How much money Olympics 2012 costs?

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I've heard from China's media that the Olympics London only costs about 75 million pounds (about 1/3 of that of Beijing's), whihc leads to people criticize Beijing for wasting tax payers' money and praise Britan's economy.

But a report just released by NYTimes reveals that:
"In The Guardian, the columnist Marina Hyde said government officials appeared to be rashly depending on the Olympics, which cost an estimated £9.3 billion (or $14.6 billion), to save the country’s struggling economy virtually single-handedly. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/sports/olympics/in-olympic-opening-ceremony-britain-asserts-its-eccentric-identity.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Who has told the truth?

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Your first figures are obviously understated:

Cost of the Beijing Olympics:

The Guardian wrote:

£20bn, including new subway lines, an airport terminal, a light railway, roads and sporting venues. The Olympic stadium, nicknamed the Bird's Nest cost £250m, much of which went on the 41,875 tonnes of steel included in the unusual lattice design

1 Reply

@Strauss,

Thank you.

The title: How much money Olympics 2012 costs?
Can we remove "money" there and the meaning will still be intact?

2 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

How much money Olympics 2012 costs?

Yup, you can remove 'money', Ori. But it would sound more natural with an auxiliary verb.

How much will/did Olympics 2012 cost?

1 Reply

@oristarA,

I think I read someplace that the true cost is over 17 billion.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Bob Costas mentioned in the quickest passing the tough spot of how it looks spending all that money on the olympics, considering all the poor people in the world.

2 Replies

@thack45,

Quote:

considering all the poor people in the world.

Did he mention how the UK and the US have stolen much of that wealth from the poor people in the world, Thack.

Rhetorical question.

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at some point people are going to wise up and realize that spending huge money erecting otherwise unneeded buildings intended to last 50-100 years and adding otherwise unneeded capacity to infrastructure all for a two week event ....is insanity.

PRIDE!????? **** that when the country is otherwise crumbling and the poor are starving. This is on par with the worst of the shows of wealth by the monarchies in the face of the despair of their people before we threw them out and deprived some of their heads.

1 Reply

@thack45,

Not only in the world, but many in London are struggling to eek out a living.

1 Reply

Quote:

. The initial cost estimate for reclaiming contaminated land for the Olympic Park—roughly $1.6 billion—was off by a factor of five, according to one former locog member. Overnight, the $3.9 billion price tag for the entire Olympics, the figure that Tessa Jowell had used to persuade her fellow Cabinet members to come on board, was blown away. In fact, it would cost a full $8 billion just to remediate the real estate, before construction could even begin.

At the time, the O.D.A.’s chief executive was Jack Lemley, a straight-talking septuagenarian from Boise, Idaho, who had overseen construction of the Channel Tunnel. In October 2006, as the O.D.A.’s budget was rapidly spiraling out of control, he resigned as chairman and gave a series of newspaper interviews in which he accused Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone of ignoring the true cost of building the Olympic Park. “They just did not want to hear bad news,” he told one reporter. “A blind man could see there was a huge environmental problem.”

One former locog member believes the I.O.C. should bear some blame for the O.D.A.’s budget travails. The host-city bid process demands detailed operational budgets for the Games, but it gives cities no incentive to use similar diligence on infrastructure costs. “They honestly don’t give a ****,” this person says, referring to the I.O.C. “It’s not going to cost them a penny. It’s all covered by the government.” The budget has kept on climbing. A recent parliamentary report put the cost of preparing for and producing the Games at $18 billion. Jack Lemley believes it will be more than $19.4 billion.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/06/international-olympic-committee-london-summer-olympics

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

struggling to eek out a living

Scared by the mice? (Who are also trying to eke out a living...)

0 Replies

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Quote:
How much money Olympics 2012 costs?

Yup, you can remove 'money', Ori. But it would sound more natural with an auxiliary verb.

How much will/did Olympics 2012 cost?

Thank you JTT.

Is "leads to people criticize Beijing" grammatically correct?
I suspect that it should be "leads to people to criticize Beijing." But the addition of the "to" seems awkward to me.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

I suspect that it should be "leads to people to criticize Beijing." But the addition of the "to" seems awkward to me.

Not just awkard, incorrect.

leads people to criticise Beijing

-or-

leads to people criticising Beijing

Note: -ise (British) -ize (American)

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

PRIDE!????? **** that when the country is otherwise crumbling and the poor are starving.

Is it/are they ****.

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izzy, have you noticed that a lot of Yanks tallk absolute bollocks about Britain? That is if they even get the name right. Not just the idiot Romney. The next one that tells me that Britain is "looking for a role" will have to stick their toothbrush up their arse to clean their teeth.

1 Reply

@contrex,

Hawkeye talks absolute bollocks about almost everything.

Although it was when he compared the Tottenham rioters to the Arab Spring I knew he was a moron.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

I may be talking out of my arse, but all I'm reporting is what I saw from a tv documentary about the olympics. They were all Brits, and they are the ones explaining the issues of spending so much on the olympics vs how many in London are struggling.

In a simple web search, I found this, http://www.ccrmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6895&Itemid=37

Quote:

Debt problems divide London
Thursday, 10 May 2012
London has the most complex personal debt problem in the UK, according to a new report from national debt charity Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS). London in the red analyzes the financial circumstances of the more than 11,000 Londoners who contacted CCCS’s free debt advice helpline in 2011, and shows wide variations in financial difficulty across the city.

I guess not even factual information that's on the tube or on print media is good enough, and we're all arses for pointing them out!

One more thing (if I may); The US has many living in poverty; over 22% of children live without the proper shelter or food. Those are facts that cannot be denied - even by Americans.

3 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

There's a big difference between a nation crumbling with its people starving and people struggling. I said Hawkeye was talking out of his arse as usual, not you.

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@cicerone imposter,

I bet there's plenty of people struggling in New York, they wouldn't have turned down the bid had they got it.

There were people struggling in Beijing, and there's people stuggling in Rio.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Factually, almost all cities who sponsor the olympics have plenty of poor people who do not benefit from such an event.

I've been to Beijing and Rio; miles apart in every way, they both have their good and bad sections of the city, but I've never felt any threat or fear in Beijing.

0 Replies

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