The Olympics are a giant exercise in sports socialism — or crony capitalism, if you prefer — where the profits are privatized and the costs socialized. The games never pay for themselves because they are designed not to. That’s because the International Olympic Committee (an opaque “nongovernmental” bureaucracy made up of fat cats from various countries) pockets most of the revenue from sponsorships and media rights (allegedly to promote global sports), requiring the host country to pay the bulk of the costs. Among the very few times the games haven’t left a city swimming in red ink was after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when voters, having learned from Montreal’s experience, barred the use of public funds, forcing the IOC to use existing facilities and pick up most of the tab for new ones.
Even that’s far from fair. If anything, the Olympics should be compensating the host city for the hassle and inconvenience, not the other way around. The only reason they don’t is because the Cold War once stirred retrograde nationalistic passions, blinding the world to the ass-backwardness of the existing arrangement. Londoners are signaling that this can’t go on.
Shikha Dalmia, “Why London Is Yawning Over the Olympics: Have Western countries finally outgrown the sports socialism of the Olympic Games?”, Reason, 2012-07-31
July 31, 2012
QotD: The crony capitalist Olympics
The BEST model: still science-by-press-release
Andrew Orlowski on the latest PR offensive by Dr Richard Muller of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project:
Richard Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, which began with goodwill from all corners of the climate debate, has made a series of bold announcements (without benefit of peer review) to the effect that global warming is definitely serious and definitely caused by humans. This has aroused derision among formerly supportive climate sceptics, caused an eminent climatologist to abandon the project, and even drawn criticism from generally alarmism-sympathetic media commentators.
Muller, professor of physics at UC Berkeley, is often regarded as a climate sceptic because he has frequently criticised the techniques used by climate scientists in the past and because he accepted funding for BEST from libertarian oil billionaire Charles Koch. When BEST launched in the wake of Climategate, it vowed to be “an independent, non-political, non-partisan group”, with Muller promising that “there will be no spin, whatever we find”. Critics of the existing temperature establishment, including well known sceptics Anthony Watts and Doug Keenan, welcomed it.
However each announcement has been aggressively trialled in the press not only before the peer review process had judged them ready for publication — which may not be a major issue — but also before anyone outside the BEST project could examine the papers at all. This requires the ordinary reader to take BEST’s accompanying press releases on blind faith — which is not a barrier for some journalists, but is far short of acceptable practice.
Milton Friedman on the Euro in November, 2000
In the National Post, Michael Walker has an article on the great economist, Milton Friedman and his influence on Canada. He also includes this interesting comment on the Euro from a Bank of Canada conference in 2000:
When, at that same Bank of Canada Conference in 2000, Milton Friedman was asked about the future of the Euro, he said:
“I think the Euro is in its honeymoon phase. I hope it succeeds, but I have very low expectations for it. I think that differences are going to accumulate among the various countries and that non-synchronous shocks are going to affect them. Right now, Ireland is a very different state; it needs a very different monetary policy from that of Spain or Italy… On purely theoretical grounds, it’s hard to believe that it’s going to be a stable system for a long time… “You know, the various countries in the Euro are not a natural currency trading group. They are not a currency area. There is very little mobility of people among the countries. They have extensive controls and regulations and rules, and so they need some kind of an adjustment mechanism to adjust to asynchronous shocks — and the floating exchange rate gave them one. They have no mechanism now.
“If we look back at recent history, they’ve tried in the past to have rigid exchange rates, and each time it has broken down. Nineteen ninety-two, 1993, you had the crises. Before that, Europe had the snake [the first attempt at European monetary cooperation in the 1970s], and then it broke down into something else. So the verdict isn’t in on the Euro. It’s only a year old. Give it time to develop its troubles.”
It is highly unfortunate for the European countries that they did not pay more attention to these piercing insights — and that Milton Friedman is no longer here to hold them to account.
Update: Reason.tv did a tribute to Friedman last year:
F-22 air supply problem found (perhaps)
The F-22 fleet has been plagued by a mysterious air supply problem for more than a year. Strategy Page reports on what might be the solution:
The U.S. Air Force has concluded (for the moment) that the cause of the breathing problems F-22 pilots were having were caused by a defective valve on the special vests pilots wear to help them with their breathing in the low pressure of the F-22 cockpit. The vests are not being used until modifications can be made to fix the problem.
Earlier this year the vests came under suspicion because it appeared that they automatically inflated too much during high-g (gravitational force) maneuvers, making it difficult for pilots to breathe. This would be subtle, so that the pilot would not immediately notice a problem with breathing. Anything obvious would have been noticed when the vest was tested. Pilots have complained about a “strange feeling” when breathing with the vest during high-g turns but not in such a way that they connected it with the disorientation. Further examination discovered that the vest was indeed inflating when it should not have been, and causing breathing problems. The air force will make a few other tweaks to the pilot air supply system and quietly hope that the problem is indeed solved.
[. . .]
Now the air force can drop a number of precautionary restrictions imposed over the last year. For example, pilots were forced to make flights at least 24 hours apart. In training, and combat, pilots would take their F-22s up two or more times a day. The theory was that the pressure vests and acceleration atelectasis would not be a problem if pilots have at least 24 hours to recover.
Despite the breathing problems the air force continued to fly its F-22s. The decision to keep flying was made because the air supply problems had not killed anyone yet and they were rare (once every 10,000 sorties). The 14 incidents that did occur were all cases of F-22 pilots apparently experiencing problems. The term “apparently” is appropriate because the pilots did not black out and a thorough check of the air supply system and the aircraft found nothing wrong.
Here’s the initial discussion of the problem from July last year. In September, the F-22s were cleared to fly again, but they were grounded again in October.
New British tolerance: it’s still conform or be cast out
Brendan O’Neill on the dangers of dissenting from the cult of tolerance:
Did you enjoy the Olympics opening ceremony? If you didn’t, it’s probably wise to keep it to yourself. After all, you don’t want to end up like Tory MP Aidan Burley, who has been denounced as “reprehensible”, “offensive” and even “incompatible with modern Britain” — wow — for having the temerity to tweet that he thought the ceremony was “leftie multicultural crap”. There is a profound irony at work here. The ceremony celebrated the openness and diversity of modern Britain and has been hailed as a wonderful spectacle of “inclusion”. Yet it seems our celebration of diversity does not extend to allowing any criticism of the ceremony itself; our inclusiveness does not mean we will include dissenting views on Danny Boyle’s vision of the New Britain. When it comes to the opening ceremony, you must conform and celebrate, or risk being cast out (of polite society).
The opening ceremony is speedily morphing into another “Diana moment”, into another instance when everyone is expected to kowtow before a new, unstuffy vision of Britain, and heaven help those who don’t. Following the death of Princess Diana, we were told that we had entered a post-traditional, emotionally-aware New Britain, and yet the expression of certain emotions — such as criticism of the cult of public mourning outside the various royal palaces — was frowned upon and censured.
