Leesons on the loose in the Sandlands?

Remember the fallout of the Barings Bank crash? The 'how could it happen' consternation when Enron imploded?

The GulfNews again:

"The atmosphere here is right for such an event to happen. Dubai is growing too fast and too big," said Basel Hantouli, head of internal audit at Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim.

"There is general consent that fraud is acceptable and it's okay to pay commission on every deal. It's part of doing business here and is a mindset we must change."

It will be hard to change the reality, and even harder to change the perception now disseminated globally. There's a four page article about Dubai in the latest issue of the online magazine Nylon.



Nylon is not The Economist, Time, Fortune or Newsweek. It's an achingly hip fashion, music and lifestyle publication. It reaches, I believe, a readership which of curious, adventurous, aspirational and intelligent 'early adopters'.

What attitude does Marisa Katz invite us to adopt à propos Dubai?

Fresh off a 14-hour flight from New York, it becomes immediately apparent this is a place for expensive fantasies - the kind a five-year-old might conjure, high onsugar, sittting on Santa's knee. Want an indooor ski slope, little boy? Sure! How about the world's tallest building? Well, why not? Want an archipelago that represents the earth? OK! Or if the world isn't your favorite man-made island shape, how about one that looks like a palm tree? Wait, how about three?

"It all comes down to this," said one local as he tries to explain the city's fundamental philosophy, "in Dubai, you either think big or go home.

So why would there not be a Nick Leeson somewhere in Big D thinking big and larcenously at this very moment?
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Parenthesis: I like what Nylon is doing in terms of the use of a medium, quite apart from its message. I blogged in early December about media's future Beyond Podcasting.