LA to host 2028 Olympics
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ocho
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:58 am    Post subject:

Raijin wrote:
Ziggy wrote:
splashmtn wrote:
encina1 wrote:
Have fun with traffic, folks. Make a pretty penny renting out your place to visitors.

Is it too early to start planning month-long vacations for 2028?
traffic is already crap around some of these supposed venues. it can't get worse than worse. lol. its so much construction going on in L.A. county, every where you turn its turning a 2 lane street into 1 lane.


No kidding. Metro's purple line is a 10 year project that should be completed before the Games. It will go from downtown to the west side. The construction has pretty much destroyed traffic on Wilshire blvd. It's just horrible. Plus all over L.A. they've been tearing out sidewalks and redoing them around schools while they're out for the summer. I don't remember ever seeing this much construction in the county as this summer. It's crazy.

From my college days 7-8 years ago Wilshire was already a nightmare. How could it possibly get even worse?


Add a significant number of new people.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:40 am    Post subject:

Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:12 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:31 am    Post subject:

ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:48 am    Post subject:

encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:18 am    Post subject:

encina1 wrote:
Have fun with traffic, folks. Make a pretty penny renting out your place to visitors.

Is it too early to start planning month-long vacations for 2028?


People thought the same thing would happen in '84. My family left town for half of it. The reality was that there was no impact on traffic and in some cases it was better because everyone panicked (same as what happened with carmageddon).

It turned out to be one of the most well run games and one of if not the most profitable.

Also, I could be wrong about this, as I was 11 at the time, I'm pretty sure they didn't even have 10 years to plan that one, and there are even more viable venues already built than there were back then, with a new football stadium, the Clippers new home and a completely renovated Coliseum sure to all be completed by then.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:20 am    Post subject:

Garcetti and Wasserman were on the Bill Simmons podcast. They give their reasons on why we should host. I've personally always wanted to have them. I like sports. I like the Olympics. I want to watch them live. We already have more facilities than the average city. We don't need to build an Olympic village (they're using UCLA). We don't need to build stadiums and arenas (Staples, Rose Bowl, Coliseum, new Rams Stadium, etc.)
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:41 am    Post subject:

Exactly. The biggest expense for most cities is new buildings to host the games, which become sunk costs once the games are over. We already have them with even more coming online in the next few years. They're spread out enough that there shouldn't be gridlock around any of them, or at least no more than there is when they have their usual events.

On top of that, Metro should be significantly expanded over the next 10 years.

There probably aren't many cities, if any, that are better equipped to host the Olympics.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:05 am    Post subject:

I think the traffic situation is overblown considering LA already has a couple of solutions to remedy the problem. The biggest expense and headache will be the security situation. They definitely don't want something like what happened to Atlanta to happen in LA. Plus when you consider the terrorist attacks around France and how it just happened in areas with low security but lots of people gathered around communal areas. The organizers will have to develop plans to mitigate those risks.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:28 pm    Post subject:

IMO the Olympics are for third world countries to showcase their capital city and its skyline while receiving a short-lived burst of tourism money and getting their citizens excited in nationalism, hope for the future, etc.

L.A. doesn't really need any of that crap.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:55 pm    Post subject:

Hammett wrote:
IMO the Olympics are for third world countries to showcase their capital city and its skyline while receiving a short-lived burst of tourism money and getting their citizens excited in nationalism, hope for the future, etc.

L.A. doesn't really need any of that crap.


That scam stopped working which is why there were few bidders for the 2024 games.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:01 pm    Post subject:

List of third world countries that have hosted the Olympics:

None
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 5:13 am    Post subject:

Wilt wrote:
List of third world countries that have hosted the Olympics:

None


Depends on what you define as a third world country. Mexico and Brazil often make the list.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 5:59 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
List of third world countries that have hosted the Olympics:

None


Depends on what you define as a third world country. Mexico and Brazil often make the list.



And Wilt, from a third-world perspective, hosting the Olympics is more of an act of vanity than something that provides an economic benefit for the host nation.

