The Glitch Games

[steelrules]

It took Quebec 30 years to pay off the 1.5 to 2 billion debt of the 76 olympics.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story ... adium.html

I wonder how long 6 billion will take BC to pay off???
Will this be a have not province?

[LoneWolf_53]

Well they've generated almost 2 billion already according to the radio today so do you guys have some actual numbers and breakdowns or is it just good shock and awe tactics to keep using the 6 billion figure?

[Al Czervic]

Well they've generated almost 2 billion already according to the radio today so do you guys have some actual numbers and breakdowns or is it just good shock and awe tactics to keep using the 6 billion figure?

Keep in mind the $6 Billion also includes infrastructure like the Canada Line and the long overdue Sea to Sky upgrades as well. The anti-Olympic bashers will include these infrastructure costs to inflate the cost of the Olympics’ to try and better promote their point that it is all a huge waste of money. The bigger the bill the bigger the point type of thinking.

They will of course ignore that that these important infrastructure projects not only needed to get built and will have long term economic benefits we also got additional Federal tax dollars to help build them. That discretionary federal money that usually only ends up in Quebec.

[steelrules]

Yes there was infrastructure in Montreal as well.

[LoneWolf_53]

Well they've generated almost 2 billion already according to the radio today so do you guys have some actual numbers and breakdowns or is it just good shock and awe tactics to keep using the 6 billion figure?

Keep in mind the $6 Billion also includes infrastructure like the Canada Line and the long overdue Sea to Sky upgrades as well. The anti-Olympic bashers will include these infrastructure costs to inflate the cost of the Olympics’ to try and better promote their point that it is all a huge waste of money. The bigger the bill the bigger the point type of thinking.

They will of course ignore that that these important infrastructure projects not only needed to get built and will have long term economic benefits we also got additional Federal tax dollars to help build them. That discretionary federal money that usually only ends up in Quebec.

I heard that explained quite well by an economist on the radio today who was basically questioning the Olympic opposition and their creative mathematics skills.

See this post for the gist of what I heard............ viewtopic.php?f=65&t=23745&p=647260#p647260

[Al Czervic]

Yes there was infrastructure in Montreal as well.

That is true....

The Olympics myth

People think the Games are a drain on taxpayers - that's simply not true

FreelanceFebruary 9, 2010

We have grown up with a myth in Canada that Olympic Games are a huge drain on the public purse.

This simply is not true. It was not true in 1976, which is the source of the persistent perception - I am willing to bet that a majority of readers believe that the Montreal Olympics cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.

The key is to separate expenses directly related to the staging of the Games from infrastructure investments that would have been made whether or not the Games were held. The problem with the Montreal Games was that the city never separated its infrastructure budget from the Olympic budget. All of the expenditures were lumped into the Olympic budget.

The Olympic "deal" was that the City of Montreal would make an Olympic stadium and certain other sports facilities available to the Olympic Organizing Committee for a period immediately before and during the Games - about two months. The useful life of these facilities will be 50 years or more.

Should the entire capital cost of these facilities be charged against the two-week event of the Games? Of course not. No first-year accounting student could fail to appreciate a reasonable allocation of the costs to the Games, with the balance attributable to the City of Montreal. What about the extension of the métro line and the expansion of the road system? A Games expenditure? Of course not.

One might, with good reason, question some of the city's decisions regarding the facilities used for the Games. A few, such as the Olympic Stadium, were ruinously expensive. But all decisions were made the City of Montreal, not the Olympic organizers, who did not need or request the stunning but unnecessary architectural masterpiece that resulted.

The city's project-management abilities were also unequal to the task and the province was forced to step in to take over management of the construction to meet the Olympic deadlines. Added to this was the failure of the city to have lined up the intergovernmental financing and to have reached some form of agreement with the notoriously militant Quebec unions.

From the Olympic perspective, however, even having to pay for Olympic installations - properly the responsibility of the city - the Montreal organizing committee had a larger profit per capita than the much-vaunted Los Angeles Games in 1984. In fact, had the federal government not been in such a rush to turn over the Olympic lottery to the provinces, the profits from the lottery would have proved Jean Drapeau correct when he said that the Olympics could no more have a deficit than a man have a baby.

I often hear people say, while rolling their eyes knowingly, that it took Montreal 30 years to pay for the Olympic stadium. There was certainly a bond issue for the purpose, with a 30-year amortization, and it was eventually paid off. This is a completely standard manner for the financing of public projects. I don't know about you, but I had a mortgage when I first bought a house and paid that off over a number of years. In the meantime, I lived for all those years in a house which I did not have enough money to purchase for cash.

The IOC had nine cities vying to host the 2012 Summer Games. Were the mayors of all of these cities certifiably mad? We reduced the preliminary list to five: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris, in a hard-fought contest eventually won by London. What was "in it" for these cities?

