February 7, 2010

This morning on CBS' Sunday Morning With Charles Osgood program there was a segment about charities that kind of upset me.

As you know charities are not my favorite industries. Yes, they are industries because they are being run as such. They are industries where the executives are getting high salaries and the larger portions of honest people's donations remain with them to cover their cushy lifestyles.

Anyway, this story was about some wide eyed Atlanta teenage girl who one day saw some homeless people by the road while she also saw some expensive Mercedes drive by.

As it happened she started to wander about life's inequalities.

She is from an upscale family where both the mother and father had good jobs and they lived in a very expensive home, practically a mansion.

At her insistence the family agreed that their lifestyle was not appropriate and they should do something about it. They sold their home and moved to a smaller house.

The story did not end here. On the sale they made about $600,000 profit which was donated to some hunger fighting charity.

The next film clip showed them in Ghana opening some cornmeal plant that would feed the local people. This girl is standing with the microphone in her hand and is making all kind of speeches and I am sure is very full of herself.

I think what they did is commendable. To sell one's home and turn the profit over to help the poor is a beautiful act, but I have reservations about the whole thing.

First of all, the house was not hers. Even though American kids always refer to their homes as 'my house' they are not. These are their parents' homes.

Kids do absolutely nothing toward the improvement of their parents' houses. They just happen to live there because the stork dropped them at that address.

This girl's parents were not Wall Street people nor were they gangsters. They made their money by work and they decided to buy into the American Dream. Here comes this naive, bleeding heart and convinces them that their lifestyle is the wrong one.

This might still be acceptable but why in the world they had to go to Ghana? Isn't there enough misery in this country?

Then the show interviewed the head of United Way. All throughout the interview I was wondering how much salary he was getting from the donations. He certainly didn't look undernourished.

He was asked how much people should donate. His answer was until it feels good. I accept that answer.

But then a college professor was asked and his answer was 'until it hurts'. I was just thinking how much of his income he was donating.

I hate college professor experts. They are so much removed from life it is not even funny. They become professors because they can not hack it in the outside world. They live in a world of theories without possessing any practical experience.

And as a good old Hungarian saying goes: nothing is too costly for the kibitz!

They always come forward with data about how much of $1 donated really get to the help it was intended for. The results are very disturbing.

Most of the major charities take a very large chunk of the $1 out for administrative expenses. This is unfair and disgusting. This equals to reaching into the donation box and take a handful of cash out every Sunday so the priest can have lunch in a nice expensive restaurant.

These are the major charities. The small ones are more "honest". They steal the entire amount.

Look at Haiti. It is like the dog chasing its own tail. Help is not reaching the intended because they either steal it or gets caught up in red tape. In the meantime people are suffering there. But that's not important. Nobody really cares about the people there anyway. Its all for a show!

The important thing is that Bill Clinton goes there for a six hour trip, shakes some hands, holds some babies and talks to some clown who claims to be the president and also have a lots of photo ops.

Going back to the Atlanta teenager's story. I am very glad that they adopted this village in Ghana and I am also sure our President is also very happy about it.

But driving home in Atlanta she will still see the homeless because in her little mind Ghana was more important than her own country.