You brits know this is costing you over a billion dollars to sit there and give away glorified trinkets right?
You brits know this is costing you over a billion dollars to sit there and give away glorified trinkets right?
Last edited by Tesclo; 2012-07-30 at 06:06 PM.
The UK is literally shelling out billions to hand out "gold medals" that contain 1.34% gold http://www.zerohedge.com/news/auster...tains-134-gold
Last edited by Fuzzzie; 2012-07-30 at 08:33 PM.
-Snip- This is not the place for discussing moderation. It is also not the place to make sniping comments about other posters.
This was back in march (the UK was 3 billion over the budget): http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/03...b-over-budget/
note that's not even to mention the cost of all the security and having more military in the city than even in afganastan.
The medals themselves aren't even worth much. The gold medal has 1.34% gold in it and is worth about $500 USD. The silver medal is worth about $260 USD and the Bronze is worth, get this! $3 USD! http://www.zerohedge.com/news/auster...tains-134-gold
That is why I say they are trinkets. The UK is literally spending billions to hand out trinkets.
Last edited by Northern Goblin; 2012-07-30 at 06:30 PM.
Of course not, but that comes with hosting the Olympics. It's true that the Olympics does trash the economy, some even speculate that the Athens Olympics is the reason Greece is in the toilet right now. China lost money when they hosted in Beijing, where they even had to shut down factories just to make the air more breathable. And yes, UK did go over budget.
BUT, there's a reason why countries fight for the Olympics. Even though it drains the economy, if they can survive it long-term (unlike Greece), it benefits the economy with all the new infrastructure and city improvements. In the long-term, it's a very good excuse to upgrade your city.
The opening ceremony cost £8m, to put it into context that would probably buy you an average premiership player or if you're an American, that will pay Alex Rodriguez for approximately the amount of time he'll be on the disabled list with a broken hand. What you're not taking into account is the revenue generated by the games, again some context, I have already spent £50 on tickets to two events, to which you can add two round journeys to Glasgow (£8 each day) & have been compelled to buy a nice Team GB hoodie (£28) which I likely wouldn't have bought otherwise, I'm also likely to visit London for the Paralympics (£10 ticket, £20 transport down there + whatever I spend while I'm there). That's just one person, there will be likely close to 65,000 people every day in the Olympic Stadium, probably close to 200k tickets for an average competition day - all of them contributing to the economy directly through the price of the ticket, many will be tourists from outside the UK needing a hotel room, most will make purchases as well contributing VAT to the UK economy.
The whole ethos of "this is costing billions" is a short sighted view based on a complete disregard for the basics of economics as you're looking at the expenditure while completely ignoring the income side of the balance sheet.
Koodledrum - Balnazzar EU - 85 Priest - Retired.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/auster...tains-134-gold
Taken from the above article:
The 2012 gold is 92.5 percent silver, 6.16 copper and... 1.34 percent gold
The resulting medallion is worth about $500
For the silver medal, the gold is replaced with more copper, for a $260 bill of materials. The bronze medal is 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin. Valued at about $3!
$3 value for a bronze olympic medal? Thoughts?
medals arent meant to be sold anyway.... They're meant as a trophy....
Also, making those hundreds of pure gold medals would cost an insane amount of money just for throwing away like that.
Last edited by Martinussen; 2012-07-30 at 07:01 PM.
"When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ
The olympics will bring in billions.............
Stop looking at the short term costs and look at it as more of a long term thing.
Posting what I said a while ago:
Of course not, but that comes with hosting the Olympics. It's true that the Olympics does trash the economy, some even speculate that the Athens Olympics is the reason Greece is in the toilet right now. China lost money when they hosted in Beijing, where they even had to shut down factories just to make the air more breathable. And yes, UK did go over budget.
BUT, there's a reason why countries fight for the Olympics. Even though it drains the economy, if they can survive it long-term (unlike Greece), it benefits the economy with all the new infrastructure and city improvements. In the long-term, it's a very good excuse to upgrade your city.
---------- Post added 2012-07-31 at 03:04 AM ----------
It's not about gold. It's about the meaning that comes with it.
Most modern gold products contain very little actual gold ie jewllery due to the fact it's a very soft metal, and the price.
It wouldn't have occured to me that the medals were anything other than gold plate. Their value is not in the raw materials,
People seem to think that event like this costs the UK money, the fact is that it brings the country as a whole an unimaginable amount of business.