Hosting the Games provides a unique opportunity for a country or city to undertake major improvements to infrastructure that might not otherwise be possible. The beauty of the Olympics is that the dates are set seven years in advance, to the day and hour, and once launched, there is no turning back. The projects are not subject to the political vacillation so typical of democratic societies.

London has been trying, since the end of the Second World War, to have a comprehensive development of its East End. The Olympic project provides the long-sought stimulus. If you look at reports in the British media about escalating costs (always with the implication that the Olympics are out of control) you will see that, instead, it is an expansion of the development of the whole area. The Olympic-related costs are under control. It is the investment opportunity that is being maximized.

Well-planned Olympic projects can revitalize the host cities, as we have seen in Seoul, Barcelona and Athens, each with its national peculiarities, but each of which was transformed by the Olympics. I do not hold up Athens as a model for project planning, other than for the eventual outcome, since it demonstrated many of the shortcomings of Montreal, with late construction and political machinations. But the fact remains that the city is much better served with infrastructure, including a new airport and a road system that eases some of the former gridlock.

[LoneWolf_53]

Yes there was infrastructure in Montreal as well.

It's very telling how you whiners manage to instantly dismiss anything that makes a valid argument against your perception of how things are.

The sea to sky highway and the Canada Line were going to get built anyway so how pray tell do you critics justify adding them to the cost of the Olympics which is a 17 day event yet you'll be using those items for the next hundred years.

Also though I don't have numbers it appears to me that some of the other venues were specifically designed to be viable business entities long after the games have come and gone.

I'm sure the Richmond Oval will continue to get used and likely not for free.

The sliding center has also been used before the Olympics and will undoubtedly continue on afterward.

Yes the Olympics cost money but you guys are just going wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond dramatic.

[animal lover1]

How did the glitches at the start of the games get turned into a debate on the budget for the games????

[LoneWolf_53]

How did the glitches at the start of the games get turned into a debate on the budget for the games????

Easy, the whiners are jumping from thread to thread regurgitating the same tired rhetoric.

[steelrules]

How did the glitches at the start of the games get turned into a debate on the budget for the games????

Easy, the whiners are jumping from thread to thread regurgitating the same tired rhetoric.

At least we didn't drink the Government feed Kool aid.

[steven lloyd]

Some excellent points from everyone so far. It’s nice to see some intelligent well thought out points instead of the usual negative bashing for a change.

Easy, the whiners are jumping from thread to thread regurgitating the same tired rhetoric.

Getting harder and harder to tell the whiners apart, no matter how creative some get in trying to pretend they’re something they are not.

[LoneWolf_53]

Getting harder and harder to tell the whiners apart, no matter how creative some get in trying to pretend they’re something they are not.

Oh no worries, here, let me help you.

Queen K was kind enough to list them in this post...............

Be right back gotta run out and get a crying towel.

Is that because you finally saw the truth of what Damngrumpy, CatEyes, Grumpydigger, Steven Lloyd, Old Bush-man, myself and many others have been saying this whole time?


Better get a bathtowel. You'll need it.

[Queen K]

LoneWolf, you've twisted and misconstrued my post, but no matter, your crying towel awaits. Personally, I think the Olympics have galvenized many people to look at real funding issues, rather than skip over them quickly with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other.

[LoneWolf_53]

LoneWolf, you've twisted and misconstrued my post, but no matter, your crying towel awaits. Personally, I think the Olympics have galvenized many people to look at real funding issues, rather than skip over them quickly with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other.

I think many of these same people are blind to the many positive things that funds have been spent on and whether you agree with it or not infrastructure is required and it does need to be paid for.

I'm sure my tax dollars during my time on this earth have gone to pay for things that were built or planned before my arrival and worst case scenario if my kids have to pay toward the debt created by the Sea to Sky highway then so be it that's sort of how our system works.

Besides they'll benefit from it.

I see far more younger generation ones in clips of the Olympics on TV than anything else.

They seem to be enjoying it though rather than spending their time complaining.

Though I posted it for Steven in fun I fail to see just how you figure I twisted your post since I made no changes to it whatsoever?

I swear you whiners are too much sometimes with your twisted logic, over dramatization, and creative manner of making a point be it accurate or not.

[flamingfingers]

LoneWolf, you've twisted and misconstrued my post, but no matter, your crying towel awaits. Personally, I think the Olympics have galvenized many people to look at real funding issues, rather than skip over them quickly with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other.

Lone Wolf is very good at that. And while he and Al espouse that "these infrastructure plans were in the works", it was the prospect of the Owelympics that forced these plans to come to fruition. And probably to much greater cost because of time constraints. If the Owelympics ACTUALLY break even I will be prepared to shoot my own crow and eat it. However, to get an actual accounting that is truthful would be an impossible task from THIS government, so I can rest assured that I need not break out my shotgun and the crows around here can rest easy.