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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:45 am Post subject: |
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http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/12/raphael-alexander-b-c-liberals-pick-olympics-over-health-care.aspx
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B.C. Liberals pick Olympics over health care
The B.C. government has just recently admitted that they will be paying millions of dollars for �paid volunteers� to help VANOC during the Olympics Games. The government is �seconding� up to 1,400 bureaucrats from Victoria at a cost of $7 million per month. It must be nice to have that kind of money just floating around, despite the deficit shortfall that the province faces, and Gordon Campbell�s humiliating breach of his own no-deficit legislation.
Nice for VANOC, a private committee running a for-profit enterprise on the backs of taxpayers. Not so nice for British Columbians with health problems, who will now face cuts to that sector. According to a report leaked to the media by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the Liberal government is planning massive cuts to operating rooms and further delays for surgeries.
The planned health cuts include:
* Closing 13.5 operating rooms from September to March 2010.
* Postponing 5,800 surgeries in areas such as neurosurgery, vascular surgery, ortho trauma, ophthalmology and general surgery.
* Reducing operating-room and hospital-ward staff by an estimated 112 full-time-equivalent jobs.
* Cutting 13 anaesthesiology positions.
The report has infuriated the opposition parties, with B.C. Conservative Party President Wayne McGrath saying that the report may just be the �tip of the iceberg�. These cuts are only for the Vancouver coastal health region of the province, and further cuts to health care could be imminent. The Liberal government taking this approach of ensuring the success of the Olympics above all else, now means that the most valued public asset, health care, will be sacrificed.
These cuts to health care are coming at a time when the economy continues to struggle to recover, and instead of cutting the salaries of 1,400 bureaucrats in Victoria who, quite evidently, don�t have enough work to do, the government is passing the burden on to the ill and afflicted. The fiscally conservative and responsible thing for a government to do during this recession would be to cut taxes and allow for natural economic growth. Instead, the government brought in a new tax, the HST, without consultation or debate. A tax that will add 7% to all kinds of basic needs items for families that were ordinarily exempted under the previous system. A tax that would add another $50,000 to the price of a new home, in a housing market that is anything but healthy.
Speaking of health, don�t count on the B.C. Liberals to care about that. For a government that raises your taxes while cutting health services in a recession, your rising blood pressure means about as much to them as important emails pertaining to the sale of B.C. Rail. |
Because there is only so much money to go around, you have to make choices. And if arrogant politicians make decisions based on their bloated desire for a 'legacy', then you can't have that operation you need. Oh, and if you want to pay out of pocket for the operation you have to leave the country because the Liberals have prevented private hospitals from opening. What an utterly bizarre political reality. Prevent health competition and then cut services, raise taxes and build stadiums. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Captain Corea wrote: |
| On the other hand wrote: |
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I don't think its irrational for a city to wish to host the Olympics; its only irrational to believe it will be a net profit.
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All I'm saying is that I, personally, would hate to live in a city that was hosting the Olympics. If other people think it's a great idea, so be it. That wouldn't change my vote in a referendum, though. |
I lived in Calgary during the Olympics and thought it was fine.
In fact, didn't Calgary turn a profit from them? |
If you assume the cost of the games stop the exact moment the games end, then yes. The Calgary games turned a profit. However, if you factor in all the long term costs, then no. It did not. If you build a property that will last 20 years for a 3 week event, you cannot act like that property has no costs following the event. |
Were not many of those properties sold off to private parties? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know. The UofC holds some and as far as I know Olympic Park is publicly held. But in the case of the Calgary games, the profit/loss calculation did not include 1) subsidies from various levels of government or 2) the actual construction of the facilities.
