This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Vladimir Lenin <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm">quoted</a> Karl Marx as saying, “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” When the modern oppressed looked deep inside themselves, much as the Ghostbusters <a href="https://youtu.be/2zhDfUAQSbs?si=wSyhYDRhh6Tbft9x&amp;t=101">did</a>, they tried to do good and instead failed, choosing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/style/grown-up-theater-kids.html?unlocked_article_code=1.llA.kN9_.Oc99OV8afaU3&amp;smid=url-share">theater kids</a> rather than the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And if there’s one thing theater kids are going to do, it’s theater, which sometimes involves making films.
“I Love Boosters” is such a film, one <a href="https://x.com/alexchristy17/status/2055314091938390107">described</a> by “The Daily Show’s” Jordan Klepper as “&#8217;Pee-wee’s Big Adventure&#8217; if it were directed by Karl Marx with a bunch of Molly in the background.” It plunges you into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1xZegSgN8w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surreal world</a> centered on a group of boosters (people who steal clothes and resell them at a price significantly lower than retail) and their leader’s infatuation with fashion designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore). 
The Velvet Gang, as the group of boosters is known, regularly steals massive amounts of clothing from Smith’s stores. Then, the gang’s leader Corvette (Keke Palmer) along with henchwomen Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) sell the wares in apartments redesigned as shops and on the street, helping the less successful among us stay fashion forward. In that way, they’re like the Robin Hoods of haute couture, or at least that’s what the message seems to be. 
What I have just described boasts a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_love_boosters#critics-reviews">92%</a> average from film critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though it only scores a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_love_boosters/reviews/all-audience">72%</a> average with the actual audience. That’s impressive for a movie that leaves most people saying “huh?” when you tell them you went to see “I Love Boosters.” It’s so disjointed that even people who wanted to see it can barely get it out of C- territory. (As verified reviewer Ben wrote, “No idea what I just watched. A waste of time. I should have walked out of the movie and stared at a puddle of water instead, would have been more entertaining.&#8221;)
When your anti-capitalist/pro-communist film is only hitting with the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat, well, congratulations, I suppose, because that’s usually the target audience for communism. Though the bourgeoisie in “I Love Boosters” solely consists of billionaire Smith, with everyone else being part of the proletariat, except for a group of people who wear literal skin suits and a demon who sucks the souls from people in a manner that I will not be describing here. Suffice it to say, though, that the literal demon is a good guy, somehow. 
There’s also Jianhu (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-miseducation-of-poppy-liu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Poppy Liu</a>), a rival booster from a Chinese sweatshop where Smith’s clothing is made, though she’s not trying to sell fast fashion to the victims of the Chinese Communist regime, but instead lobbies for better pay and labor practices inside the sweatshop. This, of course, is also a very American communist bourgeoisie approach to Chinese atrocities, except actually they tend to lobby for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html?unlocked_article_code=1.llA.bu6i.W5tmRya7K4xZ&amp;smid=url-share">continued atrocities</a>. Not that the pro-communist leanings of the movie are any more obvious while watching it than they would be while staring at a puddle of water. 
Mostly, it’s just a film that centers on Corvette’s anger with Smith, who refers to the Velvet Gang as “low class, urban b*tches,” which, okay? I’m not a communist, so perhaps I’m missing something, but theft isn’t something I associate with the middle or upper classes. 
If I were a communist, though, I could argue that the Velvet Gang members are merely victims of the capitalist system of oppression that prevents them from rising up into the ranks of the professional managerial class and stealing from the proletariat, and also that “urban” is just thinly veiled racism. (Fair, just don’t ask the modern communists why identity politics is <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/01/elite-identity-politics-professional-class">actually bad for the cause</a>, comrade.) 
Also, Corvette is aggrieved because she failed to become a famous fashion designer, mostly because she’s afraid to give it a shot, other than posting some designs on Instagram, one of which Smith may have stolen. This is the most unintentional and hilariously revealing insight into the modern American theater kid’s envious rage against capitalism that the film offers, and would strike a blow to its premise if theater kids had any conception of irony. 
In any case, Corvette continues along, planning one final giant heist with her fellow gang members plus Jianhu, who has a teleporter/deconstructor/accelerator machine (don’t ask). They succeed. Chinese factory workers go on strike, win their concessions from the Chinese Communist Party, and get improved pay and working conditions in their sweatshop instead of being murdered for going against the paramount leader. This inspires global protests, the theater kids’ primary mode of communication. Presumably, there’s a glorious uprising that happens sometime after the movie ends. 
There may have been a post-credits Easter egg detailing the final five-year plan, but I wouldn’t know, as I didn’t stay for the full credits to roll. Granted, I am not the target audience for “I Love Boosters.” Critics are known for loving hot garbage, so they get a pass, but there are four- and five-star audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. There is praise for the anti-capitalist message. Several reviews mention love for the cast. Some people seem to genuinely love the rollicking, disjointed, confusing “plot.” That’s fine. We’re a pluralist country, and I used to pretend to like “Eraserhead.” I’m not totally innocent here. 
But as an anti-capitalist commentary, does it work? This is where I am sad to report that yes, it does, at least partly, and not in its intended way. Because if this is the type of art that capitalists, albeit the faux communist flavor of capitalists, are funding, then it may be time to eviscerate the bourgeoisie theater kids and bring forth a glorious uprising of whatever class it is that would rather stare into a puddle of water.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cookin-up-a-story/id1624969096" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. You can also follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/rcromwell4">@rcromwell4</a>.

