say too much about this, except that this needs to stop, and infusion of drugs into London teenagers needs to be controlled urgently, because this is not only a hassle for us who live here, but even for those who are visiting for fun.
The Fascination Factor
This may be subjective, but I clearly remember the first time I visited NYC (let’s not count Brooklyn or Queens, shall we?). I stepped out of the Subway Station o 5th Avemue and I stood in awe at skyscraper after skyscraper. The impression that New York makes on a new or first time visitor is far superior to the one that London makes, and Londoners will tell you that. New York is a City that’s built to look like a Metropolis, and it certainly feels like one. London may have big city life, but I think it fails to make that impression that adds to the initial buzz of being in one of the world’s most dynamic cities.
Food
Oh my! New York City has more variety in food than London does. New York City’s portion size is much larger (as is the rest of America’s), and the cost is far less. Also, since I think Americans are far more passionate about eating (compare the obesity rate between the US and UK at 38% and 33 %, respectively), the overall taste and experience of dining and food in New York City is better than in London.
And for those of you who say Americans pig out and don’t enjoy their food, well, the obesity gap isn’t that much, and here is news for some of you: New York City is the world’s first city to ban trans fat in restaurants. That’s right. I think the law kicks in in June, but now who cares more about the health of tourists and residents?
Bloomberg Vs. Livingstone
Come on now, there’s no comparison. The New York Mayor (Michael Bloomberg) is much cooler than London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Bloomberg, that just sounds much cooler than Livingstone. Need I say more?
The Experience (Corporate, mostly)
After having lived in the US for several years (and not really having lived in New York), I think that London, and forgive me for saying this, is like an American village. I’ve already mentioned that London doesn’t feel as Metropolitan as New York; but even Denver or Dallas feel more metropolitan than London. Well, maybe I’ll discount Dallas from that.
There are many reasons for that, but I think a lot of it has to do with British mentality and culture.
The Corporate Culture of London is, at best, outdated, compared to the corporate culture anywhere in the US. The technology in use, the ideology, the methodology all is about 20-25 years behind the US. I think the reason for that is the traditional approach of British Businessmen. They like to stick to what they’re comfortable with, and then British pride knows no end. Since the UK isn’t exactly the pioneer of new technology or British methodologies, British business is hesitant about adapting to it, with the result say, if the CEO or Managing Director of a major corporation has been in charge for 10 years, he technology in place is 10 years old. Until a younger crowd comes to manage the company, the technology won’t change, because each generation, I think, in this country, brings an update to technology and methodologies.
That’s not the case in the US, which is a dynamic environment that thrives on new processes, technologies, and methodologies. Things are always being improved, with the ultimate goal to weed out inefficiencies in the business processes.
When I was in the US, I used to hear how much ahead of the US Europe was in the cell phone market. Well, not really. Just because the US has a different release schedule for mobile phones and they use different cell phone networks doesn’t make their service or technology inferior. London has more mobile/cell phone signal problems than I ever had in the US driving from Colorado to New York. So, you shouldn’t really believe every such thing you hear.
In addition, the US, to this day, and even NYC, provides a positive corporate culture for new entrants. It is an environment where you can get a job or thrive on merit alone, at least upto a comfortable level, if not a super rich level. In London, merit doesn’t really count; you have to know people to get to even very junior places, and that kind of stuff is just not cool. But I think, again, it is something that comes out of the culture of royalty, and although it may be a bad thing, it has become a way of life that the locals are used to. More power to them! I guess as long as you know who you know, what you know is not really important.
Let’s just say that I’m trying to say that the Business Acumen of London is nowhere close to that of New York, or any other major US city. That doesn’t mean the London economy is very small, we’re just talking about business acumen and business intelligence.
Price
In a few words, New York provides MUCH BETTER value for money than London does. Living, shopping, partying, everything in New York City is half price of what it is in London. Throw in the other factors mentioned, and New York makes for a far superior experience.
Okay, this may not have been the most comprehensive guide to London and New York, but it’s just my opinion, which means it may be prejudiced, biased,or simply ill founded. But nonetheless, it is my opinion. Personally, I preferred Denver. It had most of the advantages of a big city without the rutt and problems. But then, it’s neither London nor New York.
