2010 Vancouver Olympics - a Gift That Keeps On Taking

Thanks for the Olympics, Santa - but what I really wanted was a public daycare system

In May of 2007 the provincial government released a 'business plan' in which the ultimate cost of the Olympics to the public wasn't revealed.

As Chris Shaw wrote in his book, Five Ring Circus, the IOC refuses to allow any city to host the Olympics unless public money is guaranteed. This is because the Olympics are such a colossal business risk that no sensible business person would underwrite it.

So, public inputs are taken from hospitals, schools, and daycares so a few people can chase each other around an ice rink or zip down an icy course in a bobsled while thousands of others watch live and billions watch on TV.

Why spend money removing the 100 million landmines in the world or retooling the economies or fighting poverty when you can vicariously experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. That kid in Afghanistan, who stepped one of those landmines and is now hopping around on one foot, is thinking the same thing. "Bobsledding, mom. Quick, quick, come look!"

Then why is the public taxpayer 'investing' in this fucking orgy? Because we were told that in the worst case scenario we'd 'break even' and in the best case scenario we'd make $200 million. Now, in my books (and remember I'm coming from a loonie left POV - you know, the people who couldn't manage a hot dog stand) 'breaking even' means the income is equal to the expense. So, if the expenses are $12 then the income is $12 and the result is no gain - but no loss either. When my mom breaks even in at the slots in Reno it's because she left home with $300 and she returned with $300, which doesn't happen very often such is the nature of gambling.

So, how do we the taxpayer recoup public money, or investment? Well, through taxes silly. And where do we collect taxes? We collect income tax and sales tax.

It appears the cost of the Olympics to taxpayers will be closer to $3 billion than to $600 million. The cost of security alone ballooned from $85 million to $1 billion - the same ratio as if I said "It's gonna cost you 85 bucks" and then once the contract was signed I revealed "plus another $915."

The Olympics span a period of 13 days.

The taxpayers don't share in any revenue from the broadcast rights or from the licensing of the games, etc. The public didn't make any money in the development of properties, etc.

Yes, we're going to collect taxes from ourselves, in the form of taxes on our income. If our income increases by massive amounts the taxes will reflect an increase in provincial revenue.

Mostly we hope to recoup our investment in the games from the visitors to Vancouver who come for the Olympic experience who will leave behind massive amounts of money in the form of sales taxes.

Now here are some basic calculations:

Let's say $3 billion is the target (our break even).

PST is 7%.

Therefore $3 billion represents 7% of the total expenditures during the 13 days. Thus the Olympic experience has to generate an extra $42,857,142, 857 in taxable sales. Or almost $3.2 billion dollars a day.

The population of the Metro Vancouver area is close to 2 million people. Let's assume that we'll get 2 million people during the 13 days visiting us. They will have to spend $1648 per day for the full 13 days. So a family of four will have to spend nearly $6600 a day (and that doesn't include food since it's not taxable).

You can massage the numbers by increasing the number of touristy days to a month or double the number of people or say the increase of income tax will account for greater revenues. On and on.

But if I came to you and said "I have a great business opportunity for you" and I gave you these numbers I'm sure it'd be a difficult moment for both of us. Unless, I wore a tie. Then you'd probably think, "he's got loads of experience and he wears a tie. And he says things like 'traction', 'inputs' and 'aggressive'".

And by the way, if we don't get the sales tax from those visitors, that means an increase in our property taxes (that $100 million bill we plopped into the developer's bank account for the Olympic Village means an increase of about $2000 in property tax for Vancouverites - and if you spread it over the several years there will be financing costs).

And doubling the population of Vancouver (2 million people i) is going to lead to massive delivery problems, consumption costs, etc.

Had we used the money to develop a public day care program each family would be relieved of between $8000 and $12000 per child per year in expenses and it would have employed about 64,000 people in good paying jobs and it would have done a lot of other things almost equal in goodness as bobsledding.


xo

M