Extra troops called up for Olympics

Let's pick up some numbers: cost ballooning from £86m to £284m to +£500m.  Not bad news for G4S's +£7bn business.

This is an example of the government officials strategy to privatize services (because third party vendors are "specialists", because they offer "synergies", they gain "efficiencies" or because the government needs to focus on running the country), only to rely on taxpayers over and over again.

It is absurd to believe that the Olympic bubble will create permanent jobs at G4S, or the skills new recruits would get may be sustainably used in the economy to generate GDP growth.  At least by having used the army straight away the taxpayers could have saved G4S's markup.

It would be interesting to compare the average pay of G4S Olympic guard with Nick Buckles's, as well as with the average army employee's pay.  The collective purchasing power of G4S guards could give London an economic boost (eg hotdog vendors surging sales).

Nick Buckles made £830k in 2011 in base salary.  Base salary is below 30% of his total compensation.  At the end of last year he was holding shares worth about £5m.  Surely he's a winner of the security paranoia, no matter how embarrassing this new shambles is for the officials.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ea5fe2be-cb83-11e1-911e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz20KG03bQ2