My View On This Years Winter Olympics 2010

I am very glad for Canada,. and NBC did an excellent job of coverage. but if you look into what Michael Medved's Syndicated Radio Show said about the Olympics based on an article from another author (name escapes)said; It took Montreal 30 years to pay off what they spent hundreds of millions of dollars back in 1976 the year I graduated high school. In 2004 Greece spent way too much something like 14.4 billion
So how do these colossal endevours actually help a countrys economy?