Thomas Walkom wrote an article on this in the Globe a while back. I can't seem to find it. But he went into the books and (surprise) found that the government had used windowdressing on the accounts. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 7:16 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/12/raphael-alexander-b-c-liberals-pick-olympics-over-health-care.aspx
| Quote: |
B.C. Liberals pick Olympics over health care
The B.C. government has just recently admitted that they will be paying millions of dollars for �paid volunteers� to help VANOC during the Olympics Games. The government is �seconding� up to 1,400 bureaucrats from Victoria at a cost of $7 million per month. It must be nice to have that kind of money just floating around, despite the deficit shortfall that the province faces, and Gordon Campbell�s humiliating breach of his own no-deficit legislation.
Nice for VANOC, a private committee running a for-profit enterprise on the backs of taxpayers. Not so nice for British Columbians with health problems, who will now face cuts to that sector. According to a report leaked to the media by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the Liberal government is planning massive cuts to operating rooms and further delays for surgeries.
The planned health cuts include:
* Closing 13.5 operating rooms from September to March 2010.
* Postponing 5,800 surgeries in areas such as neurosurgery, vascular surgery, ortho trauma, ophthalmology and general surgery.
* Reducing operating-room and hospital-ward staff by an estimated 112 full-time-equivalent jobs.
* Cutting 13 anaesthesiology positions.
The report has infuriated the opposition parties, with B.C. Conservative Party President Wayne McGrath saying that the report may just be the �tip of the iceberg�. These cuts are only for the Vancouver coastal health region of the province, and further cuts to health care could be imminent. The Liberal government taking this approach of ensuring the success of the Olympics above all else, now means that the most valued public asset, health care, will be sacrificed.
These cuts to health care are coming at a time when the economy continues to struggle to recover, and instead of cutting the salaries of 1,400 bureaucrats in Victoria who, quite evidently, don�t have enough work to do, the government is passing the burden on to the ill and afflicted. The fiscally conservative and responsible thing for a government to do during this recession would be to cut taxes and allow for natural economic growth. Instead, the government brought in a new tax, the HST, without consultation or debate. A tax that will add 7% to all kinds of basic needs items for families that were ordinarily exempted under the previous system. A tax that would add another $50,000 to the price of a new home, in a housing market that is anything but healthy.
Speaking of health, don�t count on the B.C. Liberals to care about that. For a government that raises your taxes while cutting health services in a recession, your rising blood pressure means about as much to them as important emails pertaining to the sale of B.C. Rail. |
Because there is only so much money to go around, you have to make choices. And if arrogant politicians make decisions based on their bloated desire for a 'legacy', then you can't have that operation you need. Oh, and if you want to pay out of pocket for the operation you have to leave the country because the Liberals have prevented private hospitals from opening. What an utterly bizarre political reality. Prevent health competition and then cut services, raise taxes and build stadiums. |
Now they can just add lions to the stadiums, send in the pensioners, and the socialists will have come full circle. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:01 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
http://www.windsorstar.com/sports/2010wintergames/Olympics+come+with+heavy+cost/2338159/story.html
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| When you add up all the official and unofficial costs, the Vancouver Games could run between $4 billion and $6 billion rather than the $1.8 billion operating budget touted by the organizers. |
Those calculations are for the operation of the games. Lots of other costs after. The Canadian hockey teams better win for that price. |
Citizens are denied the chance to have good, honest private health care. Then they are taxed for the privilege of being scammed by the socialists. Then the socialists divert the money into other projects leaving the poor and middle class with little or no health care when needed and no money of their own left to buy their own health care. Nice system.
A lot of people are going to go without health care to pay for another socialist boondoggle. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:06 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, that's about it. But those Americans don't have any "health care" at all so it's cool.
The spread is 4-6b. In twenty years some curmudgeon is going to run the numbers and who knows what will be the end amount. But think of what it will do for real estate values! |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:37 am Post subject: |
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/31/vancouver-winter-olympics-police
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�Just days before the opening ceremony, Vancouver is gripped by dread. Not the typical attitude for a host city, but understandable when you consider that everything that could go wrong, is in the process of going wrong.
