Baffling

To quote Dendodge: "To be honest, this is one of the nicer ways we could spend taxpayers money" - Yes, it is. But approximately £5 Billion pounds worth of it? On a wedding between 2 young people, in a time when Britain is supposed to be going through "austerity" measures? Fuck that for a lark.

They'd have been just as well finding a registry office, or buggering off to Gretna Green than wasting all that money on an event which is gonna give absolutely cack all back to the people.

The taxpayer gets the bill, the businesses get the profit. We won't see a penny of what's made from today's extravagorgeout.

£5 billion? I don't know the actual cost, but it can't have been anything near that high. Taxpayer's money was only paying for security and transport, the rest was covered by the families. I do know that the cost of security for the Pope's visit last year was about £10 million, and security for the 2009 G20 hobnob in London was roughly £7 million. The wedding would surely be a similar order of magnitude.

There may also be a loss to the total economy because of the extra bank holiday, but how much (and whether it is countered by extra tourism, memorabilia etc.) is a matter of debate: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/how-much-did-royal-wedding-cost-britain-1055/