On Friday, September 14, 2012 5:48:41 PM UTC+1, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:18:47 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson wrote:



I enjoyed watching the footy, but then the huge waste of money and

resources didn't impact me as I live in the US :-)



It wasn't actually wasted; it employed thousands of people, directly

and indirectly, for years.

The money simply went back into the economy and save that which may

have went overseas as profits for some European-based contractors, the

bulk of it stayed in the UK.

It's just part of the money-go-round, same as it ever was.

I'm amazed the whingers and moaners can't see that - but then again,

they really are short-sighted ******s. Daily Mail mentality.

The money went in many directions. _Some_ did go into the economy, some was simply wasted. The point is that what did go into the economy could have done so via producing a useful valuable result, rather than pointlessly. Insert here whatever your vision is of what we could have usefully done with 10 or 20 billion pounds. I'd have put some of it into antibiotic research.

Someone else mentioned that people prefer a society with entertainment. This is true. However, the olympics provided no entertainment at all for a large percentage of the population, and for those it did, the same entertainment value could have been had for 1/10th the price. To see the real cost of the entertainment, consider the 1948 olumpics. The rest of the spend was really on other things, largely on pointless ego inflation, ie 'look, we can afford to waste this much.'

With the NHS qualy now at about 20k, 20 billion could have saved a million life years. Do you still think spending that on the olympics was a great choice? Or more the lunacy of politicians' egos?


NT