Posted on 09/22/2016 11:47:01 AM PDT by C19fan
At least L.A. probably wouldn’t need to build much. But a permanent Athens site - and maybe Switzerland for the Winter Games - makes too much sense to ever be adopted.
After Rio I think we should eliminate all pretense and just have all water sports help in a slurry of poop and hypodermic needles, interspersed with floating sofas and human body parts.
Green water is so last year. Brown water is where it’s at, amigo.
Instead of focusing on just expense overruns (although the article does pay brief lip service to income) the formula should be
Expense - (income + residual value) = actual loss.
Or, as I pointed out
actual (gain) or loss + corruption = taxpayer pain
While the actual expense vs projected expense is evidence of either incompetence or corruption, it has no direct impact on the taxpayers. Squeeze out the corruption, and most of the games would probably break even or be modest money makers.
I’m sure somebody makes money, but taxpayers are scrutinizing it more closely because they realize they are simply getting the bill (with no return/gain). When we had the Super Bowl here in NJ a few years ago, local towns were furious because they got nothing out of it; I doubt it will be here again (it was only here as an NFL concession for building a new Giants Stadium).
Remember the lawsuits after the Atlanta summer Olympics, when black people who bought vending licenses complained the city then directed the athletes and tourists elsewhere (rather than have them venture into the ‘hood)? I don’t recall how that was ever resolved...
Whether the results would be the same this time around, the 1984 Olympics was a huge financial success for the city. It didn’t cost the taxpayers much, if anything, the traffic was incredibly light, smog was down. It was a great two weeks!
The way potential sites are withdrawing bids, I just don’t believe there is much gain for the location itself anymore. I don’t know the dynamics behind it.
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