Scarce resources

One of the popular reasons given for poor progress toward global issues like defeating AIDS in our generation is that resources are limited.

I respectfully suggest that resources are not limited.

Here are a couple of examples that tell me there is lots of money in the world.

#1 - Europeans spend $11B a year on ice cream. That's right, ice cream.

#2 - There is now a website where you find a phone number that enables you to leave a message for aliens - extraterrestrials. The call is routed through a transmitter and sent into space via a ten and a half foot dish in Connecticut - and people pay $3.99 per minute to talk to - well to E.T.

#3 - In Ontario, Canada, there is a farm for "orphans" that you can sponsor for $40 a month - but the orphans are donkeys. Yes - donkeys, and the entire budget for the farm is covered by sponsors who receive an info package on their chosen beast of burden - complete with photo. No word on whether sponsors receive a letter from their donkey from time to time. Guess there could be some trouble with the translation.

There really is no shortage of resources - and the vision for an AIDS-free world can be realized as we allocate our abundance to people and ideas worthy of our investment.

Research. education, hospice care, (human) orphan care - these are things that will satisfy so much more than an ice cream cone, an interplanetary phone call... or a donkey.

Time to reconsider.