EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Shika Dalmia
The days when countries vied with each other for the national (dis)honor of spending their budgets to host the Olympics – or at least the Winter Olympics – may be fast passing. Why any normal city would want to host the Games is a mystery, given that the Games never pay off, while providing politicians with ample opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse. (In fact, note that the question contains the answer: most cities are not normal.) But after Russia’s recent Sochi debacle sent the price tag of sports socialism skyrocketing to a staggering $51 billion, the ultimate levels of madness may have been reached. It is no longer possible to pretend that the promises of side effects and Keynesian multipliers are anything other than a total scam.
The deadline to decide the host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics is only a year away, and potential candidates are being eliminated like Indian competitors in a luge competition.
Deadspin writes:
"Yesterday, Krakow, Poland, officially withdrew its bid for the games, a day after a city referendum in which 70% of voters were against hosting the Olympics. "Krakow is suspending its efforts to host the 2022 Winter Olympics due to low support for the idea among residents," said Mayor Jacek Majchrowski.
In January, another of the six original finalists, Stockholm, withdrew from the race after Sweden’s ruling party refused to fund the games. They pointed out the pointlessness of paying hundreds of millions for facilities that would be used for two weeks and rarely after that, which is true for almost all Olympic hosts. “Hosting the Winter Olympics means a major investment in new sports facilities, for example for bobsleigh and luge,” the Moderate Party said in a statement. “There is no need for this type of facility after the Olympics.”
In November, voters in Munich, Germany, rejected the bid. “The vote is not a vote against sport,” said one lawmaker, “but against the IOC’s opacity and greed for profit.”
Last March, the joint bid of Davos and St. Moritz, Switzerland, was withdrawn after being rejected by a public referendum.
Of the four remaining finalists, two are in poor shape. The bid of Oslo, Norway, is on the verge of failure. It was backed by a narrow majority in a referendum in September, but public opposition has only grown since then. And on Sunday, the young member of the government coalition voted against funding any Olympics. Going ahead with the bid will require an unprecedented unity between the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party.
The bid of Lviv, Ukraine, appears dead in a sea of unrest and war in the country. "Our dream is currently on hold," said the head of the bid preparation.
Who's left? Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing, China. The former is a repressive oil state, the latter is just a repressive one.
It took almost a century for these white elephants [1] to fall out of fashion in the free world. Could the unfree world be far behind? (The answer is yes. For proof, see the 1980s bun haircut, which North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un still considers high fashion.)
You can see my comment on the stupidity of poor countries like India bidding to host the Olympics here.
You can find the original here.
Translation: Maria Neeva
Editor: Daniel Vassilev
[1]“White elephant” – an idiom that denotes an expensive and extravagant object that is of no use to its owner.
