patrick.net

Who cares? We need LOWER housing prices, and furthermore, we don't need a president who flies to Copenhagen to grandstand for the Olympics with our tax money. I am quite happy he was defeated on this. It serves him right.

What is holding prices up so high in Chicago? How can so many people afford half million dollar houses in Chicagoland?

Well, it won't help the HELP the housing market, nor the local economy. What hurts the housing market is an unsound and fradulent monetary system brought to you by The Federal Reserve (The Fed). The Fed increases the money supply which CAUSES prices to RISE (aka INFLATION). I bought my first house in Los Angeles in 1973. 3 Br, 2 bath, 2 car garage in a safe, decent area (near Cal State L.A.) for $18,500. I repeat $18,500. Housing prices continued to rise...fast. Before long it was worth $45,000.

I didn't understand. How could a house get older but worth MORE ??? Common sense would say something older would be worth LESS. Thats when I figured out that the house didn't go UP in value, but the dollar went DOWN in value. My guess is that most people don't know that. I've been reading and learning ever since.

May I suggest that you log on Dollar Collapse.com. Most will learn a lot by visiting that site. Also try IOUSA the movie.com. Honest Abe

Housing prices rose in SLC after the 2002 Olympics, by 2006 housing prices were sky high. But after there wasn't another Olympics for six years, prices dropped.

Good 'nuff for me! :)

Housing prices rose in SLC after the 2002 Olympics

Right. It could be argued the Olympics create a micro-bubble: a surge of money and development ensues, and no doubt some profit well--but what is the lasting, economic legacy for any city? Quite often, Olympic villages serve no real function after the event, and some cities are saddled with debts due to cost-overruns for decades (such as Montreal). Rebuilding every 4 years seems like an enormous waste of resources--why? Alternatively, let's suppose a city was awarded a contract for several games--wouldn't that be a more cost-effective use of development $, and more of a lasting economic impact for the city? Dunno.

..........or it could be that a larger force, such as a world-wide financial/housing bubble that was driven by unbridled greed and piss-poor planning on everyone's part, was the reason that "values" increased in the Salt Lake City area to unheard of amounts - and that the collapse of the financial system created in large part by said housing bubble could be the reason that "values" dropped. It's possible that the rise & fall of housing prices in SLC had nothing to do with the Olympics, and that I was being sarcastic...

Nah.

It’s possible that the rise & fall of housing prices in SLC had nothing to do with the Olympics...and that I was being sarcastic

I suspected you were sarcastic, ;-) ...I merely used the opportunity to toss those ideas out there.
Yeah, if only every city could host an Olympics--unstoppable prosperity!

The cities make money from the federal grants for building venues and improving infrastructure, but they have to pay $ to maintain the facilities after the Olympics are long past. They make $ from increased taxes from the businesses that benefit from the Olympics, although they surely must spend a buttload of money that isn't reimbursed such as increased security, marketing costs, increased insurance costs, etc. The feds spend $$$ that I doubt are repaid from the taxes they receive - but I'm willing to bet that some road in Kansas didn't get approval for federal funding to funnel monies to SLC for the Oly's. Corporate sponsor monies goes to the Oly Committee, which helps to fund athletes but I haven't a clue as to whether money goes to the sponsor cities from the US Oly Committee.

I'm thinking that the financial costs far outweigh the financial benefits. The social costs? I don't know - I stopped watching the Olympics years ago (altho I did get a little peek here & there changing channels) and no one I know watched more than one or two events. I think that the money might be better spent elsewhere, but I'm sure many people disagree.

All I can say is -- 1984 was a magical year here in Los Angeles due to the Olympics. The city seemed perfect, beautiful and clean. The poor lived happily alongside the rich, and all the races joined hands to sing hymns along with Lionel Ritchie. World peace was really conceiveable. But by 1992, it all went to hell under a black cloud of burning and looting, while the police department sat on their hands. Chief Gates has never had to answer for his crimes to this day. The lesson is the higher you fly, the harder you fall.

"I didn’t understand. How could a house get older but worth MORE ??? Common sense would say something older would be worth LESS"

Lots of hype and marketing. LA is great at that! All the metal bands from the 80s wrote about that. Welcome to the Jungle!
Sadly in 2000, the marketing hypster (REA) moved from LA to the Bay Area to spread their virus... Palo Alto is the new Bel Air.

