Bring The Olympic Games Home Permanently

Even before the noise and lights of the opening spectacle of the summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro have died down many people are questioning whether the spiralling costs and ever expanding size of the games have dimmed their once lustrous reputation. The conclusion that more and more people seem to be reaching is that the once-fabled Olympic Games are no longer worth the cost and disruption. It is way past time for the International Olympic Committee to re-think the direction of the games.

 There is a simple, admittedly radical, solution to the increasing problem of finding a city willing and able to host the sports spectacular. Stop the ridiculous, very expensive competition among cities that can hardly afford a decent water system let alone the Olympic Games. Return the games to their original location and make Athens the permanent site for future summer Olympic Games. Why not? The venues are already there from the 2004 games. The Greeks have demonstrated they know how to run a big event. The money has already been spent. The infrastructure is in place. And Greece could use the guaranteed injection of significant funds every four years. Think about it.

 

Was the cost worth it?

Rio may have seemed like a brilliant, well deserved choice when awarded the games back in 2009. But in recent years Brazil has not only been in a downward economic and political trend, but is beset with the dangerous zika virus. In short, Brazil currently has many higher priorities than the Olympic Games that are irrelevant to the vast majority of Brazilians.

            Just look at the growth of the modern games. In the 1964 Tokyo summer games there were 163 events in 19 sports with 5,151 athletes. This year in Rio there are 306 events in 42 sports with 11,192 athletes competing. And as for the costs … the Saïd Business School at Oxford University analysed 30 summer and winter games and concluded that none of the games came within initial budget. The study, contested as one might expect by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), also concluded nearly half the games exceeded their cost estimates by more than 100%.

            The study also noted that sports-related costs (venues and the athletes’ village) amounted to $6.8 billion for the 2008 summer Olympic Games in Beijing, $15 billion for the 2012 games in London, and dropping back to around $5 billion for the 2016 games. The sports-related costs for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia came in at an eye-popping $21.9 billion. That number ballooned to about $50 billion, when related infrastructure costs are included.

 

Skiers and costs hit new highs in Sochi

What is clear is that by any measure the sky-rocketing costs of the games are deterring many cities from even placing a bid. Boston, for example, pulled out of the bidding for the 2024 summer games when it became clear that the taxpayers of the city would be responsible for the inevitable cost overruns. Hamburg also pulled out following a referendum showing that the population did not want the games. The new mayor of Rome said that city, already €13 billion in debt, simply cannot afford the spectacle. That leaves Los Angeles, Paris and Budapest as the remaining possibilities.

 Four of the six cities that bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games later withdrew those bids, leaving the IOC with the choice of Beijing or Alma Ata, Kazakhstan. Beijing was the ‘lucky’ winner.

Oslo, Norway was the preferred choice for the 2022 winter games but withdrew because of lack of public support and annoyance at some of the IOC’s ludicrous demands such as free liquor for IOC members and a cocktail party with the King of Norway. This was too much for the sensible, egalitarian Norwegians. Furthermore, with historically low unemployment and excellent existing infrastructure Oslo didn’t need the games to improve things.

                              The time has come to rein in the games and stop them from becoming the athletic equivalent of the over-the-top Eurovision contest. The athletes have trained very hard for several years. Their sacrifices and nobility of effort should not be overshadowed by the circus atmosphere of organizers' problems with financing, construction, idiotic demands by for special privileges by IOC members, doping scandals, or variable international politics. And the people of the host city should not be left with very expensive white elephants that only deteriorate over time.

Time to return the Games to their roots

            I say again, bring the games home – permanently. There are plenty of international athletic competitions – World Cup of football, World Cup of rugby, tennis tournaments, world championships in almost all sports – that can be moved around to satisfy the egos of various host countries. But there is only one summer Olympic Games. And those games and the athletes should have the dignity of a permanent home -- where it all started and where all the preparations are in place.

What Comes Next -- Loyalty Oaths?

The real damage of last week’s abortive coup in Turkey is only now becoming apparent. Using the excuse of the coup, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has moved to implement political and administrative changes he could not get through the normal political process. Key to this move is purging thousands of civil servants, educators, judges, army officers who just might hold an opinion he doesn’t like. Then he declares a state of emergency.

