How Brazil's wealthy benefit from the Rio Olympics

[Oscar]

How Brazil's wealthy benefit from the Rio Olympics

[ http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the- ... -1.3711409 ]

With the games underway, journalist Alex Cuadros explains why Brazil's ultrarich, or "Brazillionaires," will be the real winners of this Olympiad.

On August 5, the Rio 2016 Olympics Games officially began with celebration, but not all of the city's citizens were excited about the event. The cariocas — as the citizens of Rio de Janeiro are known — have expressed resentment for the international sporting event, a far cry from the unity between rich and poor Mayor Eduardo Paes imagined for the games, in a TED Talk from 2012. [ https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_paes_ ... anguage=en ]

Alex Cuadros, author of Brazillionaires : Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country, says that vision of unity has not panned out, and it has been the wealthy who benefit with regards to many of the projects leading up to the Rio Olympics. [ http://alexcuadros.com/brazillionaires ]

'It seemed like a win-win, that they could build useful infrastructure for the citizens of Rio, better public transportation and so on ... but the reality turned out a bit different. It wasn't a win for everyone. Projects were built that weren't really so useful for the population as a whole and an inordinate proportion of the money was poured into a wealthy suburb of Rio, where just a fraction of the population lives.' - - Alex Cuadros, author of Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country

Cuadros says most of the projects Rio undertook for the Olympic Games were "built by a handful of companies that are owned by billionaire families." A specific example Cuadros provides has to do with the fate of the athletes' village, which was constructed with subsidies from the government, and is in a wealthy suburb of Rio. While cities like London turned their athlete accommodations into affordable housing after the games, in Rio, the village will become luxury condos.

◾Read Alex Cuadros' article for The Atlantic about Brazil's wealthy and the Summer Games, The Broken Promise of the Rio Olympics
[ http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... il/493697/ ]

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This segment was produced by The Current's Karin Marley.