News out of the UAE yesterday that really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Late Wednesday, Dubai World (the largest corporate entity) asked creditors for a six month reprieve on paying its $60 billion in debt.

You’ll remember that Dubai thrived during the last ten years due to the infusion of billions of dollars on financial infrastructure and tourist destinations like the indoor snow ski facility, the Palms and World man-made islands.

Since the current economic conditions don’t really facilitate a healthy tourism industry, and many financial firms are on the rails already, it’s not surprising that Dubai is struggling.

The news is having global impact on financial and equity markets.

In the U.S., the Dow was down more than 220 points today at the opening bell, the S&P 500 was down 2.3% and the Nasdaq declined 2.6%.

In Asia, the Hang Seng Index was down just under 5% and the Nikkei 225 was down just over 3%.  Combined, this made up the worst single-day percentage declines for those markets since March of this year.

The news out of Dubai suggests that we’re no where close to being out of the economic mess we’re in.

Finance