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Originally Posted by GullFoss
Just out of curiosity, was the BidCo supposed to be neutral or was it always biased towards a "Yes" vote? And - regardless of your answer - it is biased to a "yes" vote.
And if the BidCo is biased, then why isn't it a stretch to say that they've spun the numbers of every report they've published (with or without the help of consultants) or every analysis is tilted towards a yes?
As someone whose worked over a decade Investment Banking, Equity Research and financial analysis (where we used external consultants), I can tell you - unequivocally - that I can present a strong financial argument for both a "Yes" and a "No." We often took the answer we wanted and worked backwards to get to the preconceived result. And the main reason we used external consultants is so that we had someone to throw under the bus if things went bad - which they often did, because we weren't searching for truth (we were providing justification for the actions our client wanted to take)
Trust me - the BidCo is doing the same thing - that's exactly why they're so easily able to get the "perfect answer" and find "win-win-win" solutions. The reason the cost overruns for events such as these are always high and always biased to being over-budget than under-budget is because the estimates are biased to the downside because those presenting the analysis are very, very biased.
Don't trust the politicians or the BidCo - they are biased and have a lot to personally gain by a "yes" vote regardless of the cost to everyone else.
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BidCo. is not supposed to be neutral - their whole mandate is to prepare a successful bid for the Olympics, so I'm not sure why they'd act like they don't care either way. To paraphrase a line from Councillor Gondek, they're "BidCo", not "NoBidCo.".
And you're 100% right, anyone with skills with numbers can make any case they want, that's why it essentially boils down to how you feel about it personally - if you don't like the idea, you'll agree with the negative spin; if you like the idea, you'll agree with the positive spin.