[AndrewDucker]

It's a question of how much happiness you generate for the cash. The UK Arts Council gets about £500million to spend. The Olympics cost the UK 18 times that much.

If the Olympics also produces 18 times as much happiness, then that's a worthwhile investment. If not, then maybe that money could have been better spent elsewhere.

[teekert]

Flawed logic, that "18 times" depends on the initial 500 million so the cut-off happiness value is now determined by the initial investment? Nope. The only way to determine if it makes sense is if there is way to specify happiness per pound for the olympics. I for one couldn't care less about the olympics by the way.