Its signature swoop would make up for the austerity of the flat-pack stadium and distract from the lunacy of the Orbit sculpture and the tacky fields of temporary marquees.
The 50% rate is a political sop, thrown to Labour's electoral base by Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, to make up for the austerity measures that he has also, rather more vaguely, promised, many of which will hit poorer Britons.
"If every time economic growth disappoints, governments are forced to cut spending or raise taxes immediately to make up for the impact of weaker growth on deficits, this would risk a self-reinforcing negative spiral of growth-killing austerity," Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told a Congressional committee in March, comments echoed since then in his statements at many international forums.
Although Obama's recent wage increases were far below union hopes for a return to automatic rates or even corrective raises making up for austerity, these groups still viewed his late-term trajectory as a good sign initial improvements that'd continue, stopping the effects of recession-linked austerity and maybe getting them closer to parity with non-government pay.
But the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government's pullback.
Austerity in the UK and elsewhere has already failed: private sector job growth has been unable to make up for the public sector jobs cull.
It is not thanks they want, but proper pay rises that make up for five years of Tory and Lib Dem austerity.
The governor, who will resign on Friday, announced that he would immediately free $200 million in state spending to make up for projected revenue shortfalls and cautioned the legislators against resorting to higher taxes in a time of austerity.
Even with austerity, the EU's Common Agricultural Policy makes up the biggest share of the EU budget, costing 363 billion euro between 2014 and 2020.
The headlines in Britain are all about austerity and attempts to cut deeply into the pay and pensions of government workers, who make up half of the workforce.
