The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games are almost here and they most certainly come with what can only be described as an amazing price tag.
The Olympic Athletes village that has finally been constructed close to the Vancouver waterfront is made up of 1100 individual units, spread across a range of buildings.
The original quoted cost for building this complex was slightly over one hundred million dollars and yet, strangely enough that price seemed to keep climbing until is ended up being well over one billion dollars.
This calculates out at an average of almost one million dollars per individual unit, which must be considered in any construction companies pricing structure as being slightly excessive.
We have to wonder if they were using gold of even platinum re-bar to reinforce their concrete and if not, then where did all that money go? Someone, somewhere related to that project must have made some incredible 'profit' and it was certainly not the people of Vancouver.
This could be their first 'Legacy' of extortionate debt.
Now that the Olympic Village is more or less ready, the latest issue created by it is the fact that many athletes have already arrived, moved into their 'Village' accommodation, and then promptly moved out again to take up residence in hotels and other places.
Apparently, their village accommodation is too noisy, too exposed, has no privacy and is too crowded for them.
So, we wonder who will be picking up this additional tab for all that unplanned hotel accommodation, while the Olympic Village looks like retaining many empty rooms during games time when it was meant to be full.
With less than two week until games time, we also find that Cyprus Mountain has insufficient snow on its slopes and this is not a good thing for Olympians who wish to try for Gold Medals in Skiing, Snow Boarding and other downhill activities.
Not to worry, the Olympic Committee have again found a solution that can also be added to their legacy program.
They have hired a fleet of helicopters, together with an even larger fleet of huge trucks that are continually bringing in large load of straw and hay bales.
The helicopters then rope and fly the bales up on to the mountain slopes, where bulldozers are waiting to drive over them to spread and flatten them out.
Once this has been done, the same team of helicopters divert off to higher elevations where they will pick up huge bundles of snow, fly them down to the lower slopes, drop them on top of the hay and straw and that will also be spread out to create the banks and turns and runs required for the athletes.
Hardly what one could call a genuine and natural Olympic surface for the World's best to compete upon.
However, the additional and most likely exorbitant cost incurred in having all this done, will at least be something else to add to our ever growing legacy program of frivolous and in many cases unsubstantiated debt.
In the Municipality of Surrey during all of the above activities, an announcement was made that they will be laying off a good number of much needed Teachers, due to a major shortfall in this year's budget.
Yet, in almost the same breathe, they also announce that they will be hosting a huge outdoor Olympic Celebration party that will cost around three and a half million dollars.
Sorry Teacher, we are making you unemployed, but the good news is you can come to a party.
If we divide the real total cost related to everything related to the 2010 Olympics by the number of athletes who will be competing in them, the average cost per athlete provides a figure that is way beyond incredible or exorbitant.
With our World in the state it is in, we are all being told to be proud of the "Legacy' the 2010 Olympics will leave us with.
I really wonder if we are?