Vancouver lost $1 Billion when they hosted the Olympics -Glenn Beck (1 Viewer)

[N.O.Bronco]

Not defending Beck AT ALL. He is a complete loon, but I did read an interesting article from PBS on how the Olympics are typically economic money-pitts for their host cities.



http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/july-dec09/olympics_10-01.html

From your same article:

Still, there are some indirect benefits that are associated with being host to the Games. In a study Spiegel recently co-authored called "The Olympic Effect," evidence from past Games indicates that host countries receive a substantial and permanent boost in their international trade. On average, international trade for host countries increased 30 percent after the Games.

Most of these estimates also tend to not include the indirect boosts in revenue that businesses not directly associated with the state or the olympics see from the huge uptick in demand(very hard to do). The bar that has more patrons, the restaurant that has more customers. The salesmen with more commission, the waitress with more tips, the small business owner with more sales, the produce supplier selling more stock because of higher demand, the bus line with more revenue.

All of those things need to be accounted for when assessing the benefits of hosting the Olympics. Now if were just concerning ourselves with the state or federal balance sheet, it's easier to chalk the games up as a loss. But we all know theres more to it than that.


On a final note one of the tell-tale signs of a disingenuous person, as I consider Glen Beck to be, is when they knowingly ignore evidence that contradicts there agenda in favor of only highlighting info that supports it:

1984: Los Angeles Olympic Games made profits of US $250 million.
1988: Seoul Olympic Games made profits of US $300 million, a record high for a government-run Olympiad.
1992: Barcelona Olympic Games made profits of US $5 million.
1996: Atlanta Olympic Games made profits of US $10 million.
2000: Sydney Olympic Games Organizing Committee generated an income of US $1.756 billion.
2004: Athens Olympic Games ended in a loss.​

http://ir.lib.ksu.edu.tw:8080/dspac...y最後完成版.pdf

Beijing Olympics generated China a profit of 146 million dollars​

http://www.china.org.cn/english/sports/111340.htm


Now these are debatable numbers, some say more, some less. But clearly in the course of researching what facts to present to the audience, Glen Beck's team no doubt came upon the myriad of data that suggests the Olympics benefit a country. Even if he presented that data and said he disagreed with it, it would still be more honorable than completely ignoring that data and only presenting data that stacks the argument toward the agenda you wish to push. Which is all these programs ever amount to, agenda pushing under the guise of news entertainment.

 

[zenshin]

There was a reason strippers from all over the US were flocking to Atlanta.

 

[BIG E]

He may have meant to say they are 1 billion over budget. I know the London games are way over budget on the construction side also. I'll qualify my answer with I think Beck is a loon too.

 

[Jonesy77]

1984: Los Angeles Olympic Games made profits of US $250 million.
1988: Seoul Olympic Games made profits of US $300 million, a record high for a government-run Olympiad.
1992: Barcelona Olympic Games made profits of US $5 million.
1996: Atlanta Olympic Games made profits of US $10 million.
2000: Sydney Olympic Games Organizing Committee generated an income of US $1.756 billion.
2004: Athens Olympic Games ended in a loss.​

Also disingenuous is to incorporate "income" into a list of profits to deceive the reader into thinking its comparing apples to apples. And also to just say "ended in a loss" instead of listing the amount of loss in keeping with the list.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

He may have meant to say they are 1 billion over budget. I know the London games are way over budget on the construction side also. I'll qualify my answer with I think Beck is a loon too.

Which may be true but even then it would still be transparently clear his real motive.

If he was as honest as he claims and was as motivated to inform people to the highest level, as hee seems to suggest, he would weigh any sort of over-budget numbers with what the potential revenue may be and look to past Olympic events to see what the end result was from past over-budget games (China).

But we all know Beck is in the business of getting people to support his agenda and not actually being a true voice for quality information.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Also disingenuous is to incorporate "income" into a list of profits to deceive the reader into thinking its comparing apples to apples. And also to just say "ended in a loss" instead of listing the amount of loss in keeping with the list.

