“Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin,” predicted former Venezuelan Oil Minister and OPEC co-founder Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, giving voice to what became an established phenomenon, the resource curse, when countries that should be wealthy from the large scale exports of valuable minerals become mired in poverty instead. Dubai knew all too well the legacy of the curse, and took caution investing proceeds from their sales. Even so, their investments have not been trouble-free.

On this day, December 14, in 2009, due to the global financial crisis, Dubai World, the country’s holding company for many of its investments, received a bailout loan of $10 billion from its neighbor in the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi.

Dubai, to make up for their dwindling oil supplies, borrowed $80 billion to buy office buildings and build private islands for the super-rich. Financial analysts considered the country impervious to the financial shocks in Europe and the U.S., but if not for the Abu Dhabi intervention, they would have defaulted on a $4.1 billion bond payment. Abu Dhabi likely got, in return, interest in Dubai’s many landmark properties and its oil fields.