Enough Said

Friday 21 June 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Simon Kuper on the debacle that is the 2014 World Cup:

You would have thought that people would learn from the shame of the South Africa World Cup; from the way FIFA forced a developing country to build unnecessary stadiums fancy enough for sponsors, while a few miles away people lived in corrugated-iron shacks

But they didn’t. Brazil asked for and received the World Cup despite being a ridiculously poor nation filled to the brim with those living in squalor, knowing full-well that the requirements demanded by FIFA would bankrupt the country, or at the very least divert funds designed to help the poorest people in to building fancy stadiums that meet no market requirement. The country will play host to rich and affluent people from the world over, while just outside of Maracanã, the stadium in the middle of Rio de Janeiro, is home to some of the largest and most dangerous favelas in Brazil.

None of this is to say that Brazilians themselves aren’t to blame. They have elected one government after another that moves further and further left, even after each and every one is proven to be rife with cronyism and corruption, and leads to nothing but failure to deliver on their promises of “lifting the people from poverty.” Brazilians have put themselves in a position where they rely on shoddy government services for even the most basic of necessities, and then complain when those they elect, based off of the promise of free unicorns for all, don’t deliver. Brazilians celebrated in the streets when they learned that they would be hosting next year’s cup. They didn’t question then how it would all be paid for, and are now upset when they discovered that they would be paying for it.

2013-06-21  »  madlibertarianguy