Posted on 10/01/2009 5:56:11 PM PDT by Tunaofthemall
That’s it? The best they can get on this guy is to catch him temporarily mistaking one Canadian city for another? Gee, I hope he doesn’t say it was the Edmonton Olympics next time, he might get arrested for such a serious offense.
muawiyah wrote:
The Calgary Winter Olympics ended up with a $919 million debt.
Was it that much? Do you have a reliable source for that number?
I have numerous sources for the official "profit" which was most often quoted at $90 million, though at times was reported up to as much as $150 million. Not sure if those figures are USD or CAD, though at the time $150CAD was close to $90USD.
As for what was left out of the official figure, according to wikipedia (not always a 100% reliable source), that article from February 8, 1999 says the organizers removed or overlooked $461 million in subsidies. I haven't paid the fee, but the Toronto Star still has their article from 1999 on their web site. I can read it for a one time $3.95.
Doing the math, $90 Million alleged profit less $461 million in overlooked subsidies makes a net loss of $371 million. That's less than half of you claim. What makes up the rest of that loss?
| From the desk of cc2k: |
Sitting in my gun-free Chicago bungalow, all I can say is:
Rio 2016!!!
Don’t be silly. Of course not.
My point was that Beck is over the target if he is taking flack, and I’ve noticed posters who registered years ago, but haven’t really used their accounts.
Just trying to keep us safe, Friend.
It's quite easy to find the numbers. Just do a google.com search for calgary, Montreal, etc ~ all the names in my paragraph on the matter, and add olympics and debt.
There's actually quite a bit more on the matter than that old pre-internet stuff from the early 90s.
Same thing. Eh?
: o /
Hey, it’s Ci-cago, it’s not the profit, it’s the kickbacks, the payoffs.
muawiyah wrote:
Just do a google.com search for calgary, Montreal, etc ~ all the names in my paragraph on the matter, and add olympics and debt.
I have spent 10 to 15 minutes googling various combinations of "Calgary" "Olympics" "profit" and "loss." And my previous posts outlined what I had found.
Based on the first 10 to 15 minutes of research, I said Beck was still wrong by nearly a factor of 3. This even after his "correction" today. You are the one who replied to that post telling me that, no, the losses for Calgary were $919 million (still not quite a billion, but I would give Glenn the rounding on that number). So, I went back and spent another 15 to 20 minutes, adding "919 million" and various other numbers to the searches. Still, I can't find anyplace where the losses for Calgary Olympics are anywhere close to that. $371 million is about the highest number I can get to, and that is assuming the combination of the worst numbers I can find.
Your claim is still about 2 1/2 time higher than any numbers I can find. Nothing personal, but based on the research I've done, I think you are mistaken with that $919 number. And I still think that Glenn Beck grossly overstated the losses, even if he meant Calgary instead of Vancouver. Either that, or maybe he meant Montreal instead of Calgary (instead of Vancouver). Yeah, that's the ticket, Montreal, that's what he meant to say when he issued his correction.
The problem here is that Glenn Beck is losing credibility with people who actually check up on what they hear. I’m a fan of his. I’ve been listening for years on the radio, and watching since he moved to Fox. But he has an annoying way of getting his facts mixed up at times. It isn’t when he’s reading the news from a story. But when he is giving commentary and telling stories or giving examples off the cuff to support his positions, that is when his “facts” often don’t check out. This has always happened with him, but it seems to be getting worse lately.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
I knew that he had mis-spoke about Vancouver, since of course that one doesn’t happen until next year. But I figured he had just mis-identified the city, when in fact it was Montreal that had ended up with a big deficit. I didn’t even think about Calgary.
It’s interesting to find out that so many other cities have lost so much money on the Olympics. I haven’t looked into that before. Makes you wonder why any city would want this plague on their finances. I read somewhere today that Chicago expects a 4.4 billion dollar income from the games.
That sounds like a big number, except when you find out that London has so far spent over 20B dollars on their olympics venues.
Makes you wonder why anybody wants these games anymore?
There is nothing too trivial for 0bama to lie about.
That's easy in Chicago's case. They fully expect Obama to "fund" it for them if they win it. Money for Daley - the MOST corrupt political family in the history of the United States.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Sports/After+Olympics+comes+debt/1173859/story.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/july-dec09/olympics_10-01.html
I just posted a reference to Athens that was left with a $17 billion debt. Hadn't even thought of them either! Someone may well need to do some additional study of course, but $17 billion would seem to be more than the combined losses of all the other "modern" Olympics!
Glenn's fact checkers had such a plentiful resource of losers to pick from I'm surprised he didn't say "Athens" and be done with it.
Please, if you can find a definitive study that shows that anyone has made money on these suckers in modern times please give us a ringydingy, OK?!?
A synopsis of my positions on this goes like this:
I generally follow the general rule that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear from anyone. If it doesn’t make sense, or if you know it to be wrong, it doesn’t matter who said it, it is still wrong. For sources that haven’t earned my trust (which at this point includes Glenn Beck many times), I don’t believe anything unless 1) I actually saw it with my own eyes and I’m sure about it or 2) I have verified it myself with reliable sources.
Which brings me to your $919 Million loss claim for Calgary, and the sources you gave me to support that. Two of those links didn’t even have any details about Calgary. The PBS story actually says Calgary had a surplus, but didn’t include security and indirect costs in the final total.
The final site, 2010watch said $910 million in debt (not losses) for Calgary. But that page also contained information about one city (not Calgary) which I have fairly detailed personal knowledge of, and that page either exaggerates or misstates the situation in that city. A close professional acquaintance of mine lives there, and did work for the Organizing Committee. I sent this person your link, and asked about the information shown on that page. While this person can’t divulge details, and it has been some time since the events in question, they did tell me that "fantasy.html" was a fitting name for the page there. Finally, that site is an issue oriented site with a definite position on issues surrounding the Olympics. They could be exaggerating things or even making deliberate misstatements to support their position.
This is my final post on this topic. I think we've beaten this dead horse enough.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
“Forget it, he’s rolling.”
Then, the local taxpayers get to cover the "LOSS".
No sense playing semantics ~ $910 million is a lot of bucks to still owe after having gotten the last scheckel out of the fans.
Regarding Glenn Beck and his "fact checkers", he's discussing ideas ~ and whether it was Calgary with it's billion dollar loss (and was that Canadian or US?) or Athens with its 17 billion dollars in debt left over after the games, a whole big bunch of these games appear to lose money and leave the locals holding the bag.
Beck's point was made with a near hit ~ your point is lost with a total miss.
Regarding Obama's trip to the committee to pitch a fanciful tale on behalf of Chicago he was up against international news stories showing a gang of Chicago's thugs beating a top student to death with 2X4s.
Jesus would have had a hard time making the pitch under those conditions ~ Obama is no Jesus!
White House Blog says Glenn Beck was giving “disinformation.” The Vancouver winter Olympics won’t even happen until 2010.Isn't this really a matter of ... perspective?
Between fortune telling, remote viewing, time travel, time dilation, planning by the Bilderbergers, ANYTHING is possible ...
/sarc
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