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>
>gary popkin <garypopkin@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>And instead of comparing unemployment, we should compare economic growth. That is the more relevant measure.
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>The more I think of it, the more it becomes apparent that unemployment rates are not relevant to a society's well being. In Saudi Arabia, great numbers of people can live quite pleasantly without working because so much wealth just spouts out of the grou

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> At 09:50 PM 4/11/2005 -0700, gary popkin wrote:
That is the more relevant measure.[vbcol=seagreen]
rates are not relevant to a society's well being. In Saudi Arabia, great
numbers of people can live quite pleasantly without working because so much
wealth just spouts out of the ground and is distributed to the populace.[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Since I lived for four years in the United Arab Emirates, which is
> much richer than Saudi Arabia, I know the exact situation.
>
> Every full Arab citizen gets a salary from the government. There are
> however two classes of citizen. The second class of citizen are mostly
> Yemenis who have been given permanent residence. They can be kicked
> out at any time.
>
> The local Arabs use their government stipend to hire a house maid from
> Sri Lanka or the Philippines, so that they will have an extra girl in
> the house they can XXXX. The housemaids also do some domestic work and
> take care of the numerous children when they are not XXXXing the boss.
> The wives do not mind because the Arab men are mostly smelly and the
> wives do not want to XXXX them so they are happy when the husband
> XXXXs the housemaid instead. The housemaids do not complain because
> they all knew that XXXXing the boss would be part of their job before
> they came. The only problem arises when the housemaid gets pregnant
> and is sent back to her home country to give birth to the baby. Then
> the boss is left with no choice but to hire a new housemaid so that he
> will have a new girl to XXXX. Nobody knows what happens to all the
> babies but it is certain that thousands of them are born every year to
> housemaids that have been sent back home. Infanticide is not unknown.
>
> Local Arab men do not work. The actual work is done by Pakistanis and
> Indians who are imported for cheap labor. Administrative jobs
> requiring the ability to write Arabic are done by Sudanis. These jobs
> used to be done by Palestinians but most of them were deported home
> after the Palestinians sided with Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf
> War.
>
> Getting to your main point, there is a minimum wags which is enforced.
> The employer, an Arab, must sign an employment contract to import a
> laborer to work for him. Arabs being what they are, they will often
> try to deport the laborer back to Pakistan on payday just so that he
> will not get paid. If the laborer knows enough to complain he will be
> held in jail but not deported. The Arab will then be brought to the
> police station and told that if he does not pay the laborer he will be
> arrested. The Arab usually pays and the laborer is sent home with all
> his money.
>
> You ask how I know all this? I know it because I have been through it
> all.
>
> Haji Ismail Sloan