On Friday I posted a commentary about how Chicago lost its bid to become an Olympic host city.
In this post I blamed President Barack Obama for the loss because I asserted he was meddling in issue that didn’t concern him.
Since its posting, several people have contacted me and tried to explain the error of my ways.
Therefore, in this post I intend to explain the true meaning behind the commentary and try to clear the air a bit.
First, I left out a key component in that blog post. Had Obama not traveled to Copenhagen and spoke, he would have been the only head of state from a country hoping to become a host city not to have made an appearance. That is a fact, and had he not gone it would have been a cause for embarrassment for the United States.
That being said, however, the main purpose of the blog post was to express my feelings that our history-making president isn’t living up to the promises he made during the campaign. Is this truly surprising when dealing with a politician? No, but I voted for the guy because I believed in what he represented and what he could do. I just want a little return on my investment.
I wrote the blog post because I feel there were more important things that could have been dealt with instead of traveling there.
My question is would he have been stumping so hard if it were any other city besides Chicago.
Obama’s election was a great thing for our country. He could do so much. I just wish this time he would have chosen a different topic to focus on.
The blog post was written in an over-exaggerated way in an attempt to shine light on the fact that other things are more important than having Chicago as the Olympics host city.
I was being a bit satirical saying he is totally to blame because South America deserved a chance to host, but since Obama is being made out to be our nation’s savior, I figured it was only fitting if something doesn’t go right he gets all the credit for that too.
After all, a good portion of our country probably thinks he can walk on water, so if he is going to get all the praise, he should get all the blame as well.
Again, I am an Obama supporter, but I’m just frustrated with the lack of progress he is currently making, especially in regards to Afghanistan.
I have family who has served there. I want to see that taken care of ASAP.
Now could he have solved it during that time? Probably not, but it is possible that important work could have been done.
Of course, some argue that my commentary was too harsh because hosting the Olympics would have been a good thing for our country.
Is that accurate? I’m not so sure.
Granted, hosting would have given us world-wide attention and prestige, but what would it have done for our economy?
According to The Wall Street Journal, it may not be as helpful as one might think.
“It’s not set up to be an economic event,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College said in the journal article. “It’s really set up to be a spectacle.”
The article then dropped some very interesting statistics:
Chicago’s proposed budget is about $4 billion, according to the city’s bid book. Plus another $1 billion or so for infrastructure that’s slated to be privately financed. But don’t be surprised if that price tag doubles, triples or worse — it almost always does.
Athens said hosting the games there would cost $1.6 billion. It ended up being about $16 billion. Beijing predicted $1.6 billion but current estimates say that’s more like $30 to $40 billion. And the 2012 games in London, originally expected to cost less than $5 billion, may now come with a price tag of around $19 billion, Zimbalist noted in a paper he co-wrote with the University of Alberta’s Brad R. Humphreys.
See, hosting could have cost Chicago tons of money that doesn’t need to be spent in our current economic situation considering the return is as little as $4.4 billion, according to The Journal article quoting an independent study.
That might sound like a lot, but compare that to the $40 billion spent in Beijing. That isn’t a good profit. It really isn’t a profit at all.
So, was my tone off a bit in Friday’s post?
Maybe, but that point I was trying to make stays the same.
We have enough problems to deal with domestically and internationally. Adding the Olympics to the plate wouldn’t help, and I wish our president didn’t think he had the Midas Touch that could fix everything.
I just want him to take care of the tasks at hand and stop making everything in the world about him.
Yes he made history. Great, but how about now he helps get the problems our country is facing straightened out?
Wouldn’t that be sweet?
Then he would really be leaving his mark on history in my book.
Solid. And I liked the initial post, too. Taking a stand, expressing a thoughtful opinion, beats most of the mush out there by a country mile.
Two thoughts:
1) The study that indicates $4.4 billion includes a *potential* for $500M more than indicated. But that study also recognizes “Chicago has the potential to stage a successful games, with significant long-term benefits to the entire region” —a fact the WSJ glosses over top-to-bottom in that post. Not a gripe with anything you wrote, but an example of why I treat WSJ’s opinion like a louse-ridden child of the 50s. (IOW, they’ve earned the fine-toothed comb….)
2) “GDP in London will increase by £5.9 billion, spread over 12 years, and in net, over 38,000 job-years will be created in London.” (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttri/olympics_project.htm)