On Heights (of buildings, incomes, growth and fear of it)

Another 'million dollar per apartment' building going up, blocking my sunset.

I know it is a VERY old cliché about Lebanon, but here it goes again. A couple of foreign economists are invited in the sixties by the Lebanese government to figure out what makes the Lebanese economy work. They get to work, dive deep into the figures, check the books, pour themselves over the banking system and talk with leading businessmen. When they have to report their findings after a month, they have to admit that they can’t figure out how the Lebanese economy works, but “whatever it is, don’t change it.”

These guys (working for about $/$500 a month) adda nother floor every 10 days.

That’s what I have to think off quite often when I look at the high rise mushrooming up in my neighborhood. I understand that we were bypassed by the financial crisis that hit the rest of the world because ‘Lebanese financial model, as designed through the years, does not authorize any excess in borrowing or in the acquisition of “toxic products”. (Source)

I also know that we have had some sort of stability for a while now. No Israeli bombing since 2006, no internal fighting since 2008, and yes, I do understand that the Arabs from the Arab peninsula are spending their hard-earned dollars here, and that Lebanese from overseas send money to their families.

They work under almost no safety at all conditions. In Holland, the union would have stopped the work long ago. This is on the 10th floor. No railing, no safety harnesses, no hard hats (well, once you fall down 10 floors, who needs a hard hat?)

But how do you explain 1 million dollar apartments going up, one after the other, when the average university graduate should be happy with a starter's salary of $750 dollar?

I don’t get this. People in my surrounding explain it to me in detail, (some of them raising their voice in annoyance as it seems to be a question I ponder over quite a bit), but I think everyone is just second-guessing, just like those economists from the sixties.
I don’t think anyone can come with hard proof and figures on paper as to why this economy seems to be growing (some 7% in 2009 ), yet people continue to have shitty incomes.

You see this guy here? He’s standing on a piece of wood on the outside of the building. Not a shelf, no, one little stick. He’s 10 floors up and not attached to anything. I find this amazing. In the Sates, in the forties and fifties, they used to employ Native Americans from a certain tribe to build their skyscrapers, as these people apparently had no fear of heights. It wasn’t in their genes. I wonder about these guys.

I tell you why it bothers me. Because these darn apartment buildings are slowly but surely taking over my view from the Mediterranean and blocking my sunset That’s why.