Olympic Lottery

Olympics 2012
Olympic Fund: Raided
Olympic Scheme
Olympic Torch

Without the lottery 'fund', the British taxpayer would have to pay more (and more and more...) to have the very dubious 'honour' of hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. This smacks (and has the very nasty smell about it) of 'doing a Gordon'. Just take so much of people's lives away?

Contempt doesn't come close and this
man could actually be
prime minister of UK (aka UK) Ltd

I don't want the Olympic Games to be held here and never did. The profiteering is sickeningly predictable and my belief is that this is the single reason for us 'to enjoy' the Olympics. It's a money making exhibition platform. Nothing more. This is supported by the government 'glee' over hosting such an event at a present estimated cost of:

+£4.6bn a week = £9.3bn

Period: 27th July to 12th August 2012

• 17 days @ £547,000,000/day
  
• Over one-half £billion every day
  

If VAT were to be remembered, the £9.3bn 
would approach £11bn, but if the VAT 
were to be conveniently overlooked (forgotten) then

£9,300,000,000

 appears a lot less than 

£11,000,000,000

But only a tad.

£1.7bn = £1,700,000,000

The 'oversight' of VAT can be viewed simply as a new VATable category that is NOT zero-rated. Created to 'make' money.

• Virtually no financial outgoings seem to be available to help athletes train for the 'games' (sounds glorious and worth dying for - DA). Councils are cutting back or closing essential facilities: but no financial support from government.

Take, take, take and don't give

This +£9bn estimated cost, give or take
the odd £300 million, doesn't seem
to include any grants or financial help

The Olympic Games constitute a 'fait accompli'. It will be so well accepted (conditioned) that it's arrival won't even be questioned. But where do these £billions go? Down a hole in the ground acting as a conduit to something. Money goes somewhere. It always does. There is a (very non-transparent) curtain that manifests like a mist and behind it...

...remember it took Quebec decades to pay for the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976 ($2bn Canadian). Interesting challenge here: taking inflation into account, how does $2bn (Canadian) in 1976 compare to the projected cost of £9.3bn (UK) in 2007?

That's over 3 decades later:

£???bn in 2012?

The Olympic Games are simply the justification for spending such an enormous (unaccountable to me certainly) amount of money. Again the justification is that it is for the public good so the public pays for it all. The lottery money does not belong to the government, but has 'suggested' it is only a loan: to be paid back, presumably at current interest rates.

It's money going only one way:

Out!!!

Wake up!!!

Who profits? Difficult one as there is no obvious way of telling. Probably not an individual, but a group is just more than one. The construction industry will no doubt make a fortune and as 2012 comes ever closer (and there will, of course, remain much to do), the price will continue to escalate. Up and up and up. Probably rocket.

But how far? As far as the cash cow can be made to climb.

Tessa Jowell (Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for the Olympics) promotes the truth.

There are better causes (and there always will be) that could use the estimated £9.3bn (as at February, 2007) and there are still 5 years to go. This £9.3bn could easily rise to £30bn, £40bn or... Think of a number and double it. Treble it. You will still (probably) be wrong.

[Note: 2008 Olympics in Beijing allegedly cost in excess of $43bn]

But, there is another way of looking at this: by suggesting such a grotesque amount of money now, in a few years time when this "target" is reached complaints won't be too vociferous as it will be seen as a small amount of money, being only what was suggested in 2007. See the psychology at work? Kids' stuff really. Even now, Jowell wants to (allegedly) raise this amount, but has been turned down by government. Today maybe, but wait until the request is remade in the future. It won't be refused then. This is a deliberate publicity stunt. Ask now and be refused publicly. Ask again without so much pomp and circumstance, and it will sail through. Unnoticed.

Keep asking yourself: who benefits and remember the escalating February 2007 projection of £9.3bn (up from the original £2.375bn). Wait and see how long it takes to start increasing from now: 12th March 2007. Clearly, the £2.375bn was a ploy to sweeten the bitter pill, but the sugar coating has now been removed: 

£2.375bn -> £9.3bn

(excluding VAT)

The oversight of VAT is cynical as this charge varies predictably: temporarily down and permanently up. This at the will of the government of the day.

All this spin about the regeneration of London. The Olympic cash cow is being used to fund it. Regeneration means building (construction industry). Firing ranges are to be built at enormous expense just to be raised to the ground afterwards (at more enormous cost).

