Could olympics undo the Global Economy?

Right now there is a huge problem with the global banking system which is threaten by a potential default by the debt-laden Greece that could cascade throughout the EU, and the world. This Debt can be traced back to the 2004 Olympics, which cost the country 15 billion dollars.


The Olympic Committee was thrilled by the lavish spending that Greece did, but in the end, it cost Greece triple as much as they anticipated for. Now most Germans are in favor of dumping Greece from the EU, rather than bail them out and in a economic circles, this type of unstable situation is called a "contagion". and the huge problem is that , Some European banks ----hold part of the Greek debt and some might become bankrupt.





Now the real question arise--- the next city up for the Olympic will be London, where projected have already costs them four times above original estimates (more than $15 billion). Some people believe they will eventually top 20 billion, and this is with Olympic planners that are already drastically going smaller on facilities due to collapsing support from private partners and the ongoing credit crisis.


Do you think Olympics are a good thing or a bad thing? when knowing once the games are over in a country that country will be in debt, billions of dollars.|||The difference and problem between greece and the UK has to do with monetary policy. Greece as part of the EU and on the Euro can not just fire up the printing presses and inflate their currency out of this mess. They have to lie in the bed they made. Which is the fundamental flaw in the Euro since each country's economy is still autonomous.





In the UK the % of GDP spent on the olympics is far far less so the impact is irrelevant. However even if you assume they spent 50% of their GDP on the olympics they could still just print up more Pounds (via the central bank interest rates, borrowing/lending etc) to get out of the mess (though inflation would be awful).





Good or bad is a question for philosophers, not economics. Are the games worth it? Yes, because we keep holding them and the aggregate happiness shared by the world is larger than then dollars spent to deliver them. When that shifts then they will cease just like trade in any other good.