A third world country hasn't the infrastructure, which means a tremendous amount of spending for constructing buildings to host one-time, Olympics-specific events (referred to as White Elephants in a linked CFR publication below). That's insanity, even factoring in the lower labor rates. And the revenue boost from broadcast rights and tourism will not offset that resultant deficit spending. This isn't a contra-Keynesian argument, I'm just stating the obvious, that this is a case where clearly the deficit spending is something that does not sustain an economic benefit beyond the event.

Here are some findings, courtesy the Council of Foreign Relations:
Quote:

When did the costs of hosting the games become a concern?

For much of the twentieth century, the staging of the Olympic Games represented a manageable burden for the host cities. The events were held in developed countries, either in Europe or the United States, and in the era before television broadcasting, hosts didn’t expect to make a profit. Instead, the games were publically funded, with these advanced countries better positioned to bear the costs due to their larger economies and more advanced infrastructure.

The 1970s marked a turning point, writes Andrew Zimbalist, author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. The games were growing rapidly, with the number of Summer Olympics participants almost doubling and the number of events increasing by a third during the 1960s. Every Olympics since 1960 has seen major cost overruns [PDF]. The killing of protesters in the days before the 1968 Mexico City Games and the fatal assault on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games tarnished the image of the Olympics, and public skepticism of taking on debt to host the games also grew. In 1972, Denver became the first and only chosen host city to reject its Olympics after voters passed a referendum refusing additional public spending for the games.

The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal came to symbolize the fiscal risks of hosting. The projected cost of $124 million was more than $2.6 billion short of the actual cost, largely due to the construction delays and cost overruns of a new stadium, saddling the city’s taxpayers with billions of dollars of debt that took nearly three decades to pay off.

As a result, in 1979 Los Angeles was the only city to bid for the 1984 Summer Olympics, allowing it to negotiate exceptionally favorable terms with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Most importantly, L.A. was able to rely almost totally on existing stadiums and other infrastructure rather than promise lavish new facilities to entice the IOC selection committee. That, combined with a sharp jump in television broadcast revenue (see graphic) made L.A. the only city to turn a profit on hosting the Olympics, finishing with a $215 million operating surplus.

L.A.’s success led to a rising number of cities bidding—from two for the 1988 Games to twelve for the 2004 Games. This allowed the IOC to choose the cities with the most ambitious—and expensive—plans. In addition, as researchers Robert Baade and Victor Matheson point out, bidding by developing countries has more than tripled over the past two decades. The result has been an increase of bids going to countries like China, Russia, and Brazil, which have been eager to use the games to demonstrate their progress on the world stage. However, these countries have needed to invest massive sums to create the necessary infrastructure. Costs spiraled to over $45 billion for Beijing’s Summer Games in 2008, over $50 billion for the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, and an estimated $20 billion for Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

These costs have led to renewed Olympics skepticism, and a number of cities have withdrawn their bids for the 2022 and 2024 Games over cost concerns. Oslo and Stockholm both backed out of their 2022 bids upon realizing that costs would be higher than originally conceived. Boston withdrew from consideration for the 2024 Games, with its mayor saying that he “refuse[d] to mortgage the future of the city away.”

What costs do cities incur for hosting the games?

Cities must first invest millions of dollars in evaluating, preparing, and submitting a bid to the IOC. The cost of planning, hiring consultants, organizing events, and the necessary travel consistently falls between $50 million and $100 million. Tokyo spent as much as $150 million on its failed 2016 bid, and about half that much for its successful 2020 bid, while Toronto decided it could not afford the $60 million necessary for a 2024 bid.

Once a city is chosen to host, it has nearly a decade to prepare for the influx of athletes and tourists. The Summer Games are far larger, attracting hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists to watch over ten thousand athletes compete in about three hundred events, compared with under three thousand athletes competing in about one hundred events during the Winter Games. The most immediate need is the creation or upgrading of highly specialized sports facilities like cycling tracks or ski-jumping arenas, the Olympic Village, and a venue large enough to host the opening and closing ceremonies.

There is also usually the need for more general infrastructure, especially housing and transportation. The IOC requires cities hosting the games to have a minimum of 40,000 available hotel rooms, which in the case of Rio 2016 has necessitated the construction of 15,000 new hotel room. Roads, train lines, and airports need to be upgraded or constructed.