What do you think?
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Posted by Commie B on March 22, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Picking a mobile phone carrier in London has been difficult. None of them have good reviews, and apparently, all of them provide the same service.
I finally decided last week that I was going to make the move to O2. I had seen their simplicity package advertised, where you could simply buy a SIM for free, and pay GBP 30 per month for 1200 anytime minutes, 500 or 1000 texts (if ordered instore or online), and a free additonal bolt on, which in my case, is the Unlimited Web Bolt On. I decided to go for this because I do not want a new phone. I’m happy with Sony Ericsson p990; the firmware upgrade has made the phone much more stable, and it almost every feature you’ll need: Web, GPRS, 3G, WiFi, Browser, Email Client, Media, etc. etc.
O2s mobile phone service has been good. I don’t get any unusual signal outage, and the internet speed on the phone is also pretty good. But their Customer Service is nothing short of horrid!
Since the day I got my SIM from O2, I cannot view my bill or allowance online. Over the last week, I’ve had luck with viewing my billing/allowance only once on the web site. I have exchanged about 5 emails with customer service, and oh my, they are as incompetent as they come. I thought HP (hewlett packard) had everyone beat when it came to bad customer service, but O2 is quickly surpassing HP to new, unknown levels of incompetence and customer dissatisfaction.
When I try to view my bill, I get an EBPP_1102 error. When I try to view my allowance, I get the same EBPP error code with a different number. Now I’m not sure what kind of a programming glitch their web development team has made, but their customer service has absolutely no idea about what’s going on. They’ve come up with the wildest suggestions, like deleting my temporary internet files, having a corrupt cookie, having an old browser that doesn’t support 128-bit SSL encryption, or having an ISP that needs to be contacted because the problem is at their end. They should really try telling that to Virgin & BT, and I’d want to see how either of them reacted to that. I’d want to see the size of the hole in O2s tushi when BT is done responding to that (not that BT is a blessing in any way either).
First rule of thumb, train your god damn customer service representatives, and please, train them to be honest. If they don’t know what’s going on or have NO idea about what the problem is, they DO NOT need to make incorrect suggestions or accusations about our PCs, cookies, or ISPs. They should say that they don’t know what’s wrong, and that they will try to find out.
Second, why the fuck does every person who responds to my email an Indian, who has no fucking idea about how O2 works, secure socket layers or web browsers work, or how ISPs work? I’m going to assume that O2 is being cheap over here, and they’re outsourcing customer service to India. I’m sorry, is there any shortages of Indians in the UK? There are lots of competent ones here, please hire them. They’re educated (in real, for the most part, not by University of Kerala which prints PHDs only), and they’re less prone to lying and giving ludacris suggestions.
And your web development team? Are you outsourcing this to Pakistan or India too? And exactly how much money is O2 saving on it is unfathomable. The website is pathetic. They’ve tried to use AJAX without getting the basic functionality right. Does O2 really think I’m impressed with AJAX when I get an error every time I try to access my billing or allowance? Here’s a hot tip for O2: NO! I want it work, and I DO NOT want to speak to low IQ, incompetent, customer service who doesn’t the difference between a client side and server side error and tries to talk IT.
Here’s a little tip for O2 Tech Support: The error is server side. You’re running a script that’s trying to access my bill & related details from a database (I hope & not a text file), but it fails to do so, either because it cannot connect to your server or because their’s a coding error. Either way, I CANNOT fix it at my end. You need to do it. Browse the internet and see how many other people have the same problem. What are you, stupid?
If you can’t get the service right, don’t offer it.
To top it all off, I get a call from O2 Customer Service today saying they don’t have the right billing address? Well now, who in the hell changed it. Not only was the woman who called UNABLE to communicate properly in English, but she told ME to call customer service and get my address updated because she could NOT take down the address. I mean what the fuck is this, a fish market? And how in the hell did my address get changed on the web site? Why does customer service fidget with our account information when they don’t need to? And, WHY the hell does the update my details feature NOT work on the web site?!
I’m this close to writing to the head office and asking them if they need help with their web site and customer service training, because clearly, a monkey could do a better job than O2 is doing right now!
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