Word: londonized
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...budget for the Olympics during lean times? Some $13.8 billion in public funds has been allocated to the London Games, a huge jump from the $5 billion that was budgeted in 2005. Having fluffed the original math, though, the government insists that the event won't cost a penny more. The $290 million increase in the cost of building venues announced on Feb. 5, for instance, will come out of a $3 billion contingency fund included in the inflated budget. So too will the $682 million in extra public money needed for the media center and Olympic village - home...
...London is not the only one suffering. Caution among private investors, particularly when it comes to the enormous athletes' village, has hit other upcoming Games. The local government in Vancouver will now likely fund much of the $820-million village intended for its 2010 Winter Olympics after private backing fell through...
...construction of its proposed Olympic venues and infrastructure. Tokyo's metropolitan government will have banked some $4 billion by the end of 2009. The city authority "knows that during good moments, you save money," Hidetoshi Maki, deputy director-general of the Tokyo bid, told reporters in London on Feb. 5. And with the national government pledging to cover up to 50% of the venues' construction costs, "we don't think our bid plan is hugely damaged" by the slowdown, said Maki. Limiting the number of new venues helps; good maintenance of several sites used during the 1964 Tokyo Games means...
...while short-term costs might seem painful during an economic slump, cities will be keen to press longer-term benefits. "The London 2012 Games will provide economic gold at a time of economic need," Tessa Jowell, Britain's Olympics Minister, wrote in the latest annual report on progress toward 2012. That will mean 100,000 contract jobs to stage the Games - of those currently working on the Olympic site, one-tenth were previously unemployed - with half as many long-term positions created in the park and surrounding area. "The Games remind us," Rogge said on a recent visit to London...
...combined group - was "profoundly and unreservedly" apologetic. And really giving it his all, Fred Goodwin, ex-boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), rescued by British taxpayers last fall with an even bigger bailout, said he "could not be more sorry." (See pictures of London's financial crisis...