The ‘cleansing’ was so swift and so thorough that very few people doubt these lists had been prepared long before the coup attempt. Now the state of emergency will give him unprecedented and unchecked powers to transform the country any way he likes. It would not be surprising if a new condition of military or civil service employment is swearing an oath of loyalty to Tayyip Erdoğan.

Could it get this bad in Turkey?

While the political damage is bad enough, the real long-term damage is to the country’s educational system. Erdoğan simply is not comfortable around very well educated, well-travelled people – people who tend to ask awkward questions. Thousands of teachers have been fired, university rectors forced to resign, and anyone identified as an ‘academic’ – formerly a title of some pride – has been banned from leaving the country. Erdoğan considers universities as breeding grounds for opposition to his grand ideas of a reformed Turkey. The only problem is that his vision of reform doesn’t include things like dissent, innovation, creativity, or – God forbid – smoking and drinking. Oh, and by the way, in Erdoğan’s Turkey, each bride would produce at least three children.

He gave lip service to the idea of more universities and then failed to staff them or staffed them mainly with his henchmen whose idea of a ‘proper’ student was someone who kept his mouth shut and did what he was told. A vice-rector of one of these new universities was quoted as saying how much more he preferred the company of illiterate peasants to his educated colleagues.

Turkey used to have a university system that proudly stood out in the region. Universities like the Middle East Technical University, the private Koç and Sabancı universities, Bosphorus University and others were centres of real scholarship. Now their very independence, the independence without which real scholarship and research do not exist, is under threat. Erdoğan cannot stand dissent or free thinking in any form. And can you think of any self-respecting university where dissent and free thinking are not critical parts of the entire process? He has yet to grasp the fact that some pretty good ideas emerge from just such messy dissent.

Erdoğan doesn’t care much about cultural creativity because such creativity is by definition messy and rebellious. One gets the impression that he and his followers much prefer the traditional sound of the Janissary band to the rebellious and defiant notes of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony.

But Erdoğan should care a great deal about economic creativity and innovation – without which the country will remain buried in the Third Division. His loud chorus of supporters loves the statistics that Turkey is so much better off now than when the ruling party took power in 2002. True enough, but completely irrelevant. When the ruling Justice and Development Party took over the country was in a deep depression with a ruined financial system. By comparison, anything would look good. But the main reason for the improvement is that the government’s economic team followed the International Monetary Fund’s recovery prescription to the letter. By about 2010, Erdoğan got tired of those constraints and thought he could run things better. Big mistake.

The current trend is not healthy. Inflation is creeping back up, the currency is depreciating rapidly, unemployment is up, investment is down, growth has slowed, and the private sector is heavily indebted in foreign currency. Not a recipe for strong performance.

But more than the raw numbers, the very structure of the economy should concern any serious official. The Turkish economy is filled with yesterday’s businesses -- businesses like construction, cement, bottling, simple metal bashing, or assembly of someone else’s products. None of these produce much value added. Turkey has a strong food processing industry, but take a look at the equipment all those companies use. You will have a very hard time finding any part that is Made in Turkey.

Where is the innovation? Where is the investment? Where are the new, ground-breaking industries – industries that didn’t exist a few years ago and will lead the way into the future? Part of the answer is that Turkish businessmen tend to prefer construction – with a fairly definite payoff – to the potential, if unsure, rewards of investing in innovation.

Beyond investment, such innovation requires the very messy, creative, free-thinking environment that Erdoğan hates. Can you imagine that icon of free thinking, Steve Jobs, flourishing in an environment where dissent and free speech are crushed? Or just imagine Einstein with his radical theory of how the world really works flourishing in the oppressive Turkish environment.

Turkey does not lack for brilliant, talented people. But it is very hard to see them sticking around in such a stifling cultural, academic and economic environment. It is much easier to see that brilliance and talent flourishing in other countries.

Coups Are The Wrong Solution To Turkey's Woes

It will be a long time, maybe never, before the real story of the attempted coup in Turkey emerges. What we don’t know far exceeds what we do know. The only thing that is clear at the moment is that the one person to benefit from this farce is President Tayyip Erdoğan. Even if the coup had succeeded it was the exact opposite of what Turkey needs.

