Um, yeah, I don't find it very surprising that Tyler Cowen, an academic, influential writer and famous cultural critic isn't directly getting help from his local food bank. Oh, and I love the "putting aside the ones I work at". Let's cherry pick and say "non-profits have do nothing for me personally" if you exclude the ones that do a tremendous amount for me personally. Even with the above, I find this pretty disingenuous. Surely Tyler Cowen has visited and enjoyed some famous art museums? Perhaps he has taken his kids to a local science museum? Perhaps he has benefitted from research done at universities, as pretty much everyone alive has?

That said, I can agree with him on his point that perhaps certain non-profits (e.g. hospitals) don't really function like most people would think a non-profit should and probably shouldn't be getting tax exempt status.