Altogether, these infrastructure costs range from $5 billion to over $50 billion. Many countries justify such expenditures in the hopes that the spending will outlive the Olympic Games. For instance, some 85 percent [PDF] of the Sochi 2014 Games’ more than $50 billion budget went to building non-sports infrastructure from scratch. More than half of the Beijing 2008 budget of $45 billion went to rail, roads, and airports, while nearly a fourth went to environmental clean-up efforts.
Estimated versus Final Olympic Costs

Operational costs make up a smaller but still significant chunk of hosts’ Olympic budget. Security costs have escalated quickly after the 9/11 attacks—Sydney in 2000 spent $250 million while Athens in 2004 spent over $1.5 billion, and costs have remained between $1 billion and $2 billion since.

Another major issue is the so-called “white elephants,” or expensive facilities that, because of their size or specialized nature, have limited post-Olympics use. These often impose costs for years to come. Sydney’s Olympic stadium now costs the city $30 million a year to maintain. Beijing’s famous “Bird’s Nest” stadium cost $460 million to build and $10 million a year to maintain, and sits unused. Almost all of the facilities built for the 2004 Athens Olympics, whose costs contributed to the Greek debt crisis, are now derelict, leading many experts to conclude that the Olympics too often lead to wasteful spending on unnecessary infrastructure.

Economists say the games’ so-called “implicit costs” must also be considered. These include the opportunity costs of public spending that could have been spent on other priorities. Servicing the debt that is left over after hosting the games can burden public budgets for decades. While Greece’s billions in Olympic debt helped bankrupt the country, it took Montreal until 2006 to pay off the last of its debt from the 1976 Games, and the debt and maintenance costs of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games will cost Russian taxpayers nearly $1 billion per year for the foreseeable future.

How do the benefits compare to the costs?

The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles are the only games to have produced a surplus, in large part because the city was able to almost totally rely on already existing infrastructure.

As the costs of hosting have skyrocketed, revenues cover only a fraction of expenditures. Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics generated $3.6 billion in revenue, compared with over $40 billion in costs. Vancouver’s Winter Games in 2010 generated $2.8 billion compared with $7.6 billion in costs, and London’s Summer Games in 2012 generated $5.2 billion compared with $18 billion in costs. What’s more, much of the revenue doesn’t go to the host—the IOC keeps more than half of all television revenue, which represents the single largest chunk of money generated by the games.




The Economics of Hosting the Olympic Games
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:08 am    Post subject:

ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.


And you could make the same argument for London, and Paris, and a host of other cities that have hosted the Olympics over the years. I still go to the pride aspect, and though you are right about LA not needing it, it is still cash that otherwise would not have come to LA and people that otherwise may not visit. And it puts LA on stage, perhaps a two week long advertisement so people will visit afterwards. There must be a reason so many cities continue to vie for hosting rights, despite the tremendous cost and displacement and problems that come along with it. Well, along with the behind the scenes palms greasing.

As people have noted, LA is a better location than, say, Rio, or Atlanta, or other cities, as they have the infrastructure to host so many people, crews, and have the buildings and stadia that do not need to be built.

True, LA does not need it to survive and get its name out there, but I wonder how your mayor and city council sold it to the citizens? There must have been something said about this, as it couldn't have happened in secret.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:16 am    Post subject:

Well I mentioned that hosting the games (especially by a Third World country) is an act of vanity, but the more I think about how decisions are made, vanity may not be the primary driver. In Third World countries, the governing elites tend to call the shots. If the governing elites can pocket a net economic benefit for themselves (bribes, local business benefits, labor contracts, etc.), then they would definitely be motivated to host the Olympic games.

And in that regard, our federal government increasingly resembles a third-world country in terms of the elites distorting sound economic policy in favor of selfish motives.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:31 am    Post subject:

angrypuppy wrote:
Well I mentioned that hosting the games (especially by a Third World country) is an act of vanity, but the more I think about how decisions are made, vanity may not be the primary driver. In Third World countries, the governing elites tend to call the shots. If the governing elites can pocket a net economic benefit for themselves (bribes, local business benefits, labor contracts, etc.), then they would definitely be motivated to host the Olympic games.

