The world-class city that got the Olympics now has some world-class cost increases

Yup. There are only two types of people who want to host the olympics: thieves and suckers.

I know this is not the most popular stance but stepping back from just feeling smug and expressing how much everyone hates the Olympics for thumbs, but I find their explanation way too reasonable in their explanation in their article to just mock.

The last estimate was $6.2 billion for 2024 and now it's $6.9 billion. Yes, I know $700 million is a mind boggling number and don't y'all start chastising me at that. Inflation rates are inflation and when you have huge numbers than even a single percent would be huge. When you plug in $6.2 billion in an inflation calculator , the increase does seem reasonable. For one example, the inflation rate between 2004 and 2008 apparently would have turn a $6.2 billion project into a $7 billion project.

I personally take no pleasure in wishing failure. The Olympics is corrupt and so my wish is for it to not be corrupt, not dead.

And as I said before and now say again in these Olympics news posts that I find myself in alignment with Roman and Waqiuot in their spirit of their message. I had no problem with a Boston Olympics in the principle of it. An Olympics organized and hosted with good faith can be a great and profitable venture for all parties. The key part is "good faith" - or at least an Olympics signed up with terms favoring the city (a key part of why 1984 LA Olympics was profitable was they were the only bidder and thus can dictate all the terms - and the less recognized part is the LA leadership wanted to dictate terms profitable for the city).

Of course, our leadership submitted a plan that was in no way favorable to us as a city. The complicated engineering needed around Widdet Circle would all-but-guaranteed to go overbudget and by a lot. It didn't had to be that way (or at least for my limited knowledge for possible sites), but it was. Thus, we did dodge a bullet with the plan that was formulated for Boston.

But hopefully the LA version is again done by LA's terms (and their leadership is dictating terms is favorable for LA rather than just the constructions companies like what the Boston version essentially submitted). I hope for their success. Because it can be beneficial for all if chosen to execute it that way.

Can you really blame the guy who owns the largest construction company around here from trying to promote an event that would probably trigger a massive construction boom?

And sure, he recused his firm from building Olympic venues, but there would have been all kinds of ancillary construction that would've come with it, and every other company would already be tied up.

Just remember that all of the Politicians were either for this, or at best stayed silent about it.

It was truly Citizens who shot this thing down, the JP groups, Chris Dempsey and his associates, Shirley Kressel and I. All of us sharing notes and trying to garner support against "The Establishment'. There was not a single elected official that I recall taking a stand against this, certainly not leading the way.

Quienes son los Payasos?

Here was the op-ed I wrote about Fish:

Who is John Fish?

The rhetorical opening line “Who is John Galt” to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” which provides the basis for much right wing dogma today is appropriate for examining the Boston2024 movement to bring the Olympics to Boston (or more generally any city in America or the Western world). In the story, America is in decline, the people are unappreciative ‘looters’, the bureaucrats and politicians are completely corrupt, and the institutions of the country are inept. Rand suggests that the only people that can save the world is a tiny group of individualist industrialists who decide to leave society behind and start a utopian commune led by John Galt in the mountains. This fictional book has been cited by none other than social budget cutting congressman and Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan as inspiration.

So who is John Fish? He is a private citizen leading the charge to bring the Olympics to Boston in 2024, and he just happens to head Suffolk Construction, the largest building contractor in the Boston area, which would likely get billions in construction contracts to build new venues if Boston got the Olympics. Not to suggest that is a conflict of interest.

John Fish is a prominent, successful and giving Massachusetts citizen. In fact he has given well over $100,000 personally in Massachusetts campaign contributions. But he is no Ayn Randian ideologue, instead he would appear to be more an opportunist who completely understands how the pay to play system works here in Massachusetts. How else do you explain multiple maximum contributions of $5000 to both the State Democratic committee and the State Republican committee? Maximum contributions to 3 of the 4 Boston city councilors at large? Contributions to such disparate politicians as rich white suburban Republican Mitt Romney and inner city black single mother Democrat Diane Wilkerson? (She was caught by the FBI accepting bribes and served time in federal prison) Call me naive, but perhaps this money is why no elected officials have come out publicly against this privatization of a civic responsibility, or at least had the fortitude to ask what the fiscal responsibility of their constituents will be.

Funny enough, on a superficial level both Atlas Shrugged and the Boston2024 movement are about fixing the trains! The book’s heroine Dagny Taggart strives in an Olympian manner to believe in the system and keep the trains running before succumbing to the premise that American society is doomed to fail unless we deify and free the elitist industrialists. Cynically, the only promise that Mr. Fish seems to make to Massachusetts society is that if we trust him with an undisclosed amount of our money, he will get the MBTA trains upgraded, built and running sooner than we the people through our institutions of democratic government would otherwise get them.

As has been studied in detail, every recent Olympics held in a Western country has had massive cost over runs, false promises to its hosts, and local citizens left to pay for the consequences for years or decades after. The lost opportunity cost of that money being spent on true civic institutions like schools, job training, parks, and needed infrastructure is immense. Of course, the short term opportunities to connected builders and politicians is immense as well, with large contracts and jobs and front row seats to the connected, all paid by ‘We the People’.

We in Boston like to think of ourselves as more intelligent, more ingenious, and more thrifty than most. I have been to an Olympics myself and like many love to watch and appreciate the athletes brilliance and fortitude. The inspirational video of the marathoner John Akhwari finishing the race in Mexico City with a broken body brings me to tears of pride in the human spirit. If John Fish and Co. have figured out a way that no one else in the world has to make the Olympics cost neutral at worst, requiring no input of discretionary public dollars, I will be first in line to embrace it.

But closed door meetings of connected industrialists with government officials and private institutions, no public process, lack of disclosure, and secret bids with a dubious International organization sounds like the kind of bad fiction that the citizens of an educated state should not buy to fix what ails them. When John Fish and the politicians put the following non-fiction in writing: “The citizens of Massachusetts will pay no expenses for bringing the Olympics to Boston” I will begin to believe they are smarter and better than the good people of London, Athens, Vancouver, etc. Until then, Ayn Rand, no cost Olympics, and trickle down economics will stay on the fictional side of my library.

Good thing that Clown didn't get elected, we wouldn't want a voice of fiscal reason at City Hall Plaza.

from the start. However, the one thing that convinced me it was a bad idea was when they announced they would hold beach volleyball at a new venue on the Common instead of on one of the actual beaches that are within a stone's throw of Boston.

Plus, Boston didn't need to have the largest McDonalds in the company (which is apparently another Olympic requirement) anyway.

Much like I said in 2015.

I believe that Boston had (and still has) the ability to host the Olympics. I believe that Boston could finish the infrastructure in time for the start of the games.

Now, I never said that they could do it on a budget, or that there would be no overruns, because that's just stupid talk. But money aside we could have pulled it off.

Of course, New York went through the whole bidding process and got rejected in favor of Rio in the end, and all they have to show for it is the Hudson Yards redevelopment project. This has to lead to the question of whether bidding then being rejected could have made Boston better. But please, everyone, go on about how Boston could never have put it on.

Why must all the events be held in the same place? There are already dozens of venues worldwide built for each of these sports. So what if track and field events are in Spain and horse events are in New Hampshire.

The NCAA is up there. At least FIFA athletes get paid for their work.