> I'm glad someone makes money off of my old clothes rather than they go in the trash. I don't have a problem with that per se, only that it happens under the

> I'm glad someone makes money off of my old clothes rather than they go in the trash. I don't have a problem with that per se, only that it happens under the pretense of charity and that the model exploits economic inequality in a globalized world on the expense of those the "charity" claims to help. > That's a variation on the broken window fallacy. I fail to see the connection because the broken window fallacy is about a coherent economic system, not about a global economy where one can make a profit by exploiting inequalities. The proverb says: Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Following that idea, I am much more for transfer of knowledge than for transfer of goods. And in extension also for sourcing urgently required products locally (and if required donating to build the required industry) than just sending products. One does not have to see that in any ideological way: Just publish all numbers, show me that it's more cost-effective to send assembled products to a place and I won't object. But the article just showed that we again failed to run the numbers, thereby wasting money and potentially harming the local economy in the target country.