And in that regard, our federal government increasingly resembles a third-world country in terms of the elites distorting sound economic policy in favor of selfish motives.


You say that as if it hasn't always been this way in the US. I speak of the legit outward face of it. That is not factoring the behind the scenes business, who gets the extra money and how it makes the rich richer. And I do wonder how much TV execs have a say in this as well.

Another factor I had not thought of, the benefit to the athletes who otherwise would not get a chance to travel the world. Hosting it in a big city is tremendous for them, allows them to see a country and city they may not have (unless they are the cream of the crop, but for many of those athletes this is their one shot).
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:37 am    Post subject:

encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.


And you could make the same argument for London, and Paris, and a host of other cities that have hosted the Olympics over the years. I still go to the pride aspect, and though you are right about LA not needing it, it is still cash that otherwise would not have come to LA and people that otherwise may not visit. And it puts LA on stage, perhaps a two week long advertisement so people will visit afterwards. There must be a reason so many cities continue to vie for hosting rights, despite the tremendous cost and displacement and problems that come along with it. Well, along with the behind the scenes palms greasing.

As people have noted, LA is a better location than, say, Rio, or Atlanta, or other cities, as they have the infrastructure to host so many people, crews, and have the buildings and stadia that do not need to be built.

True, LA does not need it to survive and get its name out there, but I wonder how your mayor and city council sold it to the citizens? There must have been something said about this, as it couldn't have happened in secret.


I agree LA is well suited to host. That's great for the IOC, but doesn't make it great for us. LA is better equipped to host than Atlanta, but Atlanta was looking to establish itself (we don't need this), build tourism (we don't need this) and build their population (we really, really don't need this). We gain little to nothing from hosting while incurring major costs and inconvenience. As for pride, if that's the only reason to do this that's a bad reason and we shouldn't do it. And FWIW, I know it's a small sample size, but taking the temperature of the fellow Angelenos I know, I'd compare the reaction to the news as akin to the news the Chargers were moving to LA: a combination of indifference and disappointment.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:43 am    Post subject:

ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.


And you could make the same argument for London, and Paris, and a host of other cities that have hosted the Olympics over the years. I still go to the pride aspect, and though you are right about LA not needing it, it is still cash that otherwise would not have come to LA and people that otherwise may not visit. And it puts LA on stage, perhaps a two week long advertisement so people will visit afterwards. There must be a reason so many cities continue to vie for hosting rights, despite the tremendous cost and displacement and problems that come along with it. Well, along with the behind the scenes palms greasing.

As people have noted, LA is a better location than, say, Rio, or Atlanta, or other cities, as they have the infrastructure to host so many people, crews, and have the buildings and stadia that do not need to be built.

True, LA does not need it to survive and get its name out there, but I wonder how your mayor and city council sold it to the citizens? There must have been something said about this, as it couldn't have happened in secret.


I agree LA is well suited to host. That's great for the IOC, but doesn't make it great for us. LA is better equipped to host than Atlanta, but Atlanta was looking to establish itself (we don't need this), build tourism (we don't need this) and build their population (we really, really don't need this). We gain little to nothing from hosting while incurring major costs and inconvenience. As for pride, if that's the only reason to do this that's a bad reason and we shouldn't do it. And FWIW, I know it's a small sample size, but taking the temperature of the fellow Angelenos I know, I'd compare the reaction to the news as akin to the news the Chargers were moving to LA: a combination of indifference and disappointment.


To be honest, I am not arguing for why LA should do it. I am stating why LA might want to. You have valid points, and again I wonder how this was all billed to Angelinos by the local government? Did they show numbers how it benefits you? Maybe extra tax funds?
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:50 am    Post subject:

encina1 wrote:
angrypuppy wrote:
Well I mentioned that hosting the games (especially by a Third World country) is an act of vanity, but the more I think about how decisions are made, vanity may not be the primary driver. In Third World countries, the governing elites tend to call the shots. If the governing elites can pocket a net economic benefit for themselves (bribes, local business benefits, labor contracts, etc.), then they would definitely be motivated to host the Olympic games.

And in that regard, our federal government increasingly resembles a third-world country in terms of the elites distorting sound economic policy in favor of selfish motives.


