Admittedly, I’ve been over 4000 kilometres away from the frenzy on Robson Street for the last two weeks and more. Nevertheless, I still can’t buy into the new found enthusiasm for the Olympics. True, the men’s hockey final was spectacular, and I enjoyed it as much as anyone, celebrating with a margarita at a favourite bar looking out to Isla Carmen in the Sea of Cortez. It’s just I don’t go along with those who say the Olympics were worth it, whatever they cost.
I would feel better about that benefit-cost assessment if government at any level had been willing to fess up to the costs. But that accounting is yet to be done. I would also find it more compelling if the economic arguments put forward to justify the Games were not so patently false. The Games, much like our own Liberal and U.S. Republican tax cuts, do not pay for themselves. There are positive impacts and enduring infrastructure from the Olympics, but there is no credible evidence that they have a value anywhere what they cost.
I know economics really is a dismal science, and not much of a science at that, but if there is one thing that it teaches us is that there are opportunity costs. A dollar (or several billion as the case may be) invested for one thing cannot be invested elsewhere.
Street parties are great. Crazy booming business even if limited in time and space can be pretty good too. But in the end what do we have. And what could we have had if we committed anywhere near the same resources to something else. That is the question we have yet to seriously address.
It’s too late for us. You can’t undo what has been spent and done. But you certainly can help those in other countries make more informed choices, especially those in poorer countries that can less easily mask their mistakes.
Milena // Mar 1, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I completely echo that sentiment…I’ve tried to keep mostly quiet about spending critique on my social networking site of choice (those be our real lives now….but that’s another story) but after an earlier conversation where a FB friend said “At least we got better transportation and highways out of this deal” and I replied “How is it that we got that *because* of the Olympics? Could we not have invested in that anyway – with plenty leftover to continue funding the arts, public sectors and social programs??” Anyways…yesterday I posted that I enjoyed Canada’s gold win in men’s hockey, and said friend retorted right away “oh, so now you like the Olympics” … The point is…I wish people didn’t think so simplistically about that. How is disagreeing with the spending of billions of my tax dollars the *opposite* of supporting sports?
But the author is right, this isn’t just a Vancouver issue. The Olympics are an event disproportionately grand in celebration of something that should be equal to many other social or cultural pursuits. Where is the arts Olympics? The history or mathematics Olympics. Well, the reality is, having a public party is great but with the power to completely bankrupt a city or even an entire small country it is fundamentally unsustainable and actually has to come to an end. I can see many developing nations’ economies being lured by the grandiose promise of the Olympics, only to be set back another decade in their frail growth. Let Vancouver show them that this two-week binge on something as arbitrary as elite sports is a bitter-sweet pill.
Iglika Ivanova // Mar 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm
An article in the February issue of BC Business Magazine opens with this pertinent quote:
“You can count on three things being true with the Winter Olympics: the initial cost estimates for staging the Games will be underestimated, the Games will almost certainly lose money and organizers will claim they made a profit.
Yet all this appears to be forgotten every four years when a new city hosts the Winter Games, which on a per capita basis actually cost more to put on than their summer equivalent.”
Read more: http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/sponsored/2010-winter-games/2011/02/03/ten-debt-sentences#ixzz0gLA64hYR
Why weren’t they writing these kinds of articles back in 2003 when the bid was being considered? And if this stuff is common knowledge, then why are so many cities/countries willing to bend over backwards in order to host the Olympics?
Nadine // Mar 3, 2010 at 11:14 am
I think it is important to remember that while most people do lose, there are some big winners. And those big winners are the ones that push heavily for the games. Amongst the big winners I would like to include the Harper government that is more popular than before the whole proroguation issue.
I heard the statement that “no one told us to be patriotic. No corporatation or government told us to feel this way.” I beg to differ. So the Bay didn’t sell mittens, toques, scarves and gloves to increase a feeling to patriotism? Coke didn’t plaster cheering, happy, patriotic (ethically diverse) faces all over every surface they could find?
And why exactly is it a good thing to be patriotic? What truly tangible benefit is there as a result?