“I Love Boosters” New York Special Screening

Leftist Hollywood Critics Drool Over Bizarre Anti-Capitalist Movie. Audiences Aren’t Buying It.

Capitalism

Communism

Culture

Hollywood

Movies

Upstream

It&#8217;s time to say a bunch of stuff that&#8217;s going to get me in trouble in the too-online sphere right now; people on the Left who live in mansions, who hate capitalism, and also people on the Woke Right, the New Left, who also live in mansions, who also hate capitalism but like to pretend that they like capitalism.
Here we go.
I&#8217;m going to defend private property and free markets and basic common sense, because these are the things that allow you to succeed economically in life. It is good to make more money by providing people with better goods and services. It is good to be fiscally responsible. It is good to make smart decisions about your money.
Most Americans know all that stuff.
But a lot of Americans are being lied to these days. They&#8217;re being told a bunch of garbage that makes their lives actively worse. And increasingly — particularly if they are young and too online — Americans believe those things.
The Left and the Woke Right are going to get angry when I say you shouldn&#8217;t spend too much money eating at a restaurant if you&#8217;re unable to pay your rent. They&#8217;ll say that I&#8217;m saying that because I don&#8217;t care about people.
(You see, it&#8217;s better to be poorer and also keep eating at Wolfgang&#8217;s Steakhouse.)
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2431?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
They will get angry when I say that Amazon makes your life better and cheaper. They&#8217;ll say it&#8217;s better to yell at Amazon, try to shut down their business, and tax them more because “Jeff Bezos is bald and rich and has a yacht!” or something similar. They&#8217;ll get angry when I say that billionaires aren&#8217;t inherently bad because they&#8217;re billionaires, and that instead, genuinely immoral people are bad and moral people are good. Tax returns have nothing at all to do with any of that.
The billionaires are typically billionaires, not because they are stealing from the poor — spoiler alert: the poor don&#8217;t have much money to take — but because they make a lot of people&#8217;s lives better. They make goods and services for cheaper.
So get ready. Here comes the blowback. It comes every time I talk about this stuff.
Remember that time I said young people who couldn&#8217;t afford to live in New York City might think about moving if policies don&#8217;t change because it&#8217;s more productive to search outside of New York City and find some success than to sit there in your expensive apartment with your two roommates and pizza?
People got super-duper mad.
Remember that time I said that Social Security needs to kick in later in life — especially for people who are currently 40 and under — because people are now living 20 years longer, and then Social Security kicks in, which is really expensive and is bankrupting the country? And also that when you hit retirement age, sure, you can retire, especially if you&#8217;re working a backbreaking job, but you should continue to do productive things in your community because it&#8217;s good for you on both a mental and spiritual level?
People got super-mad again.
Well, here&#8217;s the thing. I don&#8217;t really give a crap about how people feel about reality. And here is the reality: the only way your life gets more affordable is 1: You make more money; 2: Your expenses get lower, and 3: Products and services get more plentiful and better and cheaper.
All of these rely on free markets and common sense.
When Americans don&#8217;t feel good about the economy in general, they tend to think that things are “unfair.” “Unfair” is just a substitute for “I don&#8217;t feel good about things.”
This is human nature. It applies to us. It applies to our children. Whenever something happens that my kids don&#8217;t like, it&#8217;s unfair, right? They deserved something, and it didn&#8217;t happen.
It’s possible for two things to be true: The economy is not doing what it should be doing right now, and there are problems in the economy; regulatory problems, subsidy problems, market distortions, etc.
But generally speaking, the economic system in this country is mostly fair.
It is fair because you have property rights in this country. You have the equal rule of law in this country, as opposed to the vast majority of other countries around the Earth and in all of human history.
Politicians love lying to you. It is their favorite thing to do because the way that you win votes is by appealing to the lizard part of the brain, the part that says, “A bad thing happened and it&#8217;s unfair. It&#8217;s the system,” as opposed to, “A bad thing happened. Life is full of bad things.”
How do you solve poverty? The answer for most politicians is to yell at rich people and pretend the rich people got rich by causing poverty, which is untrue.
Poverty is the natural state of all mankind; for all of human history, everyone was poor. The question is not why there are poor people and rich people; the question is why even the poor people in the United States are, by any historical marker, very, very rich. That is the real question.
We now live in a world where, if you give basic financial advice, like “Move elsewhere if you can’t get a job in your area,” if you say things that reflect reality, people get mad, especially if there is a group of people telling them they don&#8217;t need to live in the world of reality.
Is Jeff Bezos the bad guy? Amazon directly employs 1.6 million people globally. People who use Amazon to sell products account for another 2 million jobs. Elon Musk’s global workforce consists of 150,000 people. Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Meta has 70,000 employees.
The notion that you kill private property and modern finance and somehow the economy gets better is absolute stupidity. But it is part and parcel of a lie that is being sold to you; that if only you had more power to centralize government, if you gave more power to Bernie Sanders or Tucker Carlson or people who want control over the economy, they would bring you back to some placid, agrarian past in which you can fish in the evening and write poetry in the morning.
It&#8217;s just trash. It&#8217;s stupid, and it does not comport with reality.
And as I’ve been saying for decades: in the end, reality always wins.

