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By scotty
#315726
if anyone is on my Facebook, I am sure my rant will annoy some people about the Olympics. I have preferred the opening ceremony to the closing one so far


Haha, i was gonna post it here saying that you've exactly summed up my own feelings about everything. It was indeed brilliant don't get me wrong, but absolutely not worth the utterly ludicrous cost. £367,000 a minute? How very sad. :banghead::(
User avatar
By Jabberwocky
#315728
The Olympics has been like a firework show, it was good but was it worth the money. nine billion pounds, for 17 days worth of disruption to our once great nations capital. 367 thousand pounds a minute it has cost the Public purse to put the event on. Lucky the country has loads of money to throw around, and not had to cut back on services that we need like the NHS, Pensions, and the armed forces to name but a few.
#315735
When all is said and done, the money taken in goes a hell of a long way towards paying off the money spent. I don't think any country hosting a modern Olympic has broken even but there are intangibles and from what I've gathered a massive revitalization of areas that will keep contributing to the economy. Anyone that has specifics chime in since I haven't delved too deep into the financial nitty gritty of it all.

Think of it like the Hollywood starlet that has to spend a few thousand on a boob job and a portfolio and tape in order to get her career kick started. :wink:
User avatar
By Jabberwocky
#315738
I wonder what the complete cost is, as that is just what it cost the public. from memory people like travelodge paid for the accommodation so that it can be a hotel etc. The rest of it is to be used as sports training grounds.

I just hope it does not turn out to be a fiasco like the millennium dome
User avatar
By darwin dali
#315739

Think of it like the Hollywood starlet that has to spend a few thousand on a boob job and a portfolio and tape in order to get her career kick started. :wink:

:whip::whip::yes::twisted::cloud9:
#315761
When all is said and done, the money taken in goes a hell of a long way towards paying off the money spent. I don't think any country hosting a modern Olympic has broken even but there are intangibles and from what I've gathered a massive revitalization of areas that will keep contributing to the economy. Anyone that has specifics chime in since I haven't delved too deep into the financial nitty gritty of it all.

Think of it like the Hollywood starlet that has to spend a few thousand on a boob job and a portfolio and tape in order to get her career kick started. :wink:


The money from ticket sales and merchandise goes straight back to LOCOG, until they've pretty much levelled out their £2M outlay, so no, the money taken directly in from those areas won't cover the rest. Broadcast rights go to the IOC centrally, and they pay a small percentage of that to LOCOG again, from memory it's something like £400M.

As you've said though - you simply can't look at only the costs and initial outlay, that is quite frankly an idiotic and heavily blinkered way to look at things. Doing so would be no different than looking at the amount, say, ASDA or Tesco spend on production and packaging and saying 'they spend £XBn a year, they must be making an incredible loss!' without actually bothering to take into account that they then sell their goods...

With the Olympics, many of the venues created will continue to be used and bring in money on an ongoing basis, continually paying rent, rates, VAT, PAYE and various other taxes. Those that are sold will recoup a substantial chunk of money in a lump sum. Many of the venues will result in ongoing or future employment linked to those that will again, continually contribute to the economy. There are other intangibles that will make a contribution, such as current and future tourism, spending in the local and wider areas. Plus, developments in many areas including investment in new rolling stock for public transport and other areas of infrastructure was badly needed anyway, and would have to have been carried out at some point in the near future anyway, so although a linked cost, again is something that was necessary in any case.

No, not all of the gains will be instant (although a certain amount will be), but the last I checked on the predicted figures, one of the major banks (I can't remember if it was the Bank of England or Lloyds), had predeicted that the drip feed from the Olympics will last for something like 5 years before it dries up, and that the actual income to the economy will be circa £16Bn - i.e. substantially more than the estimated £9Bn - £11Bn outlay.

As I say, you simply can't look at it in a short term, spend only way, that's just ridiculous.
User avatar
By myownalias
#315766
zurich_allan, you really are the voice of reason, before reading your post, I would have gone along with Jabberwocky's summation of the Olympics, having not watched a single event or ceremony during the past two weeks, it really didn't interest me in the slightest.
#315769
it really didn't interest me in the slightest.


What about if there was an Olympics held in Kansas? Kansas 2024? :D
User avatar
By Frontrunner
#315771
The Australian media is now going to have a field day on Australia's lack of gold from the games and the media will claim it as a failure, IMO I think the aussies did okay in general, thought we were lucky to get the amount of medals we did actually. But probably the hardest hit by our Media will be the swim team, only the one gold from the swim events when we expect a few of our gold from the pool, USA and others has really up there game in swimming in the last few years and has left Australia behind in theie wake at both Beijing and London games.

Looking forward to tomorrow's paper and see how much of a bashing our swimmers will get.
#315772
it really didn't interest me in the slightest.


What about if there was an Olympics held in Kansas? Kansas 2024? :D

Events would include;
Abortion clinic bombings
Abortion clinic picketing
Killing doctors who perform abortion
Meth labs (although they'd come in second to Missouri)
American Football
Hunting

You gotta get the hell out of the MOA.

:hehe:
By LRW
#315785
Love this by Team GB:

[youtube]aYtpL5YhWOQ[/youtube]

[crude]She is not my usual type, but recently Ive really had the hots for Victoria Pendleton. I would bang her, every which way possible[/crude]
#315789
The Spice Girls huh... all the great music in the opening ceremonies and they close with the Spice Girls. :hehe:
By LRW
#315791
The Spice Girls huh... all the great music in the opening ceremonies and they close with the Spice Girls. :hehe:


Ill be honest - I found the closing ceremony quite dull, and was a bit of a let down compared to the opening, and the rest of the games. The best bit was Elbow performing 'One Day like This' whilst the athletes come out. Such a powerful song.
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