Wow Kuwait, you have a really big hole....

... right in the middle of your downtown...

(pardon the dirty window)

Whatever happened to Kuwait's "mega projects" ... oh yeah, I forgot:  the "financial crisis" (also known as a bigfatexcuse for a couple o'guys who employ 13,000+ people from Bangladesh to clean offices and then just not pay those workers for 6+ months).  Don't even get me started on another "financial crisis" definition related to "downsizing" and "reduction in force."

This project (photo) was started a few years ago and was supposed to be one of the biggest (scrapyards?) buildings in the whole country.  If you look closely, you might see vendors carting off their goods.

MEED (Middle East Economic Digest) is holding a Kuwait Projects 2010 conference at the JW Marriott next month - not too far away from this Gaping Hole.  Everything that you should know about projects in Kuwait you can learn (sans the couple-o-thousand KD fee) right here in this post:

Kuwait's mega projects go like this:  Dig a big hole.  Fill it in.  Dig the same big hole.  Fill it in.  Then sell it to someone else.  They dig the hole again.  Then fill it in.  

Well hey , I suppose that a projects conference  is better than yet another conference on Kuwait's 20 year plan for tourism.  (zzzzzzzzzzz..... I'm sorry..... I fell asleep there for a bit...)  Wait a minute!  What happened to THAT?  Oh right, we got the hotels (which are currently at 30% occupancy nation-wide and declining as more are built) but where are all the visitors?  Hmmmm... maybe in Qatar.  Maybe Bahrain (blame that one on United with a new connecting flight).  Johnny seems to be Walking.... to another country.

Wouldn't this gaping hole make a great shopping mall?!  Do THAT!  We all know we need another mall!  Although, I don't understand who (if anyone) is buying anything.  (See all those fancy-pants people in the mall carrying bags from designer shops?  All those bags are re-used and filled with tissue paper!  I do it.  I know they are too.  You can't bullshit a bullshitter.  Kuwait:  What's in YOUR bag?)

I can't even afford tomatoes lately.  The newspapers are all talking about food prices lately. Personally, I prefer to buy my produce from Guys With a Truck.  You see them next to the highway. They're great and you can negotiate prices with a smile....

Here is a thought:  Why not subsidize farmers (who could employ and pay guys from Bangladesh) to grow produce in all the holes in Kuwait?  Then they could export say... melons.  Then bring cattle to eat whatever is leftover and then export say... bullshit...  

... hey.... wait a minute....