Summary: "there are now more than 60,000 AIDS-related NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] alone." Yet by 2006, after a global campaign to bring HIV/AIDS care to Africa, less than 25 percent of Africans who needed ARVs to survive were receiving them, with the fraction dwindling to less than five percent in rural areas. Worse, new infections continue apace. So what on earth, one might ask, are all these AIDS-focused NGOs doing? As Garrett notes, it is not NGOs alone that suck up resources intended for the poor; corrupt governments divert many of these resources to the pockets of the nonpoor, including a huge international "helping class."

Summary: today's frenzied, attention-deficit-friendly society, where the average Western consumer is said to be exposed to more than 3,000 corporate symbols a day