You should probably go ahead and read the link (its why I gave it to people) instead of just looking at the summary sheet which I cut out as a way to illustrate that its not all doom and gloom for Olympic host cities according to many peoples analysis.

You right they did list it as a profit table, but that doesn't dismiss the data they collected. On my behalf it was the results of a quick search to illustrate the point that this is not a solidified matter.

 

[Jonesy77]

You should probably go ahead and read the link (its why I gave it to people) instead of just looking at the summary sheet which I cut out as a way to illustrate that its not all doom and gloom for Olympic host cities according to many peoples analysis.

You right they did list it as a profit table, but that doesn't dismiss the data they collected. It was merely a quick search to illustrate the point that this is not a solidified matter.

Your point with posting that list appeared to be to show how disingenuous it is for comeone to only highlight information supportive of their position and to downplay or ignore information not supportive, then posted a listing that itself was deceptive in showing how much Olympics make. I'm not commenting on the veracity of Beck's assertion, or how much countries make.

But it does appeal to trend toward a lack of profitability with more recent Olympics (with the exception of China)

 

[SaintBeau]

Not to defend Glenn Beck, but he's not the only person on television to ever misspeak. I was watching HLN recently and one of the newscasters referred to Obama (portrayed on the screen) as "President Bush." Slips of the tongue are nearly inevitable in a live television format. In addition, Beck often qualifies *himself* by saying that his show has nothing to do with news and everything to do with his opinion. Not such a bad thing, really, since his opinion does go off the deep end every now and again . . .

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Your point with posting that list appeared to be to show how disingenuous it is for comeone to only highlight information supportive of their position and to downplay or ignore information not supportive, then posted a listing that itself was deceptive in showing how much Olympics make. I'm not commenting on the veracity of Beck's assertion, or how much countries make.

But it does appeal to trend toward a lack of profitability with more recent Olympics (with the exception of China)

If my point of the post was to illustrate that the matter of olympic profitability is not black and white and we have already been given the information in this thread that suggests it is not profitable, it seems reasonable to me that the way to support the claim I made - that it is not so black and white - would be to present the counters to the earlier information that suggests its typically always a negative. Right?

Now if i came into this thread and the question was poised, do the olympics produce a profit or a loss? And I stated in my thesis that it always produced a profit and I only stacked the evidence to one side and actively tried to hide and misrepresent counter information that clashes with my thesis, you would have a point.

 

[Jonesy77]

On a final note one of the tell-tale signs of a disingenuous person, as I consider Glen Beck to be, is when they knowingly ignore evidence that contradicts there (sic) agenda in favor of only highlighting info that supports it:

(insert chronological listing of recent Olympic venues that deceptively hides a trend toward a lack of profitability that would contradict an anti-Glen Beck agenda)

 

[N.O.Bronco]

You know whats truly disingenuous? ignoring the entirety of what I said and why I presented those numbers.

But I guess its much more fun to act like I wasnt trying to show that there are two sides to the argument, ignoring how I repeatedly acknowledged the two sides and instead suggest that what i was doing was stacking the argument and being disingenuous. Well to stack the argument fallaciously and to be disingenuous about the evidence for this topic, I would essentially have needed to have ignored the other side of the coin, or not even acknowledged there is another side.

Of course I didn't do that, and of course your just being your typical self, trying to illicit annoyance from other posters for your amusement cause your a cynical and maniacal *******. And I guess its sorta worked cause you have frustrated me .