Why Reality Keeps Crashing Into America’s Economic Debate

Ben Shapiro

Economics

Opinion

wealth

A Chinese immigrant escapes one of history&#8217;s most brutal communist regimes, crosses the Pacific, lands in America, collects a multi-million dollar net worth, and then steps in front of a red carpet microphone to <a href="https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/2056115103926252025">declare</a> that capitalism is &#8220;the greatest evil in the world.&#8221;
That is exactly what Hacks star and professional they/them progressive Poppy Liu said at a recent premiere, before adding, generously, that she would &#8220;be okay with [capitalism]&#8221; if fewer people lived under oppression. A noble sentiment. A historically illiterate one (because capitalism leads to <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/capitalisms-triumph">less oppression</a>) and coming from her specifically, one of the most spectacular acts of self-unawareness in Hollywood this week.
How do we know? Because last year, Poppy sat down with the L.A. Times to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2025-02-21/sunday-funday-poppy-liu-best-things-to-do-los-angeles">share</a> her ideal Los Angeles Sunday. The schedule: 10:30 a.m personal training session. 11:30 acupuncture recovery. A quick bite at Amara Cafe. An afternoon trek to Koreatown for fresh fruit. Dinner at Levant Bistro. Movie night. And then, naturally, some late-night TikTok couch rot to wind down, after she put “they” to sleep. (The toddler is <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cus5xghr8PN/">nongender</a>.)
Every single stop on that itinerary was brought to her by the economic system she&#8217;d like to dismantle.
The irony is again richer than a 12-course tasting menu.
Let&#8217;s briefly audit what capitalism actually provided for Poppy&#8217;s American dream. The personal trainer hustling clients in a free market. The acupuncturist running a private practice. The cafe, the restaurant, the movie theater: all private enterprises, all paying wages, all generating profit, all apparently evil. The phone she used to post about it all? Designed by a company, assembled across a global supply chain, powered by semiconductors and lithium batteries that exist because competitive markets incentivized someone to invent them.
Her career? Funded by capitalist studios and streaming giants. Her designer wardrobe and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYWgo0vgQ0Z/?hl=en">thousand</a>-dollar couture dress? It operates through international trade and global capitalist markets. Her immigration story? The electric car with GPS and safety features that brought her to the vanity show? All market-driven. All only possible because she landed in a country built on economic freedom rather than state control.
China, where she spent much of her youth, tried the alternative. It killed tens of millions of people through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and fostered state-managed famine on an industrial scale.
She made it out, made it to America, made millions, and her takeaway is that capitalism is the problem.
This deranged mentality that she and other elites are projecting is going to slowly kill America, if we let it.
It’s nothing new, however. Hating the merchant class is one of the oldest political tricks in human history. <a href="https://heartland.org/opinion/economic-ideas-plato-aristotle-and-the-ancient-greeks-part-2/">Ancient</a> Greeks viewed private trade as disruptive. Medieval Europeans were <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1301/trade-in-medieval-europe/">suspicious</a> of commerce. For centuries, aristocrats <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie">rallied</a> against anyone who threatened the established order of wealth. The resentment predates Marx by millennia. He just gave it a pamphlet.
What <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/marx-exploitation-abc-unequal-world/">Marx</a> actually did was shift the target. Before Marx, people resented wealth. After Marx, they were taught to resent the wealthy. To hate the person, not just the gap. To see every successful entrepreneur as a thief, every profit as exploitation, every billionaire as a threat to democracy. Modern progressives didn’t invent this; they just introduced it to the youth on TikTok.
And it’s working. Only 54% of Americans now view capitalism <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx">positively</a>. The lowest number in 15 years. This ought to terrify you.
As I “Sunday Scrolled” on Instagram, I came across a viral <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWjaRWeiF5X/">video</a> that inaccurately reframed the entire economic debate between Capitalism and communism as a father asking his daughter: if another kid doesn’t have a lunch, do you share yours? She says yes. Dad says, “Then you’re a little commie.” The implication was that capitalism means hoarding your sandwich while your classmate starves. It was emotional, clever, and completely wrong.
A child voluntarily sharing her lunch is not communism. That’s private property plus individual charity. Americans donate over $590 billion <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Americans+donate+over+%24500+billion+annually%2C&amp;oq=Americans+donate+over+%24500+billion+annually%2C&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBBzcwOWowajeoAgCwAgA&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">annually</a>, the highest charitable giving rate on earth. Communism isn&#8217;t the sweet kid at the lunch table. Communism is the government seizing the cafeteria, mismanaging the food supply, and leaving everyone hungry. Ask Venezuela. Ask the Soviet Union. Ask the 45 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward">million</a> people who died in Mao&#8217;s Great Leap Forward.
The video had 5.6 million views. The comments had a collective IQ of 80. The indoctrination is working.
Nobody is arguing that capitalism is perfect. It is flawed, but obviously the best option we’ve got. Under it, global extreme poverty cratered from 42% to under 9% since 1990. Lifespans doubled over the last century. The smartphone in your pocket contains more computing power than NASA used to land astronauts on the moon, and you can buy one for a few hundred dollars. This happened because markets reward innovation, competition drives down costs, and human ingenuity is allowed to function.
Every alternative has delivered something else. Stagnation. Poverty. Body Counts.
Even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2426-memberblock">Sweden</a>, long the Left’s favorite argument for socialism, is embracing capitalism wholesale: free markets, private enterprise, lower taxes, and strong property rights. And of course, it’s working. The country has seen massive increases in innovation and Initial Public Offerings, so much so that the small country of 11 million is far outpacing Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
What the Poppys of the world are selling is not a better system. It is envy dressed in the language of compassion, packaged by people wealthy enough to never feel the consequences of the ideas they promote. They hate billionaires from their million-dollar homes. They hate corporations on the devices that those corporations made. They perform poverty from penthouses and call it solidarity. They fight “oppression” over oat-milk matchas.
Poppy Liu immigrated from a country that starved its own people in the name of economic equality, built a career in a country that rewards talent and ambition, accumulated real wealth, and concluded that the problem is capitalism.
She is welcome to her opinion. She is welcome to donate her sequined couture, her L.A. restaurant tabs, her streaming residuals, and her personal training sessions to the revolution. We&#8217;ll take the million-dollar home too, since she&#8217;s offering.
For the rest of us: you are not a bad person for believing in free markets. You are not greedy for wanting to keep what you earn. You are not heartless for understanding that a system rewarding innovation and competition has done more to lift human beings out of poverty than any government program in history.
The greatest evil of all time did not build the modern world. Capitalism did.
Don&#8217;t let the millionaire tell you otherwise.

