The invested interests spend so much national wealth in preparing the Olympic Games to blandish the international, launch so much propaganda about the 2008 Olympics to gloss over official corruption and social inequality!
That could have been said of every nation in the world that hosts an olympics. Boycotting an olympics is stupid political trick. I know it has happened on rare occasions in the past but IMO it should never ever happen again, even if it were hosted by Iran.Many feel the GDP comes from inflation. houses and food are all more expensive
California, USA, has been exactly like that for the past 50 or so years too. My sister bought a house 25 years ago in southern CA for $120,000 and sold it a year ago for $850,000.
Ancient Dragon
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"My sister bought a house 25 years ago in southern CA for $120,000 and sold it a year ago for $850,000." That just about takes care of inflation, taxes and fees.
Off topic: "Let's keep politics out of the Olympics!"
Lardmeister
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the 2012 olympics is a waste of money
a huge % of our cash went to that, iraq, afganistan and africa (a.k.a the money pits)
jbennet
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Look at it this way, the Queen and her royal entourage will enjoy the 2012 Olympic spectacle right at her door step.
Lardmeister
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the 2012 olympics are taking place in a really ghettoish part of london (the east end)
jbennet
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>>the 2012 olympics are taking place in a really ghettoish part of london (the east end)
Simple solution: either clean up the ghettos or move the olympics to a different part of London.
Ancient Dragon
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thats the point there putting it there
the aim is that building the olympic village will make it look nicer, get tourists, busisness etc... and afterward the local people can use the facilities to keep them off the streets (urban regeneratrion is the phrase being used)
jbennet
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>> the 2012 olympics is a waste of money
That's only cause it's in London and they have to build everything for it.
As far as I know most residents of olimpic sites aren't happy with it.
twomers
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what ever happen to the days when the olympics were just fun events to watch and had nothing political to do with anything?
The olympics are supposed to bring people together, not apart.
TheNNS
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>> what ever happen to the days when the olympics were just fun events to watch and had nothing political to do with anything?
Money? Greed?
twomers
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>> the 2012 olympics is a waste of money
That's only cause it's in London and they have to build everything for it.
We already have a number of olympic-quality villages across the UK which are used for the commonwealth games (canada, australia, the uk, and other places (mainly pacific) where the queen is the head of state) but london was chosen as most tourists think of the UK and think of london
jbennet
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The olympics was awarded to London specifically, not Canada or Australia, although Canada is hosting the 2010 winter olympics.
Ancient Dragon
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No, what I meant was that there are sites in other cities in the UK which would be suitable (have been used in the past for commonwealth games)
e.g. Manchester, the industrial heartland of England would have made a good choice.
jbennet
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what ever happen to the days when the olympics were just fun events to watch and had nothing political to do with anything?
What days were those exactly?
Even in antiquity there was politics involved, with athletes from different cities competing (though not openly sponsored by those cities).
But given the way the Chinese are doing things I do agree with a ban on the games there.
Stadiums being built with slave labour (political prisoners, inmates from the Chinese Gulag), tens of thousands of people thrown out of their homes with no compensation because those homes are in the way of grand avenues and venues for the games (wouldn't want visiting foreigners to see the slums...), etc. etc.
And that opinion has less to do with the games as it does with the Chinese system as a whole, is the reason why I prefer to not buy any goods "made in China" and haven't for years (though it's hard, and you often find out only after you buy something that it was made in China).
jwenting
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