 

[Jonesy77]

Of course I didn't do that, and of course your just being your typical self, trying to illicit annoyance from other posters for your amusement cause your a cynical and maniacal *******. And I guess its sorta worked cause you have frustrated me .

attack the post, not the poster

 

[Bundok Saint]

On a final note one of the tell-tale signs of a disingenuous person, as I consider Glen Beck to be, is when they knowingly ignore evidence that contradicts there agenda in favor of only highlighting info that supports it:

1984: Los Angeles Olympic Games made profits of US $250 million.
1988: Seoul Olympic Games made profits of US $300 million, a record high for a government-run Olympiad.
1992: Barcelona Olympic Games made profits of US $5 million.
1996: Atlanta Olympic Games made profits of US $10 million.
2000: Sydney Olympic Games Organizing Committee generated an income of US $1.756 billion.
2004: Athens Olympic Games ended in a loss.​

http://ir.lib.ksu.edu.tw:8080/dspac...y最後完成版.pdf

Beijing Olympics generated China a profit of 146 million dollars​

http://www.china.org.cn/english/sports/111340.htm

Wait a minute, you're citing some Chinese college student's English paper as a source? Or, are you playing some kind of reverse-psychology Jedi mind tricks?

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Wait a minute, you're citing some Chinese college student's English paper as a source? Or, are you playing some kind of reverse-psychology Jedi mind tricks?

The second link also corroborates those numbers. Like I said, it was a quick google search to illustrate the point that Beck's attempt to assert the Olympics are always a losing endeavor is disingenuous at best. Im sure you are more than capable of going to google and locating other evidence that shows the profits as well. Or we can discuss my point about indirect denefits not calculated through typical assessments, like trade numbers, like produce farmers.

 

[Bundok Saint]

Im sure you are more than capable of going to google and locating other evidence that shows the profits as well.

Indeed, Costs, profits rarely clear-cut for host city

An examination of construction budgets dating back to Montreal 1976 reveals a pattern of cost overruns -- some of them quite spectacular. The notable exception was Los Angeles 1984, when little new construction was needed.

"There usually are cost overruns," said Holger Preuss, one of the world's leading experts on the economics of the Olympics and the researcher who produced the operational surplus data cited by Ryan...

...Still, how host cities determine those profits varies greatly from country to country, with much variation on what should count as an Olympics-related expense.

Local organizing committee "profits are calculated in very different ways, and sometimes, the figures are incomprehensible," Preuss, the German sports economist, stated in his book, "The Economics of Staging the Olympics: A Comparison of the Games 1972-2008."

Then there's the question of capital budgets. Interviews with past Olympics organizers, together with an examination of news reports and official documents, show a pattern of construction cost overruns.

Often they are not as dramatic as Beijing or London, but they seem to be a fact of life, their causes ranging from intentional low-balling of early estimates to rising materials costs to shifting requirements from the International Olympic Committee to plain old human error.

Or we can discuss my point about indirect denefits not calculated through typical assessments, like trade numbers, like produce farmers.

You mean benefits like

"There was a slight drop at Disneyland and a slight drop at Knott's Berry Farm and at Magic Mountain. There was also some drop-off in hotel clusters associated with tthe Orange County theme parks," says David Wilcox, a senior vice-president at economics Research Associates in Los Angeles who authored the 1986 report. A co-author of the Atlanta study, Jeffrey Humphreys, director of economic forecasting at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, says the $5.1-billion estimate prepared before the games there was probably low. But the Atlanta organizing committee disbanded before it could fund an empirical study after the games.

Besides new college dorms and a new Atlanta Braves baseball stadium, the $650 million invested in Olympic structures has another legacy: It drove up construction costs across the region, says Harvey Newman, professor of urban policy at Georgia State University in Atlanta. One suburban school district found its new $58-million bond issue suddenly insufficient to fund construction of new classrooms, he says. I don't know that it's easy to measure the economic impact of an event like this," he says. "I tend to look at them with some cynicism."

What would Olympics really bring Chicago?

Look, I'm no Glenn Beck appologist, but articles can be found on both sides of the issue. And, I'm more likely to believe websites with articles citing actual professors and economists rather than some college kid parroting figures from the media arm of his nation's government.