“I Love Boosters” Los Angeles Premiere

The Miseducation Of Poppy Liu

Communist China

DW Opinion

Poppy Liu

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is being absolutely trashed online for saying that no one can legitimately become a billionaire.
“You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that,” the democratic socialist congresswoman <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZzXzRCA50">told</a> comedian Ilana Glazer on an episode of the “It’s Open” podcast. 
“You can get market power, you can break rules, you can do all sorts of things,&#8221; AOC said. “You can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth. But you can’t earn that, right? And so you have to create a myth that — since you didn’t earn that, you have to create a myth of earning it.&#8221; 
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;">  <iframe style="aspect-ratio: 9/16; max-width: 220px; display: flex; justify-content: center; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/01HjTo301q9Gmv2K8j7iu5VdYnqXalvDSA?metadata-video-content-type=short&amp;metadata-video-id=182bada4-4c01-424a-a259-324f705f7c95&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=All%20lies.&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fshorts%2F2a2a5153-958e-4fbd-83ef-6ac563cbc73e.png&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
The Democrat seemed laser focused on billionaires in business without commenting on billionaire entertainers like Taylor Swift. When the critics started calling her out, AOC doubled down in an X post she <a href="https://x.com/AOC/status/2052529622655402174">shared</a> Thursday evening.
“The single largest form of theft in America is wage theft. $50 billion a year are stolen from American workers,” she wrote. 
“Some people get enraged that I draw attention to this. That’s on them. Let them call me shrill, dumb, inexperienced, girly, uneducated – these folks will say anything to distract from or undercut the truth that working people are getting screwed, and giving people a fair shake means we must have a grown conversation about reigning in abuse of power.”
Commenters with common sense pointed out the multiple flaws in her argument.
“Lies. Billionaires get rich by innovating and risk-taking, offering new and better goods and services at prices people are willing to pay. Government makes cash through confiscation. AOC&#8217;s conspiratorial, envious view of the world leads to impoverishment and tyranny,” Ben Shapiro, the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, <a href="https://x.com/benshapiro/status/2052576063738269819">wrote</a>. 
“Socialists don’t run businesses,” author Helen Raleigh <a href="https://x.com/HRaleighspeaks/status/2052521924090097961">wrote</a>. “They produce nothing valuable or desirable that others want. They enrich themselves only by taking from others by force. Therefore, they don’t understand how entrepreneurs can be so wildly successful in a free market simply by providing goods or services many people want and are willing to pay for.”
“What a naive and wrong point of view. So much of leftist politics and thinking these days is about justifying envy,” entrepreneur and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale <a href="https://x.com/JTLonsdale/status/2052452637245657095">agreed</a>. “I’ve co-founded six different multi-billion dollar companies, with more on the way. AOC perhaps isn’t bright enough to make a lot of money without massive grift &#8211; sure. But 10000’s who worked with me are rich; some are also billionaires!”
He added, “Our innovation sector is the best in the world, solving problems and growing the pie with US talent for a brighter future for all. I’m aligned against cronyism. But demonizing success is totally unAmerican.”

Did AOC Just Spark Bad Blood With Taylor Swift?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

