China to Host Summer Olympics in 2008

The 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China. Preparations are well underway as Beijing gears up to handle over a million visitors to the Olympic games. China is sparing no expense in an effort to impress the world with its new capitalistic-based economy. Estimates conclude that almost two million new jobs will be created by this massive undertaking. Many are comparing this modern day project to the building of the 4,000 mile long Great Wall centuries ago. 

Economists around the world have been speculating that China's red-hot economy will have to cool off sooner or later. Growing at over 10% a year, history would tell us that this rate of growth is not sustainable. However, not only will China be hosting the 2008 Summer Games, Shanghai will be presiding over the World's Fair in 2010. China's "modern-marvel" economy will chug along at full speed for at least another three or four years. 

The Beijing 2008 Olympics will be the largest publicly-sponsored work project in the history of mankind. Compare it to the largest public-work project in the United States. That was the Hoover Dam, which was built at a cost of $2.23 billion adjusted in today's dollars. China is spending about 20 times that amount on the Olympics alone. Additional projects related to the Olympics will run into the $10's of billions of dollars. The list of infrastructure projects is impressive: 

$60 billion to be spent on nearly 2,500 projects related to traffic, energy, and water 

$8 billion is being spent to improve the Beijing airport 

$4 billion will go to upgrade the telecommunications system 

A 4 million square-foot National Stadium will be built along with a dozen other Olympic venues 

At least 250 new hotels are to be built with about half of them upscale 

Over 200 miles of new roads are being constructed 

$2 billion will be used to upgrade subway and transit lines 

Over a dozen new water treatment plants will be constructed to improve water standards 

There will be major increases in the use of natural gas to help cut down on pollution city-wide