Quote of the Day

"[T]he global economic crisis is showing how wishful was the notion that large-scale amelioration of drastic conditions--poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality--could be achieved by freewill offerings from well-intentioned individuals, even if those individuals happened to be billionaires. Like consumer capitalism, which relies on more and more people buying more and more things, philanthropy is an unsustainable model. Even in flush times of humongous returns on investments and much exuberant throwing about of cash, it could never do the jobs asked of it. In a downturn, nonprofits suffer along with the rest of the economy. Easy come, easy go."

-Katha Pollitt, The Nation.