As economies crumble, most people are working through the five stages of grief, hovering somewhere between anger (it's not fair) and the final phase of acceptance (I can't fight it). But these people clearly don't live in Dubai, a place that can't seem to get past stage one: denial.
They say that the credit crisis has already reached these shores. Banks have stopped lending, house prices are plunging and financial collapse lies just around the corner — but in Dubai, the road to Armageddon appears to be paved with gold.
This city-state is home to 20 per cent of the world's cranes, with no visible signs of the construction boom slowing. Work is at a frenetic pace on the £2.5 billion metro system. Cutbacks in consumer spending? Not at the new Dubai Mall. It's boasted record crowds since it was launched this month.
Dubai is a place where even those of us of relatively modest means can live in a bubble. The morning after covering the $20 million (£13 million) party for the opening of the Atlantis resort, I complained to my husband how out of touch with economic reality the celebrations seemed. He laughed.
I had sneaked him in with our daughter, Annie, to spend the day at the pool. I was sipping champagne as he smoked a cigar in the shallow end. Lindsay Lohan was on a sunlounger near by. Annie had spent the morning swimming with dolphins. It was a world away from the bleakness of the credit crunch, sub-prime mortgages and the like.
