JOEL KOTKIN: The Nonprofit Threat.

The predilections of the ultra-rich will likely loom over politics and policy debates for decades to come. In the U.S., nonprofits’ assets have grown nine-fold since 1980. In 2020, nonprofits brought in $2.62 trillion in revenues, constituting more than 5.6% of the U.S. economy. And this process is just beginning, as the boomers begin to leave behind their riches. The consulting firm Accenture projects that the Silent Generation and baby boomers will gift their heirs up to $30 trillion by 2030, and up to $75 trillion by 2060.

Yet this bounty will be highly limited due to the rapid concentration of assets in ever fewer hands, with the top 1% in the U.S. increasing their share by roughly 50% since 2002. The class implications of this process are profound. The winners clearly will be the small pool of big inheritors, as we already see in Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott; Bill Gates’ now-discarded wife, Melinda French Gates; and Laurene Powell Jobs, the left-leaning publisher of The Atlantic and the widow of Apple’s founder.

The laws regarding nonprofits should be tightened dramatically. This isn’t rich people building hospitals and libraries. This is something close to an unelected branch of government controlled by big money. That’s made possible only by laws that were originally drafted with regard to things like hospitals and libraries.

I DID A SEARCH, AND IT APPEARS I FORGOT TO LINK THIS HERE: In Which I Recommend.

IT DRIVES CIVILIZATION:  Complexity.

BUT DID HE PINKIE SWEAR?  FOR THAT MATTER, DID HE PROMISE TO NOT THROW ZELENSKY INTO A GULAG OR NOT LET ANYONE ELSE KILL HIM? #LOOPHOLESMATTER:  Putin promised not to kill Zelensky during Ukraine war’s early days: ex-Israeli PM.

WHILE MANNERS ARE AT TIMES RESTRICTIVE, THEY IMPROVE THE ABILITY OF THOSE WHO AREN’T NATURALLY SOCIAL TO THRIVE IN SOCIETY:  Ladies and Gentlemen…

HOW DO YOU SAY CHUTZPAH IN MANDARIN?  China accuses US of indiscriminate use of force over balloon.

HE MAY BE BLIND BUT HE SEES SOME THINGS CLEARLY:  Ex-NY Gov. David Paterson slams asylum process, calls it a budding ‘industry’.

OF A POPULATION OF 19 MILLION:  Medicaid rolls swell as 8 million New Yorkers get coverage at expected record- price of almost $35B.

SURE. WE BELIEVE THAT:  NORAD: We Weren’t Sure China Balloon Was Hostile.

FEW PEOPLE REALIZE HOW BAD THIS ALREADY WAS BEFORE THE CURRENT OPEN BORDERS:  Lone Hospital in Yuma, AZ, Crumbling After Spending $20 Million Taking Care of Migrants.

Back ten years ago, public schools and hospitals were already groaning under the weight of “new arrivals” coming here for the benes.
You can’t have a welfare state and open borders. Choose one. Since we can no longer afford the welfare state, I suggest you think carefully through this. (Frankly I think for a while to come we can afford neither. And I think the new comers are idiots because when things sour they’ll be in the middle of a family fight.)

CAN WE HELP THEM PACK?  Report: Migrants Using Taxpayer Funded Bus Tickets to Leave NYC for Canada to Escape the Crime-Ridden City.

BECAUSE ALL OF THEM WERE IN ON IT:  Pentagon Won’t Name Official Who Divulged Misleading Info About Chinese Spy Balloons During Trump Admin.

DIDN’T THEY, UNDER TRUMP, WHEN THEY LIED TO THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF?  Has our “constitutional” military declared its independence?

The question is when we declare them traitors. I mean the Junta won’t. But they aren’t the boss here. We the people are the actual boss.

ABOUT LIKE ALL FLORIDANS DIED FROM NOT WEARING MASKS:  Is Florida Really Forbidding African-American Studies?

GO READ:  Two voices from The Tablet: Gil Troy, “Israeli democracy is fine, thanks for asking”; Michael Lind on “The power-mad utopians” in America.

FASCIST STATES DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR RELIGION IS, AND THEIR PET CORPORATIONS DON’T EITHER:  Today’s blacklisted American: CVS fires nurse for refusing to violate her religious beliefs.

CULTS ALWAYS MAKE KIDS SUFFER:  Stop punishing kids to feel better about climate change.

I USED TO WONDER WHETHER THESE PEOPLE WERE MORONS OR EVIL:  Sunday Talks, Cohn and Brennan Talk Gleefully About the Return of the Service Driven Economy Under Biden, Happy with No Wage Growth.

Turns out they’re evil morons.

REPUBLICANS: YES, PLEASE. Biden’s State of the Union address should be the wokest in history.

AN OBSERVATION I MADE ELSEWHERE: “No society can entirely do without intelligentsia, but they’re like gut bacteria –valuable, but they have to be constrained in number and kept in their place or disaster ensues.”

BOB MCMANUS: David Paterson is right –Mayor Adams needs to get tougher.

THEY’RE NOT COMPETENT, JUST SELF-CENTERED, ENTITLED, AND UNPRINCIPLED: Deep State? After the China balloon fiasco, call it the Derp State.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat to democracy.

UPDATE: From the comments: “The way you know that 9/11 wasn’t organized by the CIA was that the attack worked.”

Ouch. José Ramon Fernandez smiles.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: The Critical Drinker on Disney — An Empire In Collapse (Video).

MORE:  Fulton County to study reparations.

OPEN THREAD: Share your pearls of wisdom.