- Sponsorship of more than 54,000 ‘dollar a day’ children for 50 years.
- Almost 100 Bugatti Veyrons
- One million houses in Detroit
- Bebo (well last year anyway)
- Safe drinking water for everyone in the world for at least a month
- about 666 black market clones of yourself
and of course, 1 billion dollars. As “art”.
What 1 billion dollars will not buy you (according to the ever-so-down-on-their-luck Gulf construction industry)
- Safe transport to and from work for your poorly paid immigrant labourers.
This will in fact (apparently) cost 1 billion Bahraini Dinars. At the current peg of 2.66 US Dollars to the Dinar, that’s a lot of clams.
It would be an absolutely absurd, hilariously audacious claim, were it not for the fact that lobbying from the construction industry has (again) delayed the enforcement of this (2 year old) law and that the Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and others who are the underpinning of this whole 5 star hotel fantasy will continue to be huttled to and fro on the back tray of light trucks. If they’re lucky there’ll be a couple of wooden benches and a makeshift canopy. It goes without saying that the back of a truck usually doesn’t come furnished with nicities like air bags, crumple zones, or even that new fandangled ’seat belt’ I’ve been hearing about.
Throw in some winter cold, some blistering summer heat, and some of the worst, most reckless driving you’ve (well, I’ve) ever seen, and these people are obviously going to keep getting mangled and killed at a fairly consistent rate.
At least they’re cheap to replace.
