Elon Musk says he’ll drop his $97 billion OpenAI bid on one condition that OpenAI remains a non-profit

Recommendable! Sam Altman is not convincing to me!

DUH bot Lobbykampagne an - Die entlarvte Deutsche Umwelthilfe sollte endlich ihre Privilegien verlieren

Wie oft wurde sowas schon beklagt und beschrieben in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten! Diese Form von Missbrauch ist wirklich nicht neu!

"Dass es dem Verein „Deutsche Umwelthilfe“ unter der Geschäftsführung von Jürgen Resch weniger um Hilfe für die Umwelt geht, sondern auch um die Maximierung der eigenen Einnahmen, ist seit Jahren offenkundig. Nicht nur in vielen Medien wird er immer wieder als „Abmahnverein“ bezeichnet. Auch der frühere NRW-Ministerpräsident Armin Laschet oder Ex-Bundesverkehrsminister Peter Ramsauer nannten ihn so und forderten – vergeblich –, der DUH das Etikett der Gemeinnützigkeit zu entziehen. ..."

DUH bot Lobbykampagne an - Die entlarvte Deutsche Umwelthilfe sollte endlich ihre Privilegien verlieren | Cicero Online Die Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) agiert nicht nur als Abmahnverein, sondern auch als PR-Unternehmen, das einem Verband eine millionenschwere Image-Kampagne anbot. Staatliche Privilegierung macht das verlogene Geschäft erst möglich.

Big non-profit Hospitals Provide Skimpy Charity Care—Despite Billions in Tax Breaks

Surprise, surprise! Non profit means less charitable care?

"[less than] 2 cents The amount per dollar of net patient revenue that 60% of nonprofit hospitals spent on charity care, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. ..."

"These charitable organizations, which comprise the majority of hospitals in the U.S., wrote off in aggregate 2.3% of their patient revenue on financial aid for patients’ medical bills. Their for-profit competitors, a category including publicly traded giants such as HCA Healthcare Inc., wrote off 3.4%, the Journal found in an analysis of the most-recent annual reports hospitals file with the federal government. ..."

Big Hospitals Provide Skimpy Charity Care—Despite Billions in Tax Breaks - WSJ Nonprofit medical institutions get federal benefits in exchange for providing support to their communities but often lag behind their for-profit peers

US Non Profits Depend On Federal Big Government Largesse

Trigger

The Wall Street Journal published on 7/18/2013 an article titled “How Big Government Co-Opted Charities” (Subscribers only) by James Piereson. This is a shocking article about a special crony relationship between many non-profits/charitable organizations and the federal government. I had no idea how extensive and comprehensive this relationship is.

Summary

Basically, a large number of well known non-profits and charitable organizations receive substantial amounts of funding from the federal government making up a large part of their revenues. Without these federal funds many of these organizations would collapse. The author describes how this relationship extends the welfare state into the private sector. In return, these organizations lobby heavily in Washington for more funding etc. or support all kinds of big government legislation (e.g. ObamaCare).

E.g. According to the author backed up by a third party source (Giving USA), federal government now supplies one-third of all funds raised by not-for profit organizations. According to Giving USA Annual Report 2012 (here) individuals donated a total of $229 billion.

E.g. $215 billion of federal funds in 2010 were directed towards advocacy groups, social services organizations, and nonacademic research institutions. The AARP, a prominent and influential supporter of ObamaCare, received $97 million or 82% of its revenues in government grants in 2009. The National Council of La Raza received $16 million in 2012 and so on …

Conclusion

The author doubts that the charitable deduction in the tax code is any longer justified. In his words: “The original purpose of the deduction was to encourage charitable giving based on the belief that strong voluntary associations would reduce the need for government support.”

This Is A Government Takeover

This is an incredible nationalization of an important part of the private sector. This is an enormous redistribution of personal income by big government. It should be left to the citizens to decide when and how they spend their money. I don’t think any of the Founders would have conceived something like this happening.