I don’t know what to say!
John Stickley wrote a blog entry a few days ago with some information that blew my mind.
The U.N. Human Rights Council unveiled a new ceiling Mural at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland recently.
How much did the mural cost?
$23 Million. Yes, you read it right, they paid twenty three million dollars to have their ceiling painted.
$23 Million.
If you read the article over at Fox News, you’ll see they are also spending $2.9 Billion on renovating some of their buildings. I can’t even imagine $2.9 Billion, I can’t even think what you could do with that kind of money – I certainly wouldn’t spend it on making a couple of buildings for bureaucrats look pretty!
So here’s my question. If you had $23 Million and a 16,000 Sq Ft ceiling to paint, how would you spend the money?
Personally, I’d go with painting the ceiling white, which might, at the very most, cost $100,000 (being very generous to the painters).
Then I’d spend the remaining $22, 900,000 on food, clothing and medical care for the poor here in Hanford….. For the next 20 years or more.
What would you do? Please comment with your suggestions.
Thanks for the link, Peter… even if I couldn’t spell “bureaucracy”… 🙂
I’m with you totally… I can’t imagine any organization that had that kind of money blowing it on themselves. Granted, I blow far more money on myself and my family than I should… but millions (or billions) of dollars like this? Come on.
I’d help the poor and needy. I’d feed the hungry. I’d educate the uneducated. I’d bring medical care to areas it’s simply not available. Clean water… sanitary facilities. You name it.
But the kind of waste we’re seeing in the U.N.? It’s just sickening.
I could spell bureaucracy either, but my spell checker saved me!
I want to just say one thing about the mural… I am not completely against art.
I do see that God gave some people incredible creative and artistic abilities and I have no problem with them being used.
However. at $1437.50 per Sq Ft, that artistic ceiling went rapidly from amazing art to a complete waste of money!
Thanks for the comment John!
Peter –
You might like this video. With 10 billion we could provide water to everyone. 2.9 billion used for the building repairs could go a long way towards meeting that.
Good post point out the waste brother.
Tony
Hi Peter, I think of how each one of those dollars was collected, one at a time from one person at a time, and should have been used to help a whole lot of people, not just the people who will happen to see this ceiling. Thanks for the post. Carol Jean
Thanks Carol Jean,
That’s a great way to look at it – money from the masses should be used to help the masses not just the few.