Lost Cause.. would you say the same about past US Olympics in Tahoe or Lake Placid.. didn't do much, did it!
The boom in SoCal back in the 80s had many reasons, and it wasn't the Olympics, you had a huge boom in entertainment industry with multitude of movies and music hitting a global markets. Not to mention Porn! In addition, you saw a huge inflow into aerospace growth, which fueled organic growth in the economy. Yes ! I partied many times in LA back in the 80s. But it all ended by 1991.

No biggie ! we have enough problems today, and dont need distractions and additional financial burden for some event in 2016.

Why Obama is wasting time on some worthless venture is beyond me. Its just more cronism to promote Chicago!

Look forward to seeing lots of nearly naked Samba dancers shaking that booty on TV... OH BABY! I will gladly trade Chicago for that!

thomas.wong87 says

Why Obama is wasting time on some worthless venture is beyond me. Its just more cronism to promote Chicago!

If Bush was there stumping for Chicago, would you have said the same thing? What US President wouldn't advocate for having the Oly's in this country - it risks alienating all the voters who think the Oly's are worthwhile. Obama spent 8 hours there, and people's panties got all in knotts.

I remember LA during the magical times of '84; the polution parted and it was frustrating for those people who don't trust air they can't see. I also know someone who went to Bejing and they said that the air did indeed part, but the air pollution still caused her to have breathing problems.

elliemae says

If Bush was there stumping for Chicago, would you have said the same thing?

Bush Jr, Bush Sr, Obama, Clinton, or had it been Gore, Kerry, or McCain, this is not the time for us to be distracted or waste funds during a recession.

Our national focus needs to be on growing jobs and fueling economic growth. I couldn't care less for anything else. We have a hell of a job to do.

China and Brazil whose economy is booming can afford it, we cant. We need to get our house in order.
LA in the 84? way too much coke floating around! Decade of Decadence for sure!
Besides! damn it I wanna see Samba Dancers! thats enough distraction for a week!

thomas.wong87 says

Our national focus needs to be on growing jobs and fueling economic growth. I couldn’t care less for anything else. We have a hell of a job to do.

Wouldn't the Oly's create jobs building the venues, temporary jobs for the workers required to run the dang thing, planners, etc? Perhaps if they stopped funding useless wars & police actions overseas and focused on our country's needs at home, we'd have more jobs and money to pay them.

While we're at it, Alaska can refund us the Bridge to Nowhere funds they received and used elsewhere. We're helping to fund their annual refunds, which totally pisses me off.

to me 'bridge to nowhere' or 'building the venues to nowhere' are the same. If Congress killed the project might as well kill the money. Agreed.

No# 1 priority.
we need manufacturing/R&D/Admin jobs from Alaska to Chicago to Maine to Texas to California, employing local residences competing cost efficient against Chinese, European, and Brazilian Corporations for the global markets. Get the employed back to work and being the best globally as we can, is job #1. Building roads, bridges, and venues to nowhere isn't going to do it in the long term. We need to make goods and services we can export to others in the world.

Our national focus should be on growing jobs and fueling economic growth, but the gov't can't do that - private industry can. Its private industries which produces products. The best thing gov't could do is make it EASIER for people to start up new businesses (by getting the HELL out of the way). LESS job killing regulation and red tape, FEWER fees, permits and costs would be a good start. If YOU have ever tried to open a business you know what I mean. Successful businesses pay taxes and employ people...positive things for America, right?

In order to be competitive in the world market America would need to have competitive wages - unless we price ourselves out of the market....oop's we already have. Now what? It would seem like either wages come down or jobs move offshore...is there any other alternative???

The BEST way to redistribute wealth is through COMMERCE. The sooner the gov't learns that the better off we'll all be.
H. Abe

Chicago had a good year for corruption Police.

Obama must have a Gnome with a wheel barrow between legs, because it would really take a huge set of Balls, to suggest a city like Chicago, deserves the Olympics even over "Tokyo".

Our country is corrupt on many levels. Govs of different states having affairs... Senators having affairs, lying about it. Picking up strangers in men's rooms (I don't have a problem with gays, I have a problem with someone who is vocally anti-gay, who goes on the record stating that gays are "less than"). Politicos with their own interests in mind who don't give a shit about the masses. Chicago is no different.

