As many of you well know, the highly anticipated Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was last night (Dec. 10, 2013).  During the show, Victoria’s Secret unveiled its $10 million dollar “Victoria Secret Fantasy Bra,” designed by Mouawad Jewelry and worn by model Candice Swanepoel.  While I did not actually view the fashion show, I was disturbed that an exorbitant sum of money could be spent on such an unnecessarily opulent brasserie, especially when there are more essential problems that the money could have attended to.  In response, here is a list of some more beneficial and productive things that can be bought with a cool 10 million bucks.

• 17,682 shares of Apple stock (as of the price on Dec. 10, 2013).
• 22,281 metric tons of white rice, which could feed nearly 2 million people for one month.
• 1 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets that could save the lives of the over 600,000 annual casualties of malaria, which are predominantly children under five years of age.
• 50,000 laptops from the One Laptop per Child non-profit organization could be donated to children who would otherwise have no access to education or technology.
• 10 million dollars to UNICEF, which could instantly help to save and improve millions of children’s lives in more than 190 countries.
•  46 million Feed My Starving Children MannaPack Potato-D’s that help children recover from diarrhea, as diarrheal diseases account for 16% of child deaths under the age of five years.
• 11,765 HIV/AIDS patients in Africa could receive life prolonging and improving anti-retroviral treatments for one year.
• 58,824 mammograms could be provided, which could help to detect breast cancer, the most common cancer in women.
• 176 students could be sent to Harvard University for a 4-year undergraduate education, paying full tuition.