The Big OWE

Questions continue to arise in Daley's Quest for Fire. How about this article from Canada where Vancouver is scheduled to host the 2010 Winter Games:

• The athletes’ village rising in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics is casting a shadow over the city’s finances.

  Vancouver may have to borrow C$458 million ($375 million) or more to finish the 1,100 units by November, Mayor Gregor Robertson said at a news conference this month. That would almost double the city’s debt to about C$928 million, said Stephen Ogilvie, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s in Toronto. The credit- rating company said Jan. 13 that it might cut Vancouver from AA+.

  The city took over financing of the C$1.1 billion housing complex after New York-based lender Fortress Investment Group LLC halted funding to the builder when costs ran C$125 million over budget. Taxpayers are reminded of Canada’s last Olympic-sized fiasco: The 1976 summer games in Montreal, which left Quebec with a C$1.5 billion debt that took decades to pay.

As we have maintained for years now, and as studies have borne out, Olympics lose money. They don't just lose money, they lose TONS of money. Los Angeles 1984 were the only Games to make money in the short term and that was without a massive infrastructure building effort. We can't even name a City Contract that was delivered on-time, on-budget in the past twenty years of Daley's rule - and neither can you because they don't exist.

We are so doomed.