America

Billionaire

Business

Money

Envy, as we all know, is one of the seven deadly sins. 
And yet, if you are a Democrat these days, it may be the only virtue. 
For tens of thousands of years, the natural state of human beings was poverty, misery, and death.
Then came private property, along with governments that formed to protect it, as well as free markets formed to trade, invest, and expand that private property.
We all live better now than the richest man on earth did just 100 years ago, or 80 years ago, or even 60 years ago — by far.
But for the Democrats, that system of free markets is evil and immoral and wrong, not because free markets have produced poverty or misery, far from it, but because there are a lot of people who envy those who create wealth. They envy the people who innovate, compete, and win.
I&#8217;ve called these envious people “scavengers.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2422?elementPosition=2&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The virus of socialist envy never, ever dies. The not-so-brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on a podcast with a woman named Ilana Glazer, where she made the rather incredible statement that it is not possible to earn $1 billion. 
Here was the exchange:
<blockquote>Ocasio-Cortez: You can&#8217;t earn a billion dollars.
Glazer: That&#8217;s right.  
Ocasio-Cortez: You just can&#8217;t earn that.  
Glazer: That&#8217;s exactly correct.  
Ocasio-Cortez: You can get market power. You can break rules. You can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws.   
Glazer: Yup.  
Ocasio-Cortez: You can pay people less than what they&#8217;re worth.
Glazer: Yup. 
Ocasio-Cortez: But you can&#8217;t earn that, right?   
Glazer: That&#8217;s right.  
Ocasio-Cortez: And so you have to create a myth that — since you didn&#8217;t earn that, you have to create a myth of earning it.</blockquote>
The amount of brainpower in that room could toast a piece of bread — lightly. Absolute oatmeal for brains there.
Of course, you can earn $1 billion. The way that you earn $1 billion in the private sector is by providing goods and services to millions of people who want to pay for them.
That is how you earn $1 billion. You innovate a new product. Lots of people want it, and then they pay you for it. That is how you make money.
But this sort of stupidity has become de rigueur for the Left. Ocasio-Cortez then pushed this further on X, writing, “The single largest form of theft in America is wage theft. $50 billion a year are (sic) stolen from American workers.&#8221;
She&#8217;s not talking here about the wage theft of the government coming in and literally confiscating a giant chunk of your paycheck every month. She thinks it is wage theft for companies not to pay wages that she thinks they should pay.
Ocasio-Cortez is shrill, dumb, inexperienced, and uneducated.
It has always been a Marxist lie that capitalism impoverishes the worker. It is not true. It has never been true.
Every prediction Marx ever made about the future state of the world was wrong. All of them. Which is why, in order to achieve his vision, governments eventually had to kill tens of millions of human beings.
He projected that there would be a gigantic class struggle: never happened. He predicted that capitalism would impoverish everyone: it didn’t.
All that Marxism is really rooted in, in the end, is pure, unadulterated envy. Ocasio-Cortez cited Bernie Sanders as the founder of the movement, saying, “In a lot of ways, we&#8217;re all kind of Bernie&#8217;s successor.”
There is no one who&#8217;s been a bigger leech on the ass of American society than Bernie Sanders. The man has not held a productive job for literally 80 years. For 80 years, he has lived and sponged off the taxpayer.
Sanders is now targeting Sergey Brin for the great crime of founding Google, <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/2052478807525794280?s=20">saying</a> on X, “Google founder Sergey Brin&#8217;s wealth has DOUBLED to $311 billion since Trump&#8217;s election. Now he’s spending $57M to oppose a 5% billionaires&#8217; wealth tax in California. He’d rather millions lose healthcare than pay his fair share in taxes. This kind of arrogance is unacceptable.”
According to whom? You&#8217;re a tyrant. And by the way, it is you who are arrogant because you believe you are entitled to Sergey Brin&#8217;s wealth. 
Kamala Harris has implied she should be able to basically dictate wages, imagining a world “where if you work a 40-hour week, you can afford your rent and food on the table and maybe a vacation from time to time, not scraping to get by, praying you can get through the end of the month.”
That is so vague as to be utterly worthless. First of all, the vast majority of people in the United States who work a 40-hour week can afford rent. They&#8217;re not living on the streets. They&#8217;re affording rent. It may be too expensive; they may not like it, but the vast majority of them are not homeless, and they can afford food because starvation in the United States is at zero. No one is starving to death in the United States.
Socialists and people who hate free markets posit that if you work 40 hours a week in the United States, you should be able to afford all sorts of things, and the only thing stopping you is this system they don&#8217;t like.
It&#8217;s just crap. It&#8217;s just nonsense.
It’s important to note that places like California that have decided to follow the AOC-Bernie Sanders path — wealth is terrible, and innovation is awful — are losing people. They are losing income.
So the question is, why do the Democrats keep doing this?
It can only be envy.
The promise of Marxism is not a better future. The promise of Marxism is a better human being. That was always the promise of Marxism.
It is a lie. It is untrue.
Human beings are human beings wherever you go. Human nature is human nature wherever you go. The idea that you&#8217;re a better person if you believe in redistributionism is a lie.
Free markets are good. Free markets are based on a simple principle: You, as an individual, have creative power in the universe. You&#8217;re made in the image of God. You have control over your autonomy. You have the ability to control your labor. Your innovation is your own, and you ought to own it.
There are time machines on planet Earth. They&#8217;re called airplanes. Take an airplane to a third-world country that does not protect private property, that does not believe in equal rights before the law. See how it works out for you. It&#8217;s terrible. It&#8217;s awful.
Meanwhile, you&#8217;re living here in the United States, the greatest country in the history of mankind, and you have a magical device you carry in your pocket every day, filled with more technology than the tech used to put a man on the moon.
You&#8217;re carrying that around every day, and you have a button on that phone that will magically deliver a product to you without any effort on your part, other than hitting the button. That product will have been sourced from 80 different countries, and you&#8217;ll never know about it.
That&#8217;s the power of free markets, which is rooted in your specific priorities.
You&#8217;re not a victim in the system. You get to decide what you want to buy. You get to decide what you want to sell. You get to decide how much you&#8217;re going to spend on a thing, or whether you don&#8217;t want to spend that much money on a thing.
The idea that you, as an individual, get to decide what a thing is worth to you is the basis for free-market economics, meaning that it is the most individualistic system that has ever been conceived of by mankind.
That&#8217;s what price systems do. We aggregate the value over time, and then we figure out what the average person is willing to pay.
You innovate; you compete; things get better. It is not just a utilitarian case. It is a moral case.
The Left hates that moral case. They want something completely different.
They are driven by envy.
And that’s a sin.

