Flanneruk: I recently read that a London Olympic organizer claimed that for every pound spend on the London Olympics, the UK will get back 4 pounds! I'd enjoy your take on this and always and sincerely love reading your extremely well articulated and thought-provoking remarks, even though i rarely agree with the jest of them. Do you think the Dome will finally 'pay off' with Olympics use or will it remain one of 'Tony's Follies'.

He would, wouldn't he?

As far as I'm aware, there have only been two Olympics since WW2 that sensible economists can demonstrate gave any quantifiable return: London 1948 (where we spent nothing) and LA (where they spent next to nothing and zonked the sponsors). There isn't a shred of evidence, last week's Economist concluded, London 2012 will be any different.

We (unless the terrorists blitz us to death) have no need for the profile-raising that gave more complex behefits to many Olympic cities. Nor of course do Paris or New York, which is why this year's contest was so completely bizarre.

The reason some sensible Londoners are pro the Olympics - that it will give us decent transport - is simply untrue. New transport spending is either already committed, or is going merely on a fast train from the centre to Stratford (of no long term use to anyone except the poor sods doomed to live in London's ugliest part) and on Soviet-style dedicated traffic lanes for Olympic officials and government ministers. The roadspace for these parasites will be made available at the expense of what's left for the rest of us to drive on. And, of course, the cash available for investment in the trains and roads we - as opposed to the spongers - need will be the less as a result.

As for the Dome? A few days' use for bar billards or whatever it is they're using it for? Hardly a payback for the preposterous overspends the canny contractors gulled Blair's wet-behind-the-ears chums into forking out "because it's vital it's ready on time".

Buy shares in British building contractors, who'll rip us off even more regally than at the Dome. But lobby your national sport authorities to stop this nonsense in the future. If rich countries spent the money they waste on these monuments to politicians' self importance on building proper sporting facilities in poor countries, they'd do a great deal more good for the world.

Rio 2016. Bombay 2020. Cape Town 2024. Istanbul 2028. Jakarta 2032.

Now they'd be Olympics worth arguing for.

PS I'd be disappointed if you agreed with my gist. But I', hurt you don't like my jest.

Well I, for one, am in complete agreement with you, Flanner, on this one.

I think the French will end up being delighted that they didn't get the nod as will the folks in New York. Of course, the contractors, and others, in both places, are probably already pissed off because they didn't get another windfall and, in the U.S., this is one they can hardly blame on "the Liberals" who supposedly aren't (these days) "religious" (enough..or they practice the wrong one), "pro-Business," and actually have this rather bizarre notion that the Government should do the most good for the most people.

And I bet if we work really hard on this thread we might get the distinction of having it yanked as well.

Hi PalQ,
If its ok with you I'd like to chuck my twopenneth worth in too.

I look upon the olympics in london with mixed feeling.
This is a huge opportunity, firstly to re generate a desperately poor area in need of regeneration, secondly to provide facilities and infrastructure to develop our athletes of the future.
The probable spin off's from this are immense
It is also going to be hugely expensive to do.

However I am a great believer in you 'reap what you sow' and if we sow this seed well our country will benefit in many ways long into the future.

The problem with many British people is that they often want an instant return on investment of any sort.

We will see return on investment, it may not be specifically in terms of money, but there are many many 'soft' unquantifiable benefits from this project to be had.

Here in Cardiff we built the millenium stadium,there was uproar over its location and cost. The Rugby world cup came and went and what have we got left.
One of the worlds great stadiums for the people of UK to benefit from and they will continue to do so for years to come.
Wasn't it Oscar Wilde that said "we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing"


Muck

Well, the games nowadays are really a competition between pharmacists to see who can produce a non detectable drug.
If we must have them, why not have them permanently in Greece?

Oldie: LOL!!!

Muck: Interesting viewpoint and certainly not without reason or sense. Oscar also said, "Living well is the best revenge" I believe.

er, PalQ, the dome was the tories' brainchild, nothing to do with "Tony".But lets not let facts spoil a nicely developing prejudice.

oldie, I agree! I also vote for Greece!

Well Greece just had the last ones, but I think that list of sites from flanneruk is perfect.

Yes, Greece had the last one but they also had the first.

zippo: >> . . .lets not let facts spoil a nicely developing prejudice. <<

You have also let your prejudices shine through. True, the Dome WAS the brainchild of the Tory lot -- but the massive cost overruns/final exceution falls in the lap of the current gov't. Plenty of blame to go around of course but the Labour gov't has more to answer for on this one . . . . .

As for the Olympics -- the main advantages I can see are that some of the already planned transport improvement will be fast-tracked, and some very nice facilities will be built in east London.

London is a big enough place it can absorb the hordes of visitors w/o much grief -- but I really don't see much economic plus down the road.

I agree too - the list FlannerUK offers for future hosts would be great. I've always thought both Rio and Cape Town could be on the horizon anytime, but they're constantly back to the same small suite. For Europe, if not Istanbul, then Bucharest, Sofia or Kiev.

May help develop some additional transportation or communication links at the least, just out of necessity, rather than overtaxing the resources of cities that have nothing to gain.

Flanner - i got you gist but not your jest.

I suspect the figure the OP quotes is an estimate of total income from people coming to visit the UK 'because of' the Olympics. What's not really quantifiable is whether or not that income would have come anyway. I'd be more than surprised if there was any sort of profit within the strict accounting of the construction and use of the Olympic facilities themselves.

The same goes for the whole idea of image and feelgood factors. There are those who will say that the last thing London needs - for the rest of the country's sake - is any more boosting of its self-image, but I suspect winning the Olympic bid so recently may have contributed something (unquantifiable) to the (so far) measured response to the bombings.

I must confess I'm still in two minds about whether or not the various regenerative efforts for East London would have happened anyway and whether something different would have had better and wider social effects (or whether anything else would ever have got off the ground). On the other hand, since I live nearby, I'm (for the moment) luxuriating in the prospects for the local property market....

Generally speaking I'm with flanner on where the Olympics could do some real good in the world.

I'm in (rare) agreement with Flanner with the gist of his Olympic viewpoint. But it seems that Athens for one benefitted from having the Olympics, at least in terms of wiping grime away from major landmarks and getting a good transportation system for a city that previously had one of the worst mass transit schemes in Europe. But like flanner says in London, getting to Stratford by CrossRail in a few minutes is probably not worth the huge cost of building it there - there are so many other infrastructure tube and rail needs elsewhere - hopefully they will get some of the pie as well. Or maybe Stratford will become another Docklands - certainly a success in many ways i believe - in fact the Docklands Railway (and the Jubilee Line) link Canary Wharf and Stratford. Stratford will, in 2007, see Eurostar trains stop there - maybe it will become a Euro commercial center. Now...for the future of the Dome - why can't they put this complex to some good use? (I called it one of Tony's Follies perhaps wrongly so, though by the discussion i'm not sure of that, because i was simply parroting what i heard one upper class Brit say on a train i was taking to London recently - he was telling his son, a student at the tony Tunbridge school, which along with talk of their estate in Scotland led me to believe they were upper upper class, when passing by and pointing out the then shuttered Millenium Dome - "there's another one of Tony's Follies". I suppose it depends on your politics whose folly it is - the only sure thing is that it is a folly!