            Well-armed with a full magazine of self-righteous, theatrical anger he now has the perfect excuse to eliminate anyone who might conceivably oppose him in purges that would make Joseph Stalin blush. Erdoğan loudly proclaimed that he is protecting his version of ‘democracy’ which probably doesn’t vary much from what the military would have imposed.

            The conspiracy theorists in Turkey are having a field day with such claims as ‘This is nothing more than Erdoğan’s Reichstag fire’ – a reference to the 1933 burning of the German parliament building, started by the Nazis but blamed on some hapless Dutch communist, that presented Adolf Hitler with the perfect excuse to move against all his opponents. It seems a little far-fetched to say that Erdoğan was actively behind the attempted coup, but it is not inconceivable that he had some prior intelligence about such a move and that he  knew it would fail. He was not slow to take advantage of this golden opportunity to grab the small bit of power that still eluded him.

The coup that turned into deadly farce

            It is the sheer incompetence of the plotters that generates some questions. The Turkish army is fairly skilled in coups, but apparently the plotters missed the course called Coup Making 101. The first step in any successful coup is to arrest the civilian leadership as was done in 1960 and 1980. This was not done. As soon as I heard that Erdoğan was making public statements I knew the whole thing was over. The effect Erdoğan’s broadcast was the same as Hitler announcing he was alive after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. Anyone even thinking of joining the plotters had a sudden change of heart and did absolutely nothing. It is fair to say the same thing happened in Turkey. Who knows what would have happened if the plotters had been marginally more efficient?

            In a final tragi-comic step a group of eight plotters swiped a helicopter and flew to Greece to ask for political asylum. This is just what Greece needs. The Greek authorities must be groaning and asking why, oh why, couldn’t they have just flown a few minutes more and landed in Bulgaria. As of Sunday night the helicopter has been returned, but there has been no decision announced on the men.

This is not a problem the Greeks need

            As far as Erdoğan is concerned the real culprit is clear – his one-time ally Fetullah Gülen who now lives on a farm in Pennsylvania in the United States. Erdoğan has long accused Gülen of setting up a ‘parallel’ state structure in Turkey to challenge Erdoğan’s government. According to Erdoğan, the tentacles of the Gülen organization reach deep into the military, judiciary, police and administrative institutions of Turkey – all the organizations now being ‘cleansed’ by the thousands. In addition, I would not be surprised to see him build up a strong para-military force answerable only to him to counter any future discontent with the military ranks.

            But the real victims in this idiocy that cost too many lives are not the plotters who deserve every punishment they get, but the long-suffering people of Turkey. Yes, Tayyip Erdoğan is a typical autocrat who has absolutely no regard for individual freedoms or respect for the incredible diversity of Turkey. But the solution is never going to be replacing one autocrat with another – the army. Too many of Erdoğan’s opponents think there is only a binary choice in Turkey -- an oppressive, Islamic Erdoğan or an oppressive, secular army. They are missing the point.

            Perhaps Erdoğan’s biggest fault in his long period in power is to strengthen the already dominant tendency in Turkey to revere the ‘strong man’ the ‘man on a white horse’ who can solve all the country’s problems with the stroke of a pen. Instead of building up and strengthening governing institutions like the judiciary, the central bank, the security services or police he made them subservient to his will. Consequently, very few people, if any, have the least bit of faith in the institutions that define a modern political entity. No one in any political or administrative position wants to make a decision without consulting the ‘reis’ – the chief to see which way he is leaning.

            Many of Erdoğan’s opponents fall into this same trap. Instead of the hard, time consuming process of building an alternative political movement stressing process and institution-building they, too, look for a simple answer – a charismatic hero to challenge Erdoğan. This latest farce of a so-called coup attempt only shows that that simply isn’t going to happen. Far from removing what they perceived as a ‘threat’ to Turkey the coup plotters only succeeded in strengthening Tayyip Erdoğan’s iron control of the country.

It's Time For Some Honesty About Immigration

Listening to the fevered rhetoric about immigration during Britain’s recent referendum you would think that a tsunami of starving dark-skinned people from the nether regions of the world was about to engulf England’s ‘green and pleasant land.’