Comrade AOC 2

The Argument AOC Is Making About Success In America

Free Markets

Marxism

There is a current tendency to blame free markets and technology for dyspepsia with the economy, as if there is a nefarious group of people destroying your way of life.
People are literally trying to attack data centers.
As David Friedberg noted on the “<a href="https://x.com/theallinpod/status/2046280245758787914">All-In Podcast</a>”:
<blockquote>Most people in America are starting to really hate rich people. And there&#8217;s no physical space that better represents the wealth in America, the wealth creation that&#8217;s happened that a lot of people feel left behind from, than the data center. It is the temple of the wealthy. It is the way that the rich, elite, tech, kind of political, connected billionaires that we&#8217;re obviously all attached to are taking from the poor, getting themselves ahead, shooting themselves to space, leaving everyone else behind, and the data center, I think, is the representation of their progress. And it is a representation of the progress that others don&#8217;t feel.
For a consumer&#8217;s life to actually be altered in a meaningfully positive way, most people don&#8217;t feel that yet. The best thing they see is some medical advice they&#8217;re getting on ChatGPT or something, and that&#8217;s kind of the end of it for them. So I think there&#8217;s a lot of this populism that&#8217;s swollen and that&#8217;s taken over, not just the US, but probably a good chunk of the West. And the data center is the target.</blockquote>
David Friedberg&#8217;s explanation is exactly right. This is the way that economic populists have been pushing.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2410?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Let’s differentiate between moral and economic populism. Moral populism was exemplified by William F. Buckley back in the 1960s when he stated that he would trust the first 100 names in the Harvard phone book on matters of public policy more than he would trust 100 Harvard professors.
The idea was that the common man in the United States — shaped as he or she was by the institutions of church and family and community — had a better moral compass, on average, than the elites.
I totally agree with that, because elites very often believe that they have been freed from these systems of morality.
However, when it comes to the economy, economic populism is virtually the inverse. Economic populism assumes that there should be some sort of centralized control placed into the hands of that central power by “the people,” and centralized control should overwhelm the disseminated knowledge that is implicit in free markets and capital markets.
The basic principle of capitalism is that disparate views on things lead to better outcomes, that differential knowledge and the diffusion of knowledge are actually significantly more effective than one guy at the top with a stick beating people into submission.
But economic populism says that free markets are bad if the product of the free market is something I don&#8217;t like, therefore, we should take power away from the free market to destroy it.
Whenever there is economic unease, people tend to attack free market capitalism, or what they see as the symbols of free market capitalism, and they tend to blame people who are wealthy.
The great lie is that people in the United States are wealthy because they&#8217;re stealing from the poor. It is a full-scale lie. It is not true.
The only places in the world where people are rich because they steal from the poor are communist countries and other forms of tyranny. The reason people get rich in a free market economy is because they are providing products and services at a price people are willing to pay. People want that product or service.
But if you can somehow recast the economy of the United States as “rigged” on behalf of the wealthy and go after the means of production, you target data centers.
What you are going to end up doing, in this view, is overthrow the capitalist system.
The outcome of that will be quite dire.
There is a grievance-based, horseshoe-theory economic Right that is also wildly upset about artificial intelligence data centers because they&#8217;re big and ugly.
You know what else is big and ugly? Walmart — but it’s wonderful for the vast majority of consumers.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman&#8217;s home was allegedly targeted in the second attack in just two days; a shot was even fired. This is part and parcel of a broader movement that is targeting technology more generally, including technologies that are required for the United States to win wars.
City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/palantir-protests-ice-national-security?utm_source=virtuous&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=cjdaily">reported</a> there is a campaign against the military contractor Palantir — which generates extraordinary technologies in terms of intelligence gathering, capacity to target, and much of the actual technology that goes into the machines that we use.
This crosses paths with all of America&#8217;s enemies. America&#8217;s enemies are delighted to watch us destroy ourselves by taking down the technologies that allow us to win.
If you buy into this entire shtick — the idea that AI as a technology must be destroyed — it won&#8217;t be destroyed.
We&#8217;ll just lose.
If you think that China is going to forgo AI, you&#8217;re a fool. They won’t.
If the United States were to heavily restrict AI, not just in terms of preventing its gravest harms, but restricting the development of AI, or if there were to be a political party that attempts to prevent the building of data centers, not for any sort of understandable economic reason — like, for example, make the data centers pay their fair share of electricity production, which I think is a fair argument — if there&#8217;s a broad scale movement to destroy the AI industry out of either misplaced agrarianism or a deep and abiding hatred for capitalism or the generalized belief that capitalism rots the human soul, we will lose.
If the United States heavily restricts AI, not just by preventing its gravest harms but by restricting its development, we will lose. If a political party tries to stop the construction of data centers, we will lose. That is different from making data centers pay their fair share for electricity production, which I think is a fair argument. But if there is a broad-based movement to destroy the AI industry out of misplaced agrarianism, a deep and abiding hatred of capitalism, or a generalized belief that capitalism rots the human soul, we will lose.
China wins.
This is not a vacuum. It is not as though if the United States forgoes AI magically, we would continue to have a burgeoning, wealthy economy, and China goes weapons down.
When it comes to AI, indeed, there are problems, there are dangers — and we should all recognize those dangers, not whistling past the graveyard — but at the same time, it is a tremendous opportunity.
A China in a dominant AI position means a China in a dominant military position. The amount of AI that is being used right now by the United States military in the conflict in Iran and in the operation in Venezuela is tremendous and growing.
If China outpaces us in AI development, that means their military is now superior to ours. If their military is superior to ours, that means they can not only effectuate change in their region, it means they can also spread that technology throughout the world and make other countries dependent on the receipt of that technology.
It means that many, many other countries all over planet Earth would suddenly become dependent on China.
That is a huge problem, and it also leaves China in a dominant economic position, because AI means more productivity. If productivity goes up for China but remains stagnant for the United States, they will outcompete us. If they outcompete us, one of two things happens: Either we block off our economy and become backward and protectionist — meaning we don&#8217;t have any of the best goods and products and services at the best price, we&#8217;re all poorer and we slide into poverty and stagnation — or we have to be dependent on Chinese products, our kids work for Chinese companies, and China is able to spread its influence.
When it comes to the game of economics, you must win.
When it comes to the game of military dominance, you must win.
And when it comes to the technological game, you must win.
The economic populism that&#8217;s been rising says that we ought to tariff our way out of all our problems, that we ought to attack technological development, that it would be great to have an economy based on t-shirts — none of this is going to solve the bigger problem.
Attacking tech CEOs or healthcare CEOs or burning up Teslas and attacking Tesla showrooms or shooting Charlie Kirk or attempting to shoot President Trump — all of these are the most extreme manifestations of an ideology.
That ideology says that you are a victim of American society and therefore you get to do bad things. On a broader political level, you are a victim of American society, and therefore you ought to get together with the other victims, take over the government, and use centralized, tyrannical power r to cram down your view of the world.