But if our president - who publicly stated he wasn't going to the IOC to stump for Chicago, then swent to the IOC to stump for Chicago - (?????), wants to show up and pretend that he believes that Chicago should be the Oly's host city, he's just keeping millions of people happy with his American Spirit - or so he believes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch all the hands have been laid off...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/04/sports/s062744D25.DTL&tsp=1

This article tells the sad, sad story of the IOC, that will make less from the teevee rights to the games now that they're in Brazil. What stands out to me is that NBC paid 2.2 BILLION dollars to broadcast the 2010 & 2012 games; in fact "The IOC gets more than half its revenue from broadcasting deals, and U.S. deals alone have been worth more than the rest of the world's broadcasters combined."

Who monitors the IOC? Where does all this money go? I realize that the Oly's are a time-honored tradition, but does anyone seriously care about them anymore? Billions of dollars are spent to send athletes to these competitions - and many of them are professionals (Basketball, tennis, etc). What's the point?

The Olympics should have died with ancient Greece. WTF cares about a bunch of spoiled brats engaged in what amounts to a gigantic marketing scam by corporate America? Besides, it's just bread and circuses. Let's let go of this crap.

I am not a big fan of the Olympic games. I usually forget to notice when they are happening. But I do see the Olympics as useful in terms of understanding, from several angles, what humans can do. Humans with lots of training and great doctors and perfect nutrition and corporate sponsorships, sure, but, still, humans all the same. What those people can accomplish provides a sort of measure (though not a limit) of the possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/opinion/nyregionopinions/10CImatheson.html?_r=1

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the Olympics would have added more than $12 billion to the economy and generated 135,000 jobs. Experts who study the impact of sporting events on the economy, however, uniformly find that such estimates routinely overstate the effect of mega-events like the Olympics on local economies. A study of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which I conducted with Prof. Robert A. Baade of Lake Forest College in Illinois, found that the Games there generated as few as 3,500 new jobs, a tiny fraction of the 77,000 new jobs predicted by the local organizing committee in the run-up to the Olympics. "

Olympics is a big ZERO as far as meaningful stimulus. I was in Atlanta and I saw all the stupid hucksterism by ACOG. I saw many fools in the area who thought there were going to make a mint off the Olympics somehow. For some it was renting their place to rich tourists over the summer. For others it was selling memorabilia. Only a handful of people already connected in city politics with construction companies etc made any significant profits off of it. That business about building a new stadium etc. does not make for anything but a new ENTERTAINMENT venue that must be maintained going forward it does not add a new factory it just is a shot in the arm for tourism. And is Chicago really a prime tourist destination?

Technically there are three major world wide events that still exist. The world cup, the worlds fair and the olympics.

In all fairness the USA hasn't been sold on soccer. Yes there's MLS but lets be realistic here. I've even been to some games and the energy is way more in other countries.

The world's fair was interesting back in the 50's and 60's (NYC? Bronx? there's that thing near shea stadium) and way back 100 or so years ago when it was showing off um...electricity. I'm sure Shanghai will do a good showing of this though.

The olympics for most respects lost the attention once the Soviet Union fell. The competition simply isn't what it was. I'm not putting down the people that play in them at all but the attraction vs decades ago isn't there. It's also every other year instead of every four years. Winter and summer so it's not like it's as big as it was when it was every four

Somewhat reminds me a bit on boxing and how back in the day you had fighters that people knew fighting. Now you have two people from places that no one knows about and thus the attention isn't there.

In terms of the economic effects I'm sure there's some jobs and activity but it just isn't enough. Except for factoring out someone I know in the National Guard I haven't met anyone in my life that has actually gone to the Olympics (as in actually go for the olympics and paid money to see the events)

The idea of putting short term events in an area and implying that there's a long term economic boost just doesn't work. If you take an area that is impoversed then sure I mean if it's a place that doesn't have a sea port, air port etc. But in countries that are already developed the impact isn't there. "If you build it they will come" doesn't always work.

Back in the early 90's they hyped this boston convention center that maybe...maybe we could get the olympics..
http://www.mccahome.com/events.html going forward over a year there's no conventions that have over 65K people. Heck one meeting has just 8! why even bother listing it!

China lost a ton of money on the Olympics. The USA can not really afford to lose money in these times. Let Brazil carry the burden if they want to.

Doesn't really matter to me. I haven't watched any Olympic coverage in 20 years. And I would never attend an event in person.

mdovell says

Technically there are three major world wide events that still exist. The world cup, the worlds fair and the olympics.

wow - I didn't know that the world's fair still existed. We haven't had one here in the US since 1984 (I didn't even know that...). I also learned that the Eiffel Tower and Space Needle were built for world's fairs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_(exhibition)#After_the_fair