this leaves aside the money laundering hotels built recently in Amman; I have a fondness for money laundering actually, it provides ridiculous services like mini theaters in absurd round tower hotels at absurd pricing for persons like myself to enjoy

(laugh) Reminds me of all the empty buildings of Tangiers and the courtesy of their drug dealer landlords.

Dubai, mate, Dubai.

But pure waste money laundering annoys me. I like money laundering that is a subsidy to corrupt expats consumption of services. Especially drug money, as after all, the underlying capital is getting sucked out of spoiled idiots in the West.

Ah, the memories. In Algiers this winter, I was trying to reserve a hotel room for visitors coming there a week later, at one of Algeria's nicer hotels, Es-Safir (right next to the parliament). The response I got in the reception was that the man responsible had gone home, and it could not be arranged. I tried to point out that one of the basic services a hotel should offer, is the possibility to, well, you know -- live there. But to no avail. I could buy a sandwich if I wanted, or perhaps change money, but I could not book a room until Someone In Charge showed up.

And that was a big hotel, mind you. I'm sure there were all sorts of luxuries in the rooms ... just no guests. Never in my life have I seen a country in such a need of total neoliberal system shock. They've got a civil society of sorts going, some enterprising minor businessmen, lots of diaspora people waiting to invest, a clever private press, natural resources up to their ears, and everything else you could wish for -- but it just doesn't work, because the Algerian state (diagnosis here) and its never-ending post-Socialist hangover clogs the whole economy. Screw reforms, they should just privatize EVERYTHING, ride the social unrest for a few years -- the one thing the government is good at -- and watch Phoenix rise.