Working robots

Populist Rage And AI: National Surrender

Anti-capitalist

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

China

Data Centers

Economy

Populism

Technology

Tragedy occurred in the Bezos universe yesterday when 16,000 people were cut from Amazon.
The first round of cuts in October led to roughly 14,000 white-collar employees receiving pink slips. People in the world of journalism were deeply affected. They were really upset that tens of thousands of people were about to lose their jobs at Amazon, one of the most successful companies in America and in the world.
Just kidding.
They didn&#8217;t care.
They barely covered that; it lasted in the news cycle for about five seconds.
What they are really, really upset about in the Bezos universe is that The Washington Post is going to lay off one-third of its staff. The Washington Post is cutting — wait for it — 300+ jobs.
I&#8217;m just going to point out where the sympathies lie. 30,000 people lose their jobs at Amazon because Amazon is cost-cutting and reevaluating thanks to AI, and journalists respond, “You know, those are people who work in Amazon. Those might be factory workers, those might be middle management. They&#8217;re not us.”
But at The Washington Post, they laid off the third-string journalist in Gaza, who may or may not be a contractor for Hamas; they laid off the race and ethnicity reporter, and it’s “My God, the American promise has been sullied and violated! No, this cannot be!”
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/washington-post-layoffs-feburary-2026-c105b237?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqcaQNca6RrDYdMgDke2Qwu1pfAhNcuwCLeGw2gtfcyFA6ZnY6MoI_3SOtNXZjo%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6984dc53&amp;gaa_sig=APDqepx-qArXwdbgE1oFZKF_NO-7qs9L1QsLikbvbByoXzZcBaTeCL6ss9lDG47LXXcfxAiG6I1p2ATcf6q7Uw%3D%3D">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The Washington Post is cutting one-third of its staff, slashing hundreds of jobs across the newsroom and other departments in an effort to trim costs and reshape coverage.
The layoffs will affect journalists in nearly all news departments, including the sports, foreign, technology and breaking-news teams, as well as business and technology staff. 
“If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition,” Executive Editor Matt Murray wrote in a note to newsroom staff Wednesday&#8230;. The Post is closing its sports department in its current form but will retain some roles in that coverage area. It is shrinking its international coverage, and will focus on national news and features, investigations and advice on health and wellness topics.
Murray said the Post will continue to have correspondents in about a dozen international locations, and will focus on issues related to national security. “That’s what our readers seem to respond to the most,” he said. &#8230; The Post lost $77 million in 2023 and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/washington-post-challenges-trump-second-term-61ea6ed9?mod=article_inline">$100 million in 2024</a>, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, as it contended with traffic declines from sources including Google and Facebook. &#8230; In recent weeks, Post journalists—including foreign correspondents, local-news reporters and members of the White House team—made public pleas asking the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, to maintain their jobs.</blockquote>
The Washington Post, like the Daily Wire, is not a nonprofit. If journalists wish to start their own nonprofit and get a bunch of left-wing funders to put millions of dollars behind their jobs, they are free to do that. There are organizations that operate as charitable organizations that do active journalism on occasion.
But the idea that Jeff Bezos owes it to the employees of The Washington Post to maintain their jobs when the paper is losing money is crazy and stupid.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2362-left-wing-journalists-panic-as-wa-po-fires-300?elementPosition=5&amp;row=6&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Nonetheless, the response from the media ecosystem is absolute shock and horror. Emmanuel Felton, the race and ethnicity reporter at The Washington Post — the race and ethnicity reporter? Is there breaking news in the race and ethnicity area? Is evolution suddenly occurring that you need l a reporter on race and ethnicity? How is that a coverage area? If on the Right there was a race and ethnicity reporter, we would recognize just how racist that is — put out a statement:
<blockquote>I&#8217;m among the hundreds of people laid off by The Post. This comes six months after hearing in a national meeting that race coverage drives subscriptions. This wasn&#8217;t a financial decision, it was an ideological one. The other reporter on my team covering race was also laid off as well as the editor in charge of race coverage across national. The team covering America beyond DC is now 90% white.</blockquote>
Oh, no. You mean that people covering issues are going to do so without regard to the race of the reporter?
We can&#8217;t have that.
