Buy art, or feed people?

Reader Mary Collier dropped us a line about the record sale price for a Paul Gauguin painting by Qatar’s museums.

“$300 million is a lot to spend — even on a beautiful, historical piece of art. However, think of what else it might buy. … $300 million could feed a lot of starving people worldwide and save lives in other ways, but we all make those tradeoffs — albeit on a different scale. We spend money on better homes, cars, clothes, jewelry and art when we could be using that money to help others. We are in a broken system that isolates us from the misery of others.