You say that as if it hasn't always been this way in the US. I speak of the legit outward face of it. That is not factoring the behind the scenes business, who gets the extra money and how it makes the rich richer. And I do wonder how much TV execs have a say in this as well.

Another factor I had not thought of, the benefit to the athletes who otherwise would not get a chance to travel the world. Hosting it in a big city is tremendous for them, allows them to see a country and city they may not have (unless they are the cream of the crop, but for many of those athletes this is their one shot).



It has always been the case, but the excess was moderated for the most part, with some obvious exceptions like the Teapot Dome Scandal. The problem has accelerated in modern times, which is absolutely unparalleled with what had happened in the good old days. Why? A few drivers:

1. Campaign finance. The primary motivation of a politician isn't policy, but rather to get re-elected. Ideally, re-election is the product of a politician representing the goals and welfare of the people he represents, which happened more in the past. What has changed? Campaign finance, in that it takes a tremendous amount of capital to run a campaign. This leaves the candidates in debt to the elites, in terms of the proverbial favor bank. This is a modern artifact.

2. Regulatory law. Regulatory law is intended to promote the welfare of the masses, which of course can be at odds with big business. Regulatory law became increasingly powerful since the 1970s, and due to the complexity, the ranks of the regulators are staffed with former members of senior corporate management. It's a revolving door, many leave regulatory jobs for corporate legal or development roles, with the express purpose of continuing the interests of the elite over that of the masses.

3. Post career lobbying: And let's not forget politicians and their post public careers, opening taking massive amounts of money for speaking fees and lobbying.


In other words, in a superficial sense, sure, moneyed elites played a role in the decision-making in this country. But that influence has become much greater in the most recent decades, and it doesn't appear to be a clean parallel to the degree of influence in the past.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:55 am    Post subject:

Yeah I know why local politicians and Casey Wasserman want the Olympics, but I've had a hard time finding many people without a vested interest who are excited about this. I still have nightmares about Mitt Romney going on again about how successful his Olympic hosting was (guys did you hear that there was a traffic jam and he personally got out of his car and started director traffic? What a leader!)
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 7:27 am    Post subject:

Hector the Pup wrote:
encina1 wrote:
Have fun with traffic, folks. Make a pretty penny renting out your place to visitors.

Is it too early to start planning month-long vacations for 2028?


People thought the same thing would happen in '84. My family left town for half of it. The reality was that there was no impact on traffic and in some cases it was better because everyone panicked (same as what happened with carmageddon).

It turned out to be one of the most well run games and one of if not the most profitable.

Also, I could be wrong about this, as I was 11 at the time, I'm pretty sure they didn't even have 10 years to plan that one, and there are even more viable venues already built than there were back then, with a new football stadium, the Clippers new home and a completely renovated Coliseum sure to all be completed by then.


There were also temporary traffic regulations put in place. As I recall, one of them was that all commercial traffic (delivery trucks etc.) were restricted to making their deliveries during the late night/early morning hours.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 9:40 am    Post subject:

I'm just 1 person but I'm very excited about it. I basically watch the Olympics 24/7 when they come on. It's just the sports fan in me. I love watching all forms of competition. It helps that I am American and we tend to be good at a lot of stuff.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:54 pm    Post subject:

ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.


And you could make the same argument for London, and Paris, and a host of other cities that have hosted the Olympics over the years. I still go to the pride aspect, and though you are right about LA not needing it, it is still cash that otherwise would not have come to LA and people that otherwise may not visit. And it puts LA on stage, perhaps a two week long advertisement so people will visit afterwards. There must be a reason so many cities continue to vie for hosting rights, despite the tremendous cost and displacement and problems that come along with it. Well, along with the behind the scenes palms greasing.

As people have noted, LA is a better location than, say, Rio, or Atlanta, or other cities, as they have the infrastructure to host so many people, crews, and have the buildings and stadia that do not need to be built.

True, LA does not need it to survive and get its name out there, but I wonder how your mayor and city council sold it to the citizens? There must have been something said about this, as it couldn't have happened in secret.