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In the mid-2000s the games were originally slated to cost a pittance of $660m and bring in a profit of $10bn. This ludicrous projection was made before the market crash � an event that the Vancouver�s Olympic committee failed to anticipate.
�
Conservative estimates now speculate that the games will cost upwards of $6bn, with little chance of a return. This titanic act of fiscal malfeasance includes a security force that was originally budgeted at $175m, but has since inflated to $900m. With more than 15,000 members, it�s the largest military presence seen in western Canada since the end of the second world war, an appropriate measure only if one imagines al-Qaida are set to descend from the slopes on C2-strapped snowboards. With a police officer on every corner and military helicopters buzzing overhead, Vancouver looks more like post-war Berlin than an Olympic wonderland.
�
This manic mix of hype and gloom is a byproduct of the games� utter pointlessness.
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It will be the best chance yet for the Olympics to be derailed and exposed as what they are: a corrupt relic of the 20th century that does little more than gut city coffers and line the pockets of developers and investors.� |
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/dave_zirin/01/25/vancouver/
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This disillusion is developing as the financial burden of the Games becomes public. The original cost estimate was $660 million in public money. It's now at an admitted $6 billion and steadily climbing. An early economic impact statement was that the games could bring in $10 billion. Price Waterhouse Coopers just released their own study showing that the total economic impact will be more like $1 billion. In addition, the Olympic Village came in $100 million over budget and had to be bailed out by the city.
Security was estimated at $175 million and the final cost will exceed $1 billion. These budget overruns are coinciding with drastic cuts to city services. On my first day in town, the cover of the local paper blared cheery news about the Games on the top flap, while a headline announcing the imminent layoff off 800 teachers was much further down the page.
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Shameful. I hope Canada never bids for another Olympic games. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:58 pm Post subject: U.S. Olympic critic denied entry into Canada |
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An American freelance journalist and Olympic critic was denied entry into Canada on Saturday, according to the Olympic Resistance Network.
In a release, the organization said Martin Macias, Jr. was detained by border officials at Vancouver International Airport on Saturday morning and questioned for several hours.
The organization said the U.S. Consulate told them Macias was eventually denied entry and put on a plane for Seattle.
It said Macias is a reporter at a community radio station in Chicago and a leading member of No Games Chicago, an organization that opposed that city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
Macias was travelling to Vancouver for political events including a two-day conference, the organization said, and he was to leave Vancouver on Feb. 11, before the start of the Games.
The group said he was travelling with Bob Quellos of No Games Chicago, who it said was allowed to enter Canada.
The Olympic Resistance Network, a Vancouver-based anti-Olympic group, maintains Macias was denied entry because of his known opposition to the Olympics.
The organization said this is not the first time an Olympic critic has been denied access. It says border agents, police and intelligence units have been actively harassing opponents of the Olympic Games for years.
A spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency wouldn't discuss the specific case because of privacy issues, but said in an email Canada's admissibility requirements will not change for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
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Liar |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:17 am Post subject: |
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What does 6 billion CAD get you?
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Disgruntled athletes and coaches staying at the Olympic Village in Vancouver have hit out at what they say is shoddy accommodation and a lack of basic comforts.
One of the complaints is that the walls of the rooms are so thin that the athletes are struggling to fall asleep � not a good time to have snorers nearby�
Ski jumping trainer Werner Schuster compared the Olympic Village with a boy scout camp. The 41-year-old said: �The living standard is very poor. Five, six people have to share a bathroom and the walls are as thin as curtains.�
Such Spartan living, all in the quest to win gold at the Olympics!
The size the accommodation has also been criticised. A particularly sore point is that there isn�t enough space for athletes to dry their clothes.
A German functionary said: �The Village is good for summer. But now in winter with this weather it�s a problem.
"The German team have especially bought heaters to dry their things which are always getting wet due to the relentless sleet.�
Hermann Weinbuch, Germany's Nordic combined coach, also slammed the fact that athletes and support staff will have to live so far apart.
