Olympics

Hosting the Olympics is like building a regional sports stadium.   A few people benefit but almost everyone else is worse off for the experience.  

Comments

[twitter.com/dethe]

"The Olympics came upon us
Like some kind of curse.
Steal from the poor and give to the rich
Like Robin Hood in reverse."

So far I only have the chorus, but I imagine the rest will write itself over the next few months of living in Vancouver, host of the 2010 Olympics. (Host in the sense of a parasite).

My favourite is when they call the cost overruns "unforeseeable" after they've happened in every Olympics I can remember.

[www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke]

I assume you've seen ChicagoansForRio.com ?

[EN]

The Greeks were very proud of their Olympics. However, they are still paying. Look for Obama's buddies to do very well out of this. Payback, pure and simple.

[twitter.com/interstar]

He. I'm watching the London olympic zone getting built, outside my window.

The only thing I guess you can say in its favour, is that as an economic stimulus package during a recession, it's probably marginally more effective at getting money to the people who need it, than bailing out banksters.

[twitter.com/namhenderson]

Basically it would be a way (not the best for sure) to direct federal funds for infrastructure. The CTA could use it.

[Tangurena]

The "Bird's Nest" in China is vacant and unlikely to ever be used again. Built at great expense, and totally useless.

Chicago is in such sad shape financially that winning the Olympics would mean that the feds would have to bail out the project. They can't afford to run their own parking meters, so they sold that to private companies. They can't afford to run their own toll-road, so those get sold in sweetheart deals to private companies guaranteeing them profits over the duration of the 50 and 99 year deals.

>In June, Mayor Daley drew the ire of the City Council and the community after he did an about-face and said he’d sign the standard Olympic host city contract, one that puts taxpayers on the hook if Chicago wins the 2016 Games and loses on the deal.
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/olympics/1800310,daley-sign-olympic-deal-093009.stng

And from the NYT, an interesting hypothesis for Chicago's loss: that our "security" infrastructure is so messed up that they didn't think that we'd let the contestants and their support staff into the US?
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/chicagos-loss-is-passport-control-to-blame/