I agree LA is well suited to host. That's great for the IOC, but doesn't make it great for us. LA is better equipped to host than Atlanta, but Atlanta was looking to establish itself (we don't need this), build tourism (we don't need this) and build their population (we really, really don't need this). We gain little to nothing from hosting while incurring major costs and inconvenience. As for pride, if that's the only reason to do this that's a bad reason and we shouldn't do it. And FWIW, I know it's a small sample size, but taking the temperature of the fellow Angelenos I know, I'd compare the reaction to the news as akin to the news the Chargers were moving to LA: a combination of indifference and disappointment.


Ocho, are there taxpayer costs that I am not aware of? Garcetti/Wasserman said that there will be ZERO dollars taken from taxpayers money.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 5:13 pm    Post subject:

ArminNBA wrote:
ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
encina1 wrote:
ocho wrote:
Aeneas Hunter wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Oh I know, but my post was a response to AH's post regarding the increasing absurdity of hosting Olympic games in terms of the financial burden, the chaos, and the inevitable abandoning of many venues.


In addition to all of that, what's the upside? Yes, you get a burst of tourist money, but a lot of that flows right back out of town. You get some short term employment and the like, but it's low end stuff like parking attendants and t-shirt sales. You get some publicity for your town, but that's a double edged sword. With the Olympics, unlike Hollywood, there is such a thing as bad publicity.

What does LA get from the Olympics that it couldn't get by creating "Comic Con Centenario" or "West by Southwest"?

I just don't get it. I'd vote against any politician who tried to bring the Olympics here. Oh, wait, I've already done that a couple times.


Not to mention we don't exactly have a tourism issue in need of a boost, nor are we looking to establish our city or increase our population. My distaste for the Olympics aside, I don't see any positives here for the city and plenty of negatives.


It brings the attention to the city. It's like hosting the World's Fair, it is a matter of pride. Yes, we can do this. This big endeavor that other cities cannot do, we can, and we will do so proudly and well. We will put on a spectacle. People will remember. It draws in people you would not have hosted otherwise. A huge influx of people staying in hotels, eating food, traveling, parking, doing other things, like going to museums and taking bus tours. It's a huge onus on people, the locals, the roads, and may not be practical, but it is not about practicality.


I respect that you would feel a sense of pride over this, but instilling a sense of pride in Angelenos (and most of us already have it) isn't worth throwing the city into tumult or spending a fortune putting it on when that cash could be used in significantly more productive ways. Most of what you describe are solutions to problems the city doesn't have (getting out of towners to visit, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants) and we certainly aren't in need of more attention. I don't think anyone is going to "discover" Los Angeles because of the Olympics. It's a huge cost and inconvenience with little to no benefit.


And you could make the same argument for London, and Paris, and a host of other cities that have hosted the Olympics over the years. I still go to the pride aspect, and though you are right about LA not needing it, it is still cash that otherwise would not have come to LA and people that otherwise may not visit. And it puts LA on stage, perhaps a two week long advertisement so people will visit afterwards. There must be a reason so many cities continue to vie for hosting rights, despite the tremendous cost and displacement and problems that come along with it. Well, along with the behind the scenes palms greasing.

As people have noted, LA is a better location than, say, Rio, or Atlanta, or other cities, as they have the infrastructure to host so many people, crews, and have the buildings and stadia that do not need to be built.

True, LA does not need it to survive and get its name out there, but I wonder how your mayor and city council sold it to the citizens? There must have been something said about this, as it couldn't have happened in secret.


I agree LA is well suited to host. That's great for the IOC, but doesn't make it great for us. LA is better equipped to host than Atlanta, but Atlanta was looking to establish itself (we don't need this), build tourism (we don't need this) and build their population (we really, really don't need this). We gain little to nothing from hosting while incurring major costs and inconvenience. As for pride, if that's the only reason to do this that's a bad reason and we shouldn't do it. And FWIW, I know it's a small sample size, but taking the temperature of the fellow Angelenos I know, I'd compare the reaction to the news as akin to the news the Chargers were moving to LA: a combination of indifference and disappointment.


Ocho, are there taxpayer costs that I am not aware of? Garcetti/Wasserman said that there will be ZERO dollars taken from taxpayers money.


What they say and what they do are completely different things. Especially since they're politicians.
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