8/26/2008

Carnival of Money Stories - Olympic Hangover Edition

Welcome to the 74th Carnival of Money Stories - Olympic Hangover Edition. Today we'll take a look at a variety of articles from across the PF blogosphere. The curtain has fallen on the Beijing Olympics (and the smog has settled back in), so here is one last look back on the 2008 games to help ease the transition back to normal life / fall TV schedules.

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On with the stories...

On the Medal Stand this week (Editor's Picks)
Business
The Olympics mean one thing to businesses - golden opportunity. And some cash in, or at least attempt to. McDonald's chicken sandwich w/ pickles :: Olympic athletes, just as Visa :: Michael Phelps (Remember those 'is-to' questions from the SAT? Fun.) That's right one has nothing to do with the other. It will be nice to see less commercials of athletes holding food items that they wouldn't eat if they had to.

Credit

How about some carbon credits for Beijing? After a pre-Olympic ceremony was shrouded in a vale of disgusting smog, Chinese officials took action to save face. Too bad you can't eliminate decades of air pollution in a matter of weeks. They planted millions of trees, shut down nearly all construction and factories in the area, and took the majority of the vehicles off of the road. All typically commendable. In the end, they still had to cook the books on the true air quality. Too bad their range of influence doesn't include the AP and the BBC.

Debt
The cost of the opening ceremony is rumored to have cost more than the preparations in progress for the entire next winter Olympics in Vancouver. Not to mention the cost of the closing ceremony. Did you see that double-decker transforming bus? Wow. Here's to living within your means and not keeping up with the Jones' - or the Zhangs:

General

In general, many Americans have been glued to the set every evening for the past 2 weeks - myself included. I'm not really much of a swimming fan - or gymnastics, or water polo, or track - but the people competing here are the best in the world. It becomes tough not to watch when records are being smashed and medals are won by hundredths or even thousandths of seconds. It sucks you in and like any good stimulant, it's tough to shake. I may have to replay some of the Redeem Team's games just to hold me over until the basketball season starts. I'll be ok. Really. I don't need it. I can stop any time I want.

Investing

Olympic athletes invest amazing amounts of time into training. Michael Phelps claims to be up at 5:30am 365 / year and has done so for years. I tend to believe him. The US men's basketball team asks their players - NBA players - to commit 3 years to the team. It's very inspiring to see athletes who dedicate themselves and invest their time by their own free will for the chance to represent their country and the possibility of winning big.

Net Worth

From the beginning, it's been the US and China atop the medal standings. South Korea made a good showing, but fell off towards the end. Other perennial performers like Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Russia did well also. It was nice to see a few countries like Afghanistan and Togo earn their first medals ever! In the end, it was USA - 110, China - 100, and Russia - 72. Here are some folks focussed on their own 'medal count':



Retirement

Here are some folks who are a long way from retirement - the Chinese Womens Gymnastics team. Are they 14 or 16? The world may never know. The IOC and FIG are in the hot-seat with so much conflicting information out there regarding the ages of two of the team members, as well as the admission of former gymnasts that they were guilty of the same. Let's look at some better plans and a different definition of 'starting early in life'.

Other

Other?! Is there anything else to talk about? Yeah, we've been pretty rough on host country China, but we call it as we see it. We avoid Chinese-made products like the plague, not only for the traditional low quality and their predilection for toxic chemicals, but also for all of the injustice, pollution, and other stuff going on there. Hey! See! we did get 'other' in there. We'll end things on a high note with a pic of some of the amazing architecture generated for these games as well as some posts falling into the fine category of 'Other'.

Thanks to everyone for submitting such great work. Come back as often as you need if you feel that Olympic withdrawal coming back - just go easy with the mouse if you get the shakes. Tune in next week to host blog Funny About Money for the 75th Carnival of Money Stories. If you didn't make the cut, then buck up, there's always London in 2012!

8 comments:

RetiredAt47 said...

Nice job, thanks so much for your hard work. And thank you also for including my article, "Starting Early on Early Retirement".

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for including me in this carnival!

Anonymous said...

Great roundup of links and the Olympics! Thanks for including my post.

DINKS said...

Word. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for includuding my post jet set and for all your hard work in putting together the Carnival :)

-Laura

Funny about Money said...

Wow! Thanks for selecting Funny's post on lemon from lemonades as an Editor's Pick! I'm very flattered! :-)

Anonymous said...

Great job and thanks for including my article.

StickersLover said...

good job!

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