Blame it on Rio; Don't Blame it on Obama
I want my conservative and libertarian friends to put aside their dislike (and hatred) of President Obama for at least a minute or two. Forget momentarily the monumental waste of fuel, manpower and dollars sending First Lady Michelle Obama on a State Department 757 airplane only to have the President follow behind in Air Force One. Forget that duplicate 747 and numerous cargo planes carrying the motorcade and communications that travel with the President. Dismiss momentarily your argument that President Obama is President of the United States, not Mayor.
Instead, ask why Rio de Janeiro won the bid for the 2016 Olympics. Brazil is a gorgeous country and Rio is a wonderful city. Rio will be the first in South America to host an Olympic event. Brazil can afford to incur the costs of hosting the Olympics.
Brazil was among the last to enter into the current world recession, but is among the first to begin to emerge from the recession.
And therein is why Chicago did not get the Olympics.
We should not celebrate this defeat of Obama. Instead we should look at the reasons we failed to win the bid.
The United States simply cannot afford the Olympics. While today's unemployment figures did not play into the IOC's decision (they had already eliminated Chicago) nonetheless our current economic crisis certainly did. Unemployment today hit 9.8%, the worst since 1983. More than 260,000 Americans lost jobs last month.
When you add those unemployed Americans who have settled for part-time work or given up looking for new jobs, the U.S. unemployment rate soars to 17%. More than 15 million Americans are out of work.
The U.S. budget deficit is expected to exceed $9 trillion over the next ten years.
What are we doing in response to this crisis? The Congress is trying to exercise more control over health care. They're looking at a cap-and-trade (cap-and-tax) program at a time when doubts are beginning to be expressed about climate change. We're playing class warfare and trying to tax the rich, tax corporations, tax small business, tax, tax, tax.
Compare our approach of taxing ourselves out of the recession to Brazil's approach of cutting taxes. The OECD recently applauded Brazil for granting "tax breaks to certain key industries to help boost spending and revive growth in the economy."
Jose Mauricio Machado of Machado Associados commented on the report, saying:
"The temporary reduction of industrialized products tax levied on motor vehicles, consumer durables and constructions items were specific and efficient to stimulate important sectors of the Brazilian economy that had suffered from a strong decrease in sales due to the crisis."So tax cuts in Brazil have started them moving out of the recession while we're still facing massive unemployment and more tax increases.
While we're at it, let's remember that most of Western Europe also recognizes the value of cutting tax burdens to stimulate the economy. Just witness the recent reelection of Merkel in Germany.
Add to this economic crisis the recent adverse publicity of gang killings in Chicago, it is no wonder the IOC opted for the novel location of Brazil. So let's not get mad at Obama for this failure. Instead, let's hope he realizes the path he's headed down is doomed to fail, too.
Let's learn from Brazil.
Follow Michael D. Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mikebrowntoday
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"Forget momentarily the monumental waste of fuel, manpower and dollars sending First Lady Michelle Obama on a State Department 757 airplane only to have the President follow behind in Air Force One. Forget that duplicate 747 and numerous cargo planes carrying the motorcade and communications that travel with the President. Dismiss momentarily your argument that President Obama is President of the United States, not Mayor."
He gave a seven minute speech.
HUBRIS defined.
While it is clear why Rio won, the foolish lose-lose actions of a very smart guy is astonishing and far from clear. Heads of state should not be poking their noses into Olympic decisions, period, and Barracks choice was loaded with the probability of failure from the begining. If whoever is responsible for either talking Obama into this idiot move or not taliking him out of it, has not been fired, they should be, immediately.
Lets hope Obama has more common sense on demanding a strong public Option instead of caving in to business-as-usual greed industry. I can see millions of formerly Democratic voters losing every shred of patience and respect if Obama does not stand up for the public option with no equivocation, and chosing to never vote Dem again. We will NOT be suckered ever again!
Wow, pundits say the dumbest things sometimes.
