Posted on 02/19/2014 9:41:05 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
Tap water that looks like urine? Soiled toilet paper that you can’t flush? Unfinished hotel rooms? Pillows you have to surrender to the athletes? The most expensive Olympic Winter Games in world history is looking to be waste gone wild in an obscene expenditure of an estimated $51 BILLION, money that could be better spent helping the world’s poor!
“Critics claim that the huge cost of the Games and alleged corruption are evidence of endemic problems,” says the UK GUARDIAN newspaper that points an accusatory finger at Sochi. (1) The huge outlay for the “RusSki Gorki Jumping Centre, $265 million, is more than six times the original estimate of $40 million.” Not getting structures finished on time, construction flaws, out of control costs are making Sochi a sucker punch to athletes, but more sadly, to the world’s poor.
“To me, the balance has gone too far the other way,” said England’s Princess Anne way back in l976 when...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Like the Russians were going to do anything for “the world’s poor.”
They won't care for their own orphans, they aren't going to helping the poor anywhere.
The intent and purpose was to have a resort city to attract tourists after the Olympians left — all paid for by Western capitalists through the Olympic committee.
blah, blah, blah... personally i would not want to live in a city that is hosting the Olympics... but i do enjoy watching some of the events on television... summer and winter...
1) socialism leads to progressive impoverishment, so it does no good in the long run for socialist world leaders to help the poor. They just get poorer.
2) socialism leads to powerlessness of plain citizens. It follows that the government if a socialist country is not and has no reason to be interested in anyone's values but those of its rulers. The only kind of technological developments that a socialist government is interested in are those which are of value to its rulers: above all improvements in weapons production and in the kinds of things that add to the ruler's prestige, such as sputniks or olympic stadiums.
Somebody expected to recover a cost of $51 billion? That's more than the aggregate cost of all previous Winter Olympiads.
Salt Lake City cost $2 billion; Torino, $5 billion; Vancouver, $6.5 billion. Only Salt Lake City made a profit.
Since 1980, the Winter Olympics have lost more than $70 million. Sarajevo 1984 was the first Olympics since the 1932 Summer Olympics to make a profit.
There is no way a $51 billion Winter Olympics was going to be 'all paid for', no way, no how.
I'll guarantee you this that there is no way that these Olympics cost Russia $51 billion even with all the new contruction.
That number is highly inflated. All those facilities over there look cheap and like they are held together with tape.
Putin and his mafia friends pocketed a whole lot of money -- it would be interesting to know how much and how big that check was from the IOC.
I agree whole-heartedly. However, corruption of some amount is a part of anything in which the IOC is involved.
I don't agree the intent was to have the whole thing paid for by Western capitalists through the IOC, not at a cost of $51 billion.
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