And all we get out of CERN is… the entire modern economy.

Their ledgers are balanced just fine for a while.

This is a very silly argument. The energy expended should be justified on its own (scientific!) merits. The fact the web happened to be invented at CERN has almost nothing to do with the fact that they burn through terajoules of electricity every year.

> The energy expended should be justified on its own (scientific!) merits.

Is the scientific merit of such a thing always immediately apparent?

In your opinion, what would instead justify the total cost of devoting 10'000 people's lives to basic research?