Regeneration:

Build. Flatten and build again.
Make way for something else.
Something NEW and very expensive

To build. To flatten. Both enormously expensive to only

Build again 

Generates more money - again

This is the cynical definiton of

Regeneration

But, money cannot be created only redistributed. So the question is: where does it go? The source is clearly the people (taxpayer), but the recipient is shrouded in fog.

If the reasons given had any 'truth' in them then why not refurbish, expand and develop the existing ranges? Not enough money (£bns) in that. Remember, wealth is never created nor destroyed, just moved around. The winners' (very few) and losers' (everybody else) game.

Why not centralise a venue to host the Olympic Games? Athens would be a good symbolic place. Already successfully built. But the opportunity to make more billions would be lost. Such is the dubious 'honour'. Crap. What honour is there in allowing dope cheats (not all athletes, some are actually honest, I think) to bathe in the goat's milk of glory.

Climate change is simply another cash cow. It's happening. Yes. It's cyclical. Yes. But it's being cynically exploited to introduce more taxation. It seems that it's all our collective fault that the Earth orbits the Sun in the way it does and that the Sun is hot and getting hotter. Carbon dioxide represents about 0.03% of the atmosphere's content.

Consider the Apollo hoax if you cannot imagine a very considerable proportion of the global population believing it. How about that greatest of all conspiracy theories: God. Can never be proved or disproved. The single most important feature of a good conspiracy.

It's always in terms of £billions now and almost never the old-fashioned £million., unless it's in £100s of millions (£1bn = 10 x £100m).

The Value Added Tax (must be a joke in there somewhere) was overlooked and Chancellor of the Exchequer (another joke? Yes) Gordon Brown has set aside a contingency fund of £2.7bn and that is more than the original 'sell-to-the-people' estimate of £2.375bn. This is Blair's concept of transparent government:

There's none so blind as those that will not see

Have you noticed how government will always attempt to sell the idea that it is costing government more money. Of course, it is stinging the sucker taxpayer for more and more and more and... Someone is making an obscene amount of money. Tantamount to theft, or so it would seem.

How can costs rise in billions and not just (!) millions?

The taxpayer has absolutely no authority to veto this. To stop the rot. To stop the profiteering. This money hasn't been spent yet, but it is totally unrecoverable (irrecoverable), but unlike any other corporate 'business', which exists to make money (profit), absolves itself from any responsibility to stakeholders (taxpayers). Any real business would very quickly go into liquidation. But 'corporate' government? That is a financial impossibility. There is no definition and, in fact, no term to describe such a scenario.

How you 'see' things all depends on how you define terms:

Truth, Belief, Fact, Faith, Illusion, Real, Reality...

Truth (n):

1. the quality or state of being true
2. that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality
3. a fact or belief that is accepted as true

Belief (n):

1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists
2. something one accepts as true or real
3. a firmly held opinion or conviction
4. a religious conviction
5. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something

Fact (n):

1. a thing that is indisputably the case
2. the significance of something that is the case
3. a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article of the truth about events as opposed to interpretation

Faith (n):

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof
3. a system of religious belief
4. a strongly held belief or theory

Illusion (n):

1. a false idea or belief
2. a deceptive appearance or impression
3. a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses

Real (adj):

1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact
2. not imagined or supposed
3. not imitation or artificial
4. genuine
5. adjusted for changes in the value of money
6. assessed by purchasing power
7. an increase in real terms
8. having no imaginary part
9. not virtual

Reality (n):

1. the world or the state of things as they actually exist
2. a thing that is actually experienced or seen
3. a thing that exists in fact, having previously only existed in one's mind
4. the quality of being lifelike or resembling an original
5. existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective, and not subject to human decisions or conventions.

Appropriation of public funds for the public good.

£1bn = £1000million. That's a lot of 'increase' that's never going to be seen again. It will just disappear:

Somewhere

Interesting to speculate how much lottery and public money will be used to construct athletes' village (rent to be charged, of course) and then privately sold off at the public's enormous disadvantage. The public paid for it and the public will get nothing back - just my prediction, of course. The latest comment was that the lottery fund is just making a (voluntary?) loan to be paid back. At best that could actually happen, although it is, no doubt, interest free. A loan? At worst: never to be seen again because it's possibly hiding inside a bank account:

Somewhere

Don't wait up. Go back to sleep.

Government is in control and is always to be trusted to manage public (ie others') money, but don't worry:

Blair's in control