News flash: America will not always get the Olympics, especially when most of the world is sick of American chest-pounding.
Secondly: South American had never hosted a games. It was time, and probably one reason Madrid didn't get the nod.
Thirdly but most obviously: Where would YOU rather vacation: Chicago? Madrid? Rio?
An obvious choice, and no big surprise. Huge duh.
Well, I've been to Madrid and while it lacks beaches it is a fun city, definitely world class. Plus flying time is less. But as someone else pointed out on another thread, looking forward to all those thongs in HD.
Basically simple... People in the world really don't like, and aren't impressed by, America anymore. Years ago I travelled and said I was American and got the oohs and ahhs... Bush in office I said nothing. Now only when I say I am from NY do I get any positive reaction.
Wow how we have fallen.
I am neither Repub or Dem but it amazes me to see Repubs blame Obama for Bush making the world hate us.
I'm speechless. This is a beyond ingnorant justification of Chicago's loss in the Olympic bid. To say that Chicago lost prestige because of a gang beating caught on video is ridiculous. Much of Rio is run either by drug cartels or corrupt police, who from time to time decide to engage in all out war with each other. I'm also fascinated and the mention of US unemployment rates which are far better than those in Brazil. Then to say that US politics are somehow embroiled in class warfare while Brazil's are not is laughable since Lula's political career has prospered from class warfare as much as anything else.
I want to be clear that I am not trying to defame or insult Brazil. I lived there for a few months just this year and have nothing but love and respect for the country. What I am trying to do is talk about how absurd some of the assertions made by Brown are. And, while I am sure that the Rio Olympics will be fantastic they will face considerable difficulties in my opinion.
What else would you expect from a former director of FEMA.
Bravo for your well-informed reply. I, also, am much more familiar with Rio than Brown. His gloss-over of the crime and social problems in Rio is beyond naive (drugs, slums-the list is endless). This thinly-veiled attempt to blame the Obama Admin for the mess created by the eight years of Dub.Ya & his posse's pillaging is infuriating, but to be expected from one of the cronies.
I suspect it's more about optics for the IOC. They want to have the Games in a non-northern, non-fully-developed country in 2016. The Olympics will be in London in 2012.
I don't hold Obama responsible for Chicago's loss of the Olympics.
I do think he put himself in a foolish political position. The games are all about politics.
The problem for Obama is that it shows that he has no pull. He was supposed to have pull. He said he would have pull. The world would see the US in a better light. This is just further proof that it doesn't matter who our President is. The countries oppose to us stay opposed to us no matter how we behave toward them and a our friends stay our friends when we treat with respect and consideration. Obama needs to work on that. He is often throwing friends away to make new friends who will never be friends.
Diplomacy--which so far Obama has been great at--is a different world than negotiating with the IOC. All Presidents of all countries lobby at the IOC. You knew that, of course.
Obama is great a diplomacy? Examples please.
So far all I see are single digit salutes from the Russians, N. Koreans, China and Iran.
America took a large hit in reputation under the eight years of Bush/Cheney Administration. We still have Cheney doing his tour to justify torture. The US historically always acted like the moral compass of the world. Many of the European countries still live with after effects of WWII and remember the Nuremburg Trials. It will take time for the US to regain its reputation in the world. President Obama has not even been in office a year. In time he will have international sucesses, but he will also have to take some bumps as the successor of Bush. We need to support him through these times.
There is also the factor that South America has never had the Olympics. The US has had them several times. Let's get ready for the party instead of being poor losers. Use the energy to deal with the urban problems in Chicago and all our inner cities. It is a problem that is a cancer in our country that needs to be dealt with. Too many young men with not enough to do. Help the ones with potential, lock up the ones that are too violent to change. Sad but just the truth of the situation.
Well as long as we are spending billions to occupy two countries we really can't cut taxes. The Bush tax cuts during war are what contributed to this mess. We have to crawl before we can walk again.
Brazil can cut taxes because they don't have the expense of occupying other countries. Its overall debt burden is less, 40% of GDP compared to 60% US.