            Hyperventilating opponents of the European Union left the impression that the village greens and quaint little tea houses were about to be over-run with Romanian camper vans and swarthy Bulgarians barbecuing God-knows-what on their handy grills. Barefoot, somewhat grimy children would swarm over the once-pristine cricket pitches gobbling up the tea and crust-less watercress sandwiches so carefully set aside for the players.

Is this at risk of being over-run by Eastern European immigrants?

            Unfortunately, facts in highly emotional referendum votes are thin on the ground. What may have begun as principled opposition to the European Union easily morphs into tribal fears of anything different. Since the referendum these tribal fears have led to several very ugly racial attacks in various parts of the country as the UK’s version of the Klu Klux Clan gets going. We were in Southampton last week-end when a peaceful Moslem commemoration of the end of Ramadan had to be cancelled because of fears of racist attacks. The very next day there was a demonstration of people loudly opposed to any and all refugees.

            Britain’s political classes should be ashamed of themselves for failing to confront the issue of immigration head-on long before the vote. I cannot recall one single rational debate on the issue. The stage was left to those who could only express their inchoate outrage at the mere thought of freedom of movement with the European Union. All this anger at the imagined dire state of affairs in the United Kingdom, this frustration at failing to fit in to a globalized world had found its source – the hapless Eastern European immigrant willing to work at jobs no Brit would consider.

           

            Even now, almost two weeks after the vote, there is no thoughtful discussion of the issue, no debate on real issues. For example,

1.     Exactly how many immigrants from the EU are now the Britain?

2.     What percentage of the total British population do they make up? Is a big percentage, small percentage, or completely statistically insignificant?

3.     How would Britain’s health care service work without these recent arrivals? When my wife was in hospital the wonderful, caring nurses and staff were from all over the world. There was not one native Brit among them.

4.     How would London’s booming (until the referendum anyway) construction business thrive without the thousands of Polish workers?

5.     How would Britain’s service industry – hotels, restaurants, shops -- function without the immigrants?

Also, how much investigation has there been into the dark side of immigration – the exploitation of illegal immigrants?

            None of this has been openly discussed, and irrational fears have replaced facts. Many people are now calling for a so-called points system – similar to what Australia uses – to match would-be immigrants to skills required in Britain. Ah yes, but there’s a catch. You might allow in a highly skilled computer expert, but what about his family? Do they get to join him, or do they go to the back of the queue? And then there is there is the bureaucracy. Right now, the UK has absolutely no idea how many people overstay their visa, the border agency is overwhelmed, and tracking people once inside the country is impossible. When informed about someone overstaying their visa the police just laugh and say it is not their problem. And UK officials are supposed to set up something as sophisticated as a point-scoring system!? A daunting task for a country whose rail service would embarrass moderately prosperous Third World countries.

            Furthermore, there’s a potential immigration nightmare if the UK leaves the EU in a huff. Right now there are thousands of refugees living in squalid conditions near Calais. Without a border agreement, what would keep the French from solving that problem by shipping them all to the UK? Why should the French cooperate by keeping them in France rather than shipping them to the green fields of Kent just across the water?

Is Sangatte coming to Kent?

            There are perhaps legitimate reasons to believe the UK was never going to be a good fit into the European Union. Given its long history of parliamentary democracy and a globally respected legal system it is easy to see how UK politicians would reject the very idea of that system being subordinated to the recent, untested EU system of governance. Unfortunately, the EU leaders are tone-deaf to the rising complaints of EU over-reach and are threatening the entire structure. And here we are now at a major cross-roads. Will grown ups or sulky children take us forward?

            I have no idea who the next leader of the Conservative Party will be or just how successful he or she will be in the endless rounds of exit negotiations. I only hope they remember that Britain is a parliamentary democracy, and that parliament should not abdicate its responsibilities to a referendum.

            If the difficult question of immigration is to be part of those negotiations let us at least have some facts instead of raw emotion. Is immigration really a problem, or is it a solution to Britain’s manpower and brain-drain problems? The time for a serious discussion on immigration is long overdue.

