Will the 2012 Olympics Change London?

7/05/05 Briefly Speaking, by Laurel Kenner

There is a sense of hopelessness in Europe that one sees manifested by the sense of febrile unrest in such things as declining populations, rising unemployment, costs far and above the value of their currencies in dollars or hours worked for goods, rising crime, incredible congestion on roads even with the congestion charges, a move for national identity cards to preclude people emigrating freely or making too much noise about paying taxes above 100 per cent, and growth rates well below inflation. How could a person choose to live there or start a business there unless there were draconian restrictions enforced by the kind of world state apparatus that the sage and the palindrome would prefer?