Even Olympic Medals have been “Debased”

While I am a fan of sports, I am not a fan of the Olympics.

Olympics, for me, represents the politicization of sports premised on feel good nationalism, which are largely financed by massive expenditures of taxpayer money.

The economics of Olympics suggests that the popular games, except for some instances (e.g. LA Olympics), have incurred losses for the hosts. At worst, financial losses extrapolated to higher taxes.

Professor David Henderson notes of the Canadian experience,

That view is understandable because losing money has been the norm. When the Olympics were held in Montreal in 1976, for example, the loss amounted to $2 billion, which was $700 per Montreal resident. And remember that that was in 1976 dollars. That loss resulted in a special tax on tobacco because, you know, smokers are such fans of the Olympics.

And proof of the politicization of sports via the Olympics can be further seen through the medallions for the winners—where the content of the London 2012 medals has been materially debased or devalued.

Image from BBC.

The Zero Hedge points out (bold original)

As every Olympic athlete knows, size matters. The London 2012 medals are the largest ever in terms of both weight and diameter - almost double the medals from Beijing. However, just as equally well-known is that quality beats quantity and that is where the current global austerity, coin-clipping, devaluation-fest begins. The 2012 gold is 92.5 percent silver, 6.16 copper and... 1.34 percent gold, with IOC rules specifying that it must contain 550 grams of high-quality silver and a whopping 6 grams of gold. The resulting medallion is worth about $500. For the silver medal, the gold is replaced with more copper, for a $260 bill of materials. The bronze medal is 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin. Valued at about $3, you might be able to trade one for a bag of chips in Olympic park if you skip the fish.

The devaluation of the Olympic medals just exhibits the natural or deep-seated impulse of governments to inflate, as well as, to break their own established rules or standards—sports or no sports.