Brexit Was More A Coup d'Etat Than A Revolution

A very bright friend of mine cast his very, very cynical eye over the Brexit vote and, not surprisingly, came to quite different conclusions than the majority of the post-referendum comment. According to him, very little of any great significance will be changed. I give a brief summary of his views.

“Too many people view this vote as a revolt of the so-called underclasses against the domination of the elites. According to this narrative these underclasses felt very ‘hard-done-by’ because they saw the immigrants and the cosmopolitan people of London racing far ahead of them. Rather than make any effort to join the happy new world order they did the only thing they know how to do and threw the whole cart upside down. Worked in Paris in 1789. Should work in the UK in 2016. What these people forget is that sans culottes of 1789 enjoyed a very brief ‘victory’ before the elites re-established themselves. The exact same thing will happen here. This was much more a coup d'etat than a revolution.”

Is Brexit a revolt by the modern sans culottes?

“The usual doom-and-gloom commentators overlook the fact that the Leave movement was led by members of the very elite the underclasses thought they were overthrowing. It is very doubtful that those underclasses by themselves could have pulled off a Leave victory. No, it took the efforts of these highly educated, wealthy, mostly older members of the ruling establishment to accomplish that feat. What’s odd is that most of them have nothing against the hot button of immigration per se. Some of the immigrants, after all, provide very useful functions like serving a good gin-and-tonic at their golf clubs or maintaining their lush gardens. This section of the elite would never want to be associated with the near-racist rants of clowns like Nigel Farage.

“What does annoy them greatly is the urge by many European Union officials for an ever closer political union. They look back on Britain’s long political history and relative stability and shudder when they look across the Channel at the very confused political history and instability of many continental countries. ‘God forbid that ever comes our way!’

“For them, the EU is fine as a trading bloc, but no more. Their faces flush with indignation at every intrusion of EU courts into the long-established and respected British legal system. ‘Who the hell are those buggers to tell us when we can throw some bomb-throwing mullah into jail for the rest of his natural life? Or, better yet, hand him over to the Americans?!’

“This class of people enjoys going to the fine watering holes of the continent and going through the faster EU line at passport control. They enjoy loading up their cars and bringing home crates of fine French wines without the nuisance of duties. Many of them are multi-lingual and have homes in the garden spots of France, Italy, or Spain. It would be a major annoyance and inconvenience to them if these privileges were forfeited and they had to go through the longer wogs’ line at passport control.

            “What the assorted pundits are also forgetting is that the long and tedious negotiations with the European Union over the its new relationship with the UK will be led by that very elite the underclass thought it was rejecting. Just look at them. Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, various columnists for the Daily Telegraph. All of them are card-carrying members of the British elite. The out-of-work coal miners in West Yorkshire won’t get within shouting distance of the negotiating table. Maybe they should. But they won’t.

How clever are they?

             “The UK negotiating team will be dealing with like-minded people in the EU who are also nervous as hell about the right-wing mobs snapping at their heels. It is to everyone’s interest, even the bloody-minded Frogs, to get this thing settled with as little fuss and disruption as possible.

“My rough guess is that in the final agreement the UK will retain trading rights but will have to accept the EU principle of free movement of labor. London’s financial center may take a hit, but that would not bother Joe Blogs of Middle England. He never liked those ‘posh toffs’ with their fat bonuses anyway. The UK will not be subject to the EU legal system, and will not be part of the EU decision making process. It will also not be eligible for any EU subsidies for agriculture or clean energy. An interesting point is the UK’s role, if any at all, in a European defense system that is outside NATO. Also, will the French get testy and deny British companies any role in Airbus?”

“In short, there won’t be much in the new deal what will really please those members of tribal England who thought they had completely rejected the EU. The immigrants will still come, the EU will still impose some niggling little rules, and England’s football team will still fail to advance very far in international competition. The British elite really is quite good at negotiating, and the new deal won’t be terribly different from the old deal. The elite is even better at fudging the reality of any deal arrangement to make it seem something it is not. Plus ça change and all that.”

            We can only hope that the self-styled members of this very British elite are half as clever as they think they are and can control the powerful tribal forces they have unleashed.