And having to eat with plastic cutlery off paper plates in the Olympic Village hasn't gone down well with the 49-year-old either.
But despite the problems, most of the Olympic Village residents seem to have come to terms with the inconveniences.
Schuster added: �I think it is enriching for the athletes to experience this. There�s a different atmosphere in a four-star hotel because you have to adjust to the circumstances.� |
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/sport-news/vancouver-olympics-2010/02/12/olympic-village-accommodation/coaches-athletes-slam-walls-as-thin-as-curtains.html
http://www.vancouversun.com/Sports/Olympics+bill+tops+billion/1207886/story.html
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Olympics bill tops $6 billion � so far
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^ That was a year ago. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/sports/olympics/25vancouver.html
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Vancouver Journal
A $1 Billion Hangover From an Olympic Party
By IAN AUSTEN
...
�O.K., are the Olympics worth it?� Mrs. Lombardi said while stopping for lunch at Murchie�s, a venerable tea and coffee shop. �I don�t want to be too negative because there�s good and bad, but I have to agree with my husband. All he can talk about is the debt. I�m worrying about what�s going to happen next.�
While hundreds of thousands of people have streamed onto the streets to enjoy (some of them to excess late at night) the Olympic party, there is still an undercurrent of crankiness and apprehension in the city.
...
As for Vancouver�s municipal government and the taxpayers, the bad news is already in. The immediate Olympic legacy for this city of 580,000 people is a nearly $1 billion debt from bailing out the Olympic Village development. Beyond that, people in Vancouver and British Columbia have already seen cuts in services like education, health care and arts financing from their provincial government, which is stuck with many other Olympics-related costs. Many people, including Mrs. Lombardi, expect that more will follow.
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The average guy, who cannot easily afford Olympics tickets (even attending the medals ceremonies costs $21, plus service charges), has had other reasons to complain. The flaming caldron that Mrs. Lombardi admired was initially hidden behind a chain link fence that evoked a medium-security prison. And until local spirits were dampened by the Canadian hockey team�s loss to the United States, a large section of downtown was overrun nightly by boisterous, hollering celebrants, an astonishing number of whom were drunk.
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The real estate development industry, which is unusually powerful in Vancouver, provided the city with an Olympic Village plan that seemed � and ultimately was � too good to be true. A development firm would finance and build the village on a desirable piece of city-owned land. After the Games, the developer would convert the accommodations into luxury condominiums and pay the city for the property. Vancouver would get its village and turn a profit as well.
But cost overruns, combined with the credit crisis in 2008, destroyed the financing. Once in office, Mr. Robertson had to obtain special permission from the province to borrow $434 million to complete the village. In all, the city is responsible for about $1 billion in development costs, a situation that lowered its credit rating.
...
�It�s going to be very tight financially,� said Chris Haddock, the producer and writer of a critically acclaimed television series about Vancouver politics that was broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. �Some of the things they want to do, and want to prove, will have to be put off.�
...
Kennedy Stewart, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver who has written extensively about the city�s politics, remains unconvinced that showing potential investors a good time during the Olympics will resolve Vancouver�s long-term economic issues. The forestry industry, once the mainstay of its economy, has been devastated by a beetle infestation, the collapse of the housing market in the United States and competition from South America. While motion picture production companies and software developers have set up shop here in recent years, they lack the same economic impact.
�What�s the substantive thing Vancouver has to offer other than its nice mountains and vastly overpriced real estate?� Professor Stewart asked. �The forestry industries have collapsed, so where is the money going to come from other than marijuana grow-ops?� |
1 billion in debt? Who is the NYT kidding. Try 5-6. Anyways, good luck with that.
So, when the government builds stadiums for a two week sporting event at the same time it is cutting health services it has a legal monopoly on, are we maybe dealing with a stupid policy paradigm? |
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