The story goes that the outlaw John Dillinger was asked why he robbed banks.

He allegedly replied: “Because that’s where the money is.”

That pretty much is the answer 7 million expatriates in the United Arab Emirates might give, if asked why they are in the UAE.

The National did a story today about an emerging trend in the UAE:

Expats who had left the UAE are coming back.

Certainly, anyone from the United States can understand this. The U.S. economy remains flat, or worse. Yanks tend to come over here thinking “a couple of years, then I’ll go back after things turn around back there.”

The turnaround hasn’t happened yet.

Just as it hasn’t in western Europe, or in North Africa.

Pretty much all the expatriates here plan to go “home” … and some actually do it, only to find out that jobs are nonexistent, or the pay is far less. And this disturbing concept of sales taxes and income taxes often intrudes.

(To repeat: No income taxes or sales taxes in the UAE. Yes. A person can get used to that.)

So, some of them come back. Maybe even more would come back if they could find work.

Before we live, after we come back … when asked why we are here, we can quote Dillinger … or we could quote Al Pacino from Grandfather III. “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!”