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This promises to be endlessly fascinating for us on this side of the Channel. Will that include a tiny bit of Schadenfreude? Nah... not.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 05:08:57 AM EST
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Hmm...well, it presupposes that selling off the land is necessary, and that it is impossible to place it into trust with a "Custodian" and to bring in pension investors interested in the stream of revenues from 4,500 buildings let at affordable rentals.

If the Olympic village is packaged as the sort of quasi REIT I advocate, then it changes the entire game. ie the government would not sell the land but rather the investment in the land to overseas (it doesn't yet work for UK pension funds) investors interested in a 2 or 3% real (and Islamically sound) return backed by land/property.

Moreover, with a reasonable proportion of "social" tenant what is effectively a government backed cash flow (ie housing benefits). The more affordable the rental, the more certain it is.

With the "Credit Crash" looming it's even worse than they think, because the "Black Hole" they pooh pooh is based upon the lowest scenario of land price growth ie 6% pa.

IMHO land price growth is not going to come close to that over the next 4 years.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 05:57:05 AM EST
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Indeed I had read too fast.

They made a projection based on an increase of 16% in rates over the next 15 to 20 years???

Hello? And those people are kept in position of power rather than in a, to put it kindly, specialised insitution?

Maybe government has become that kind of institution after all.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 06:12:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe they could remortgage the properties with Northern Rock.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 06:31:19 AM EST
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LOL

You're in rare form today TBG.

by ATinNM on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 11:18:09 AM EST
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I think you can rely on TBG for the insertion of an unusually fashioned icicle into the rectum of any discussion :-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 12:10:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I realise that there are too many things that get me fuming for my own good but well... The London bid, despite all the sheanigans and breaches of the Olympic chart by Blair, almost lost because it involved too big a budget. It was a major criticism all along.

6 months after being chosen, the budget had already trebled. At that rate, it would not have stood a chance (which would not necessarily mean that Paris would have won since London and Madrid had an agreement that whoever went out first would then vote for the other and bring its supporting countries to the fray).

What do you know, trebling wasn't enough. It keeps going up and up. They will not repeat the fiasco of the Track and Field world championship (which had to be held in another country when London failed to organise them) of course, but it's less than impressive.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 06:07:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But not being able to forecast a budget is the British way. There is not a single project the government has ever been involved in where the estimated price has borne any relationship with the actual cost.

Britain revolves around the cult of the amateur. We do not have professional or experienced people involved at senior levels of projects, we have the "great and the good". People who have been to public school, ie of "good standing", but who are too stupid to make money in the city and too lazy to be directly involved in government. A comic character known as Tim "nice but dim". These are the appointed idiots tasked with running all of the great projects.

None of them can count properly , none of them can read properly. The idea that any of them could even understand an explanation of how a budget works, yet these are the people who make decisions. Dilbert's pointy-haired manager would be a paragon of virtue compared with these parasitical misfits.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 07:00:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Sounds just like everything to the left of the rightist part of the Swedish soc dems...

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 07:29:57 AM EST
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Ehem...
by Trond Ove on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 07:57:27 AM EST
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I'm not kidding. It's the same cult of the amateur.

Carefully sugest that people in positions of authority should have some kind of competence and you will immediately be branded as "elitist", "technocrat", "undemocratic", and 10 seconds later they will be haranguing about Auschwitz.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 08:02:33 AM EST
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by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 08:46:31 AM EST
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Nice rant. The point of competence bears repeating over and over. Another diary to write...
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 09:09:46 AM EST
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