Thirty years ago Brazil was an IMF basket case. Now the USA is becoming one.
I thank Paul Krugman and the rest of the Democrat party every morning for that. And they aren't done, yet!
Didn't you know? Obama is responsible for everything bad.
Some factions want him to fail because of their extreme prejudices, but they should look at the bigger picture. We don't need another failed presidency. Look at our recent history; what was the last presidency that ended on a high note? Does anyone think that we're setting a good example for our way of governance?
American democracy is doomed if the extreme divisiveness doesn't stop.
Go Rio!
Bush was responsible for everything - and I mean EVERYTHING, wasn't he? Now it's Obama's turn in the barrel. Get used to it.
Yes, you're right. That's because Bush WAS responsible for everything that has gone wrong from the economy to an unnecessary war of death & destruction, to the loss of so many rights. to the rest of the world hating us.
The Olympics going to Rio was NOT Obama's "fault", but feel free to join the ridiculous celebration against America..
Wow! Republicans really do think that tax cuts are the answer to everything. I didn't realize that one of the criteria considered for host countries was thier tax policies.
Heck of job, Brownie.
Love Chicago, love Rio but if you think that this is going to be easy for Brazil you need to consider that Rio will have to upgrade it's infrastructure in a major way and that they will be dealing with the aftermath of the World Cup in 2014. That could also be seen as good preparation for the Olympics but there is just as good a chance there could be "event hangover". I was in Rio for the Pan American Games in 2006 and the city managed them well but there is a vast difference between hosting the countries in this hemisphere and the world. In the end I am sure it will work out but as I said earlier, the argument that Rio and Brazil were better situated to pull this off than Chicago is highly dubious.
LA Times had a good piece about it. Chicago would have done a great jo. It was expected that leaders and celebrities go beg the IOC so don't criticize Obamas and Oprah. Brazil hauled out Pele. In the end, IOC made their decision and it was there's to make. No offense to Chicago which put in a very attractive proposal.
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My question is, when are they going to hold the games--is it going to be summer or winter in Brazil? The world is a big place and summer and winter are even up to debate.
The weather should not be a concern, isis. Even with the southern hemisphere pointed further from the sun during what is the "summer" for the nothern hemisphere, Rio is much closer to the equator than Chicago is. Thus things should be quite temperate for 2016, and if anything should be much more temperate than Chicago, Madrid, and Tokyo during the same period.
No, the concern for Rio, and the IOC, is whether Brasil has the economic resources to pull off the thing.
I've got a great recipe for Vegan Humble Pie...
Excuse me, I had a typo in the first line. It should read "but you really should not come..."
here's a thought: perhaps WE should take a closer look at Brazil and their economic model and what's working:
Manufacture and Export! nifty concept
Rule one: Discover and use your own oil and natural gas!
No. Rule One is to fully implement sustainable technologies and not need to depend on fossil fuels AT ALL, regardless of whether or not they come from one's backyard. The technologies to do so exist. The political will does not exist.
The US developed "the bomb" in less than five years. The US put men on the moon - and safely returned them to the earth - in less than a decade. (And did so on spacecraft that used less wattage than a modern day toaster oven. Chew on THAT piece of gum.) The US developed a "usable" Internet in a bit over two decades. Now fast forward three decades. And factor in the exponential technological advancements during those three decades. Then factor in the existential threat that is climate change.
Have the US eliminate the use, much less the dependence, on fossil fuels. Try that as a successful economic model. And realize the existence of a habitable Earth in which to enjoy the fruits of that successful economic model.
Do nothing, and discover a planet so dramatically changed that concerns over what "drastic" implementations of pro environmental policy might "do" to the economy will become moot.
To complete the circle - wanna be able to host the Summer Games year round on almost any continent? Wanna be able to host the Winter Olympics only on Antarctica? If putting things into that context is the only way to illustrate the consequences of inaction then so be it.
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