While watching the extravagence of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies on Friday, I joked that the money spent on fireworks alone was probably more than the GDP of several participating countries.  There were 29,000 fireworks shells used at the opening ceremonies…I wonder how much each shell costs?

While costs for the opening ceremonies have been kept a secret, estimates place the final cost as high as $300MM US.  By comparison, here are the 2007 GDPs of some of the participating countries:

Guinea-Bissau $295M
Solomon Islands $286M
Dominica $279M
Tonga $244M
Micronesia $232M
Cook Islands $183M
Palau $145M
Marshall Islands $144M
Tuvalu $14M

China also used 15,000 performers at the opening ceremonies (9,000 of which were on loan from the army).  By comparison:

Total number of athletes at the Olympics: 16,000
Population of the British Virgin Islands: 23,000
Population of Palau: 20,000
Population of Tuvalu: 11,000

Does anyone else think that all the extravagence is a little ridiculous and over-the-top?  The Chinese government has given about $1.5 billion in domestic aid to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake since May.  The money spent on the opening ceremonies represented about 1/5 of that.