What a stupid, selfish thing to do. Didn't Allen ever take economics?

how much her family consumes versus how much it gives actually makes a difference in other people's lives.

Consuming IS giving. I assume they didn't STEAL the house, right? So a lot of people were employed in the construction and maintenance of the house. Banks made money. Contractors made money. Illegal immigrants made money. Now the house will be go on the market (further depressing the housing market in a tiny way) and the money will go not to any deserving hard-working family in the US but to a bunch of ne'er-do-wells in Ghana, and will probably only wind up funding the next government-sponsored famine in that corrupt and disgusting part of the world.

doh (slaps forhead) Now you tell them.

Let me get this straight, Erik

Conspicuous consumption is good.
Generosity is bad.

Bizarro ethics

Everyone knows I am right.

How many of you anonymous lurkers agree with me? Be honest. Not the women and little girls- they can't help being foolish- I'm talking to the men here- how many men agree with me?

Bill Gates is living proof that you can be happy doing both.

OK- since all 3 of Allen's readers were too cowardly to answer my first question- here is another topic: who is/was a greater humanitarian- Bill Gates or Mother Teresa? Discuss.

2) Her quote to her dad that triggered the change. She saw a Mercedes parked next to a homeless man sitting on the curb, and said "If that guy didn't have such a nice car, then that guy could have a nice meal."

And both men could drive a Trabant. Ain't socialism great?

who is/was a greater humanitarian- Bill Gates or Mother Teresa? Discuss.

Bill Gates by default. Mother Teresa frankly did more harm than good and her turbo-canonization is disgraceful.

Both are great humanitarians. Teresa was generous on a spiritual level, Gates gives at a more tangible/worldly level. They each give according to how the Holy Spirit has promted them to do. Our world needs both types.

Here is another perspective, more articulately rendered than I could ever manage:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html

Did Christopher Hitchens join this discussion?

You don't have to be Hitchens to dislike the Ghoul of Calcutta (although I do think that's his phrase). Even though she received millions in donations the conditions at her homes were abysmal and the patients lacked basic hygiene and pain relievers. Reportedly she subscribed to a doctrine that elevated suffering to a spiritual virtue (because Jesus suffered on the cross, see) so that was probably done on purpose.

On the issue of canonization, the record numbers of saints the Catholic Church churns out saints at such a rate that it could rival the number of protestant saints (Protestants view all of themselves as saints)

In particular, the "miracle" that is used to support Teresa's beatification (and future canonization) has no evidence even as miracles go.
The claim is that a woman in India was healed of stomach cancer when two nuns put a "Mother Teresa" medallion on her stomach. But even her doctor disagrees with that story saying that she never had cancer but rather a non-cancerous growth caused by tuberculosis that responded to treatment (antibiotics, not magical medallions).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/12/MN147328.DTL

And Allen, since you are such a Christopher Hitchens fan:
http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/