Posted on 12/01/2016 4:11:16 PM PST by SMGFan
Three months since the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, the “marvelous city,” as it’s known, is unraveling. The state of Rio is broke. It hasn’t been able to pay its bills since long before the games. A federal bailout kept police on the streets and hospitals open while Olympics tourists were in town. But now the money has dried up, and public employees aren’t being paid.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Chicago is already broke, and has been for years. Actually the entire State of Illinois is bordering on being bankrupt. If Chicago had won the Summer Olympics bid it would be even further down the rat hole. Look at the teachers union and municipal employees unfunded liabilities are killing the state coffers
[Send Jill Stein there to recount the medals.]
First, Jill will need 5, no 7 million dollars.
DONATE NOW!!
LA now has bid on the 2024 Games. All those facilities still exist, in addition to many built since: e.g., Staples Center, USC's Galen Center, CSULB's Pyramid, rail-commuting lines, etc.
If LA is awarded those Games and performs similarly, the impetus might grow for LA staging them either permanently or every-other Olympics.
it spread a bunch of rio’s diseases all around the world.
De Silva’s legacy. More socialist FAIL ...
Did they ever get that couch and all the tons of debris out of the bay?
>> LA’s existing freeway system enabled easy commuting to events (fears of gridlock proved groundless, as residents reworked their commuting in accommodation). <<
“One of the most legendary tales of the 1984 Olympics was that people were so afraid of getting trapped in one of LA’s famous traffic jams that everyone stayed home or left town, allowing athletes and spectators to zip around town on empty roads.” http://gizmodo.com/give-the-olympics-to-los-angeles-1720530089
They refer to this as a “tale,” but i was living and working as an advertising sales rep in LA and Orange Counties in 1984. I can tell you that is was no “tale.” Area residents did stay home. Many businesses initiated telecommuting during that time. Event ticket sales did not meet projections because tourists were afraid of both transportation issues and scared off by news reports about the lack of hotel vacancies and exorbitant costs. After the fact, Ueberroth was hailed as a hero for actually showing a profit on the games itself, but the owners of hotels, motels, car rentals, eateries and so one saw only decreased profitability during the Olympics. Even the tourism they normally enjoyed for venues like Disneyland were depressed. The only people who benefit from the Olympic Games is the OIC. I wouldn’t welcome the Olympics to any city where I live.
Some enterprising economist should to an analysis of the economic performance of countries that have hosted modern Olympic games compared to other countries which have not.
I would wager, dollars to donuts, that the economic health and growth of host countries has been measurably reduced by the hosting of these games.
I can attest to the same. My fiancee (now wife of 30+ years) and I attended a play and were driving through the empty city streets. While we sat waited for a light, police cars passed through the intersection ahead of us, followed by the Olympic Torch entourage. We hadn’t even paid attention to the Olympics, and it was pretty surreal, but something we’ll never forget. Best LA trip ever.
I, too, can vouch for reduced 1984 traffic. Were LA to become a (semi)quadrennial site, it’s likely that familiarity would soon enable equilibrium to develop so that competing businesses could still prosper despite the temporary shenanigans, in some cases by developing competitive coping strategies.
Diversity is so cool
it was behind the green curtain. /s
What nation really wants to host the Olympics? This happens EVERY freaking time. And I mean EVERY time.
At what point do people learn?
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