Every Tuesday morning around 8:00 am I arrive at my Brantford bankruptcy office, at 218 Brant Avenue, to meet with people in financial trouble. Today I arrived an hour early to watch the Olympic torch pass by the office (this is the picture I took, facing our office, as the torch passed by).
There was a light dusting of snow on the ground, and it was still dark (the shortest day of the year was yesterday) as I stood across the street waiting for the festivities to begin. I already knew what to expect; my two boys wanted to see the torch, so my boys, my wife and I braved the chill last night to stand on Colborne Street waiting for the torch. Last night I could see a few hundred people lining Colborne Street. This morning at 7:00 am there were a few dozen people on Brant Avenue, also braving the cold.
The torch was cool, but what struck me where the literally dozens of vehicles that accompanied the torch runner. There were Brantford police, OPP and RCMP vehicles, and city of Brantford trucks. There were security people on bicycles. There were trucks with singers and dancers, and this is where my financial mind took over: how much is this costing us?
According to the official torch relay web site “The 2010 Olympic Torch Relay is self-funded and revenue comes from sponsorships and contributions.” I have a hard time believing that the Brantford Police, the OPP and the RCMP are “self-funded” from “sponsorships and contributions”.
There is no “free lunch”. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Just because the store says you don’t have to pay for a year, doesn’t mean you never have to pay. A zero percent interest deal doesn’t mean there is no interest; it just means the interest costs are built into the cost of the product. And just because they tell us that the Olympic Torch Relay is “self-funded” doesn’t mean that we as taxpayers aren’t footing at least some of the bill.
I’m not a total cynic. I like the Olympics, and I hope our athletes do well. But the thought did occur to me this morning that instead of standing in the dark watching a parade of corporate sponsored trucks, perhaps I personally would have been better off putting on my own running shoes and going for a run.
That’s my message today: look out for yourself, and don’t buy into the corporate hype. Buying that fancy new gizmo probably just means you will end up paying more in interest for something you don’t really need. If the corporations want to spend millions of dollars on the Olympics, that’s their prerogative. For myself, I’ll “self-fund” myself, and keep my money in my pocket.
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