RIO is grate on an unlimited budget

Glad we have that cleared up

Can live fantastically in Rio for easily $80 a day and less if you cook your own food. $100 a day and basically can do anything. Expensive for South America but a steal by American Millionaire standards.

What's the $$ breakdown of this? Like housing, food, drinks, entertainment, $$ to give to muggers and corrupt cops. It just seems impossible even for a super cheap country.

Most people have to live on less than that.

Being able to live and basically do anything are quite different

Are they really living though?

Brazil is still way better than Venezuela!

meh, not that optimistic. It's still the goat. Part of me thinks that what makes Rio so great is a non-zero factor into what makes Rio so bad. Yes, there's corruption and institutional ineptitude, but man, culturally, Brazil just doesn't seem like a place where people want to work. Except Sao Paulo, which the rest of the country looks at as weird and too concerned with work.

Yes, is problem, and it's gotten worse in the past 2 years. However, Chicago is also a world-class city with a ballooning violent crime rate. Maybe a closer US analog is New Orleans, which has a heap of problems but is seen as one of the gems of the US. It's almost like a lot of awesome places also have really awful parts. I've probably seen like <10% of Rio and spent the majority of my time in <5% of it. Clark's spent an additional 2 or 3 months there than I have and I doubt his numbers are much greater. Maybe 15 and 8? It's a massive city.

Most of it is lodging. Not counting lodging, you can have a really eventful day in Rio for like $30-50. You can have really awesome days for less.

I've never been mugged in Rio, fwiw. Almost was in Natal and had a carnaval shirt ganked from my pocket in Salvador. Obv it happens, just sayin'.

Everything is way better than Venezuela.

NYT: Who Is Polluting Rio's Bay?

One thing to consider is that the real has halved in value against the USD in the last five years.

Ok, I think you lost me then, though this conversation can't really be productive without a pages-long derail about what does and doesn't define a city being the GOAT so it's probably best to just drop it.

I've had buddies go to Brazil and their experience is not that far away from KC + Clark. "we had some great times, but also came really close to getting violently mugged by a gang and it's a good thing I can run fast"

personally it's just really low on places I want to visit though I also know lots of people go and have epic times. so there you go!

I should clarify that I'm optimistic in the grand sense, but I recognize the reality that progress is pretty damn slow. It's population is still growing fairly rapidly, lending evidence that plenty see Rio as an opportunity.

And I should clarify that in the strict, worldly sense, obviously Rio isn't the goat, and can't be the goat. You can't be the goat with the poverty and crime issues the city has. But it's a very special place, with a lot of promise and a lot to offer. And maybe it's not for everyone, but for some people, it will be amongst the favorite places they've ever been.

It's obviously quite possible that Rio can be an incredible place for a person or small group to visit and have an amazing time, while also being a city that is woefully unprepared to host an Olympics. I find it more amusing to focus on their failings at the latter.

See this is reasonable. I'm sure Rio has many cool parts to it, with only a minimum number of vomit bandits.

Vomit bandits are part of life bro

The city of RIO has fired the private security firm it hired to protected the Olympics because theyve basically done dick-all in terms of hiring forces and doing actually security work.

Opening ceremonies are Friday...

Couple friends of mine that's been to Rio recently said even with money, the city is starting to feel unsafe everywhere outside of hotels.

No but didn't you hear affluent white guys with money went as a group got wrecked hit on hot chicks in awesome weather and only saw moderate amounts of crime? Rio GOAT

Should've held this in the A Shau Valley. Sure you got Nathaniel Victor hanging from the trees and toe poppers every 5 feet, but no Zika, and at least they wont microwave your ass.

Last month on my last trip to Rio.

Not picture: guy getting stabbed behind you, two corpses in that cave

Rio isn't even the most dangerous city in Brazil right now. I live close to Natal and the city is basically on fire. The government decided to put a phone line blocker outside of jails in the city and the prisoners are rioting. They used cell phones (even though it's obv forbidden) to control the drug cartel even behind bars. They actually name themselves the "crime syndicate" and already burned down more than 30 buses and destroyed more than 20 cars on the streets. They also killed some cops and the governor just asked the president for help and they are sending more than a thousand marines to try and control everything.

This reads like an Onion story

http://deadspin.com/report-the-olymp...e-b-1784628802

Greg Hardy?? (too soon?)

Beautiful women, assault and theft is a true representation of Brazilian culture

How is the host country integrating key parts of its culture a negative?

Celebrating people getting assaulted is kind of weird iyam