From Lockdown, With Love. ⇒
11 June 2010, mid-afternoon
Torontoist writes about the G8/G20.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
11 June 2010, mid-afternoon
Torontoist writes about the G8/G20.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
How the G8/G20 will affect everyone.
by ramanan on June 14 2010, 3:26 pm #
ah, the lake story. I admit I think the idea is dumb, but I can’t understand how everyone gets worked up over the $57k price. The week before the lake story, everyone was complaining about the $2b being spent on the summit (that, I can understand), then suddenly, a huge uproar over…an expense that makes up one-quarter of one-hundredth of one percent of the total budget? Why is nobody instead pointing out that $2b is more than “the annual household income 99.99999999% of Canadians”?
by Weiguo on June 14 2010, 6:08 pm #
I still think people are upset about the total bill. The lake is just the most concrete example of the ridiculous spending. I mean, there are so many things you could spend that money on. It’s so substantial.
by ramanan on June 15 2010, 12:02 pm #
0.003% isn’t “substantial”. That’s the part I don’t get. Is a $57k item really the most egregious example of overspending in a $2b budget? If it were I’d say the organizers are actually doing pretty well. What the heck are they spending the other 1.999943b on?
by Weiguo on June 15 2010, 12:11 pm #
No, I meant the billion is substantial. I agree that $57K for a fake lake actually sounds like a pretty good deal, all things considered.
by ramanan on June 15 2010, 12:18 pm #
oops, sorry Ram. Yeah, I wish I knew what they were spending the rest on. I feel like the biggest chunk I heard about was…$30m?
even if they were like “yeah, we grossly overbid on expensive fencing materials and construction services, $700m” I would at least kind of understand. Right now it just seems like a black hole. Mind you they probably love all this attention over $57k given that it’s drawing attention away from other, probably more ridiculous, expenditures.
by Weiguo on June 16 2010, 2:18 am #
Yeah, this reeks of serious ass corruption to me, though no one seems to be talking about that. I really don’t understand how costs can balloon up that much. How do you mess up your estimates by such a huge factor?
by ramanan on June 16 2010, 8:58 am #
Security watching the world cup. I can’t blame them, I suppose.
by ramanan on June 16 2010, 11:04 am #