On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:28:03 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article
,
" wrote:

On Sep 14, 8:31*am, harry wrote:
Zero I imagine.

Plenty I expect, best being making all the grumpy old complaining gits
look a bit silly.

No, harry was right - just this once. I can think of better ways the
country could have spent nine bullyun quid.

Very rarely has any city/country made /any/ profit from hosting the
Olympics. A parliamentary committee recently concluded that the Games cost
the public sector /alone/ £11 billion. "The Funding Package of £9.3
billion allocated to the Olympics does not cover the totality of the costs
to the public purse of delivering the Games and their legacy, which are
already heading for around £11 billion."
[London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games - Public Accounts Committee]

Some critics believe that the total cost for London will, in fact, amount
to some £24 billion when the games have ended. Don't forget, this is the
Olympics /&/ the Paralympics. Have you noticed how Coe & the politicians
have now gone quiet about the "benefits"?

To put it into context, for £11 billion you /could/ have had:

An extra 55746 nurses for a year

38500 police officers for a year

22000 doctors for a year

35 NEW schools

8 NEW hospitals

4595 libraries funded for a year

57037 university educations

45294 teachers for a year

And that is not either/or, it's ALL of the above.