It's not intended as a unit of caring

Some people think otherwise.

But helping people is something worthy of pride

How about buying status signals with the the minor side-effect of helping people?

No one ever seems to say "eww what expensive clothing that man has, such poor taste, yuck what an unnecessarily large house".

Of course they do. "So much money, so little taste" is a common attitude. "Unnecessarily large houses" are known as McMansions in the US.