I’m pleased to announce that Audible.com has released Riches Among the Ruins in audiobook form. It’s available for 7.95 with a subscription to Audible, or at the full cover price, and Audible will deliver it in the digital media format of your choice.

So if you prefer to get your books in the car or through your MP3 player, this is definitely the format for you. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

A few tidbits from this weekend. First, the social stuff – the NYPost ran a brief about the comedian Jackie Mason, who graciously accepted my invitation to perform at my 70th birthday this year.

I also ran into Massachusetts Senator John Kerry at an event, pictured here admiring Riches Among the Ruins.

Finally, and more substantively, Barron’s ran quite an in-depth piece on Riches Among the Ruins, Turan Corporation and myself. It goes into my work at Turan with Saleh Daher, and we discuss how to make money in a market with very few bargains.

Unfortunately, registration is necessary – but worthwhile!

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the debt crisis in Dubai. The markets convulsed on news that Dubai World, the huge state-owned corporation which runs many of Dubai’s buildings and investments, might delay or default on its debt payments.

This week creditors, and markets, were relieved to hear that Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate and heart of the federal government of the United Arab Emirates, would bail out Dubai World to the tune of $10 bn and enable Nakheel PJSC, the real estate subsidiary, to pay back a $4 bn sukuk or Islamic bond.

Just as I predicted, Dubai World was too big to fail. The fallout from a default would have poisoned markets across the region and probably irreparably damaged the U.A.E.’s already tainted reputation. Authorities described the Nakheel sukuk as a linchpin of the ongoing debt negotiations, saying ““The whole capital structure was a web of cross-defaults – the only way to calm this was to pay off the sukuk.”

Anyone who bought the sukuk maturing on December 14 when it hit rock bottom at about 48 cents on the dollar made a tidy sum today as it jumped as high as 109.5 on the dollar. Nakheel was widely expected to enter into bankruptcy.

Dubai has always been the public face of the emirate while Abu Dhabi has always held an outsize portion of the oil revenues and thus, the emirates’ wealth. No doubt there will be a degree of control re-asserted over Dubai, although it’s difficult to say what that will entail – more conservative fiscal, religious, and social policies and priorities seem likely.

The city-state also pledged to push for “transparency, good governance and market principles” and passed a new bankruptcy proceedings law.

For now, it looks like Dubai World’s fat has been pulled from the fire. We’ll see how things develop as more of the debts come due.

As an alumnus of Bowdoin, I’ve worked with them a few times and spoken about my work and writing. Here’s a nice profile they ran in their Fall 2009 magazine.

Bowdoin: Is it still necessary for investors like yourself to visit these countries like you did?

Smith: Let me compare it to the CIA gathering intelligence. They’re big on the technical stuff, the satellites and intercepting code and phone messages. But, where they’ve always fallen on the ground is their human intelligence, human intel. I believe that you have to be on the ground speaking to as many people as possible, asking the embarrassing questions to government officials and executives as to where the country is going, what they’re doing, what the economic plan is. It’s similar to applying for admission into Bowdoin, to get an idea of what the College is all about. You can read all the catalogs, listen to all the videos and the promo material that they send out, but unless you are on campus getting a feel and talking to some of the students and professors, you really don’t have an idea of what Bowdoin is all about.

Dubai did its best to drop the bad news into the Bermuda Triangle of reporting – just hours before markets closed for Thanksgiving and the day before the beginning of the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha. Dubai World, the investment vehicle and holding company owned by the government of Dubai, asked all of its creditors for an extension on debt issued by Dubai World and Nakheel, its real estate subsidiary.

Dubai World is inextricably tied to the government of Dubai; everything from ports to investment to real estate in Dubai falls under the umbrella of DW and its 90 subsidiaries. Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum established the company by decree in 2006 and remains the majority stakeholder in the privately-owned company. Obviously, the corporation falls under the category of “too big to fail,” notwithstanding bureaucratic protestations of the company’s independence from the government.

I’ve seen too big to fail before – I thought the same of Russia in 1998, and I paid the price accordingly. More recently, the United States government declared everything from AIG to General Motors too big to fail. If the US can’t let an ailing automaker sink in a recession, it’s difficult to believe that Dubai would let its flagship enterprise implode. Almost exactly a month ago, I wrote about Dubai’s excessive leverage and the foundation of debt on which it was built. Once again, secrecy is a major problem here. The government sends mixed signals on the degree of backing it will provide for DW – one day lending the Dubai banking system money, the next eschewing responsibility. There are many in Abu Dhabi, whose money comes mostly from petroleum and its derivatives, who would not mind seeing Dubai’s speculative excesses humbled. But the prosperity and reputation of the Emirates is inextricable from that of its most famous member.

Dubai’s biggest problem is simple – it is standing at the edge of a long, unsteady beam overlooking a precipice, and there is an increasingly small amount of real money at the other end holding it steady. There is nothing in Dubai that does not require a constant inflow of liquidity to maintain it; the ventilation systems of its high-rises regularly clog with sand, the city needs armies of underpaid laborers to keep it running, and many of the most ambitious developments, like “The World” and the Palm Jumeirah, are finding that building on artificial islands of sand was perhaps less secure than they had imagined. In many ways, Dubai’s physical reality reflects its fiscal condition – supported with more ambition than common sense.

The consequences of DW’s financial woes will echo into many corners of the world, from subcontinental slums to the marbled halls of European and British banks. India alone estimates that almost 340,000 migrant workers received employment in Dubai and all Indian workers in the city-state sent back $43.5 billion in remittances last year. Conditions are infamously atrocious in Emirate construction companies; many workers have had their passports confiscated, been forced to live in squalid compounds and received far less pay than promised. The article above details how one crew was fired by text message while travelling home for the Eid al-Adha holiday.

On the other side of the scale, Credit Suisse estimates that perhaps half of Dubai’s $80 billion in debt is held by European banks, with Standard Chartered and HSBC the most exposed. These holdings probably won’t be wiped out – Abu Dhabi may let its neighbor take a few hits around the face, but they won’t tolerate a knockout blow. Witness the government’s statement that it would bail out Dubai’s commitments  ”on a case-by-case basis.”

Dubai World’s website still sports the fate-tempting slogan “The Sun Never Sets on Dubai World.” Unfortunately, as history teaches, the sun did set on the British Empire.