“Racism,” says the guy who gets paid to talk about racism all day long.
Brianna Tucker, national politics breaking news reporter and the National Association of Black Journalists political task force chair, put out a statement saying, “I&#8217;m affected by layoffs at the Washington Post today. There aren&#8217;t enough words to describe the immense privilege and profound responsibility I&#8217;ve felt since hired at 25 as an editor. As a Black woman covering politics, (a dwindling cohort) today, that feeling is magnified.”
If your first take about being fired by a paper that is bleeding money is that you were fired because of your race, perhaps that betrays the style of coverage that you were doing, which might be one of the reasons the paper was suffering.
If you see everything through a racial lens and the paper for which you are reporting keeps losing money, and then you get fired, and in your firing statement, you talk about your specific race, perhaps you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Peter Baker, the New York Times’ chief White House correspondent, put out a tweet listing Bezos’ wealth over the years:
<blockquote>Jeff Bezos wealth in 2024: $194 billion Jeff Bezos wealth in 2025: $215 billion Jeff Bezos wealth today: $249.4 billion Net increase in Bezos wealth since 2024: $55.4 billion Cost of Bezos’s 417-foot superyacht: $500 million Amazon investment in &#8220;Melania&#8221;: $75 million Original Bezos purchase price of the Washington Post in 2013: $250 million Bezos net worth in 2013: $25.2 billion Net increase in Bezos wealth since buying the Post: $224.2 billion Last reported annual losses of Post: $100 million Number of years Bezos could absorb those losses with what he makes in a single week: 5</blockquote>
The premise of this tweet is that The Post is a charity, and that Bezos bought it as a charity operation.
The only number that matters in the tweet is this: “Last reported annual losses of Post: $100 million.”
Perhaps one of the reasons Jeff Bezos is worth $250 billion is that he does not hold on to declining assets. He does not run his businesses like charities. Maybe that would be the reason.
Maybe that&#8217;s why he is extraordinarily wealthy, and most of the reporters working for him are not, because they think they&#8217;re in the charity business.
As someone who&#8217;s the co-founder of a major media organization in the same business as the Washington Post, let me just say this: When you lose money, and you can see where you&#8217;re losing money, you have to lay people off.
That is how business works.
And Jeff Bezos is not doing anything wrong by laying people off.
The idea that journalists are somehow owed their position because the person who hires them is rich is extraordinary, especially when many of these same journalists are asking that the federal government step in and make the owners of their own businesses not rich anymore.
They think that the people who hire them are simply supposed to absorb the losses.
Bernie Sanders, a complete leech on the ass of American society for the last eight decades, a useless human being in the extreme, put out a statement saying, “If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie and $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don&#8217;t tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.”
What is this, “He doesn&#8217;t need to?”
It is not about what people need to do in America; it is about what they want to do and what they have the freedom to do. That&#8217;s why this country kicks ass.
And that&#8217;s why his version of the country sucks.
If Bernie Sanders wants to get together a bunch of his left-wing friends to put together a 501c3 and rehire all the race reporters in the Washington Post, he is free to do that. He could sell his lake house, and he could hire several of these journalists, and they could work for him, and they could gallivant into the utopian socialist sunset together and enjoy their time.
But he&#8217;s not going to do any of that, the man who spent over $550,000 in 2025 campaign funds on private jets. 
How many Washington Post salaries could that pay?

Guild Members Rally Outside The Washington Post After Layoffs

Left-Wing Journalists Panic As WaPo Fires Over 300 Employees

Amazon

Jeff Bezos

journalists

layoffs

Washington Post

Young Americans aren’t just drifting toward socialism. They’re running toward it, convinced that the American dream skipped their generation. Candidates openly embracing socialist labels are winning elections in major cities, and rhetoric that was once confined to radicals is becoming mainstream. The irony is that the very policies they think will save them are the ones that pushed them to the edge in the first place.
At first glance, none of this makes sense. Socialism has produced disaster everywhere it has been tried. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in human history. So why are the children of its success so eager to abandon it?
The easy explanation blames TikTok, activist professors, and influencers who distrust Western civilization and condemn capitalism. There is some truth in that, but it misses a deeper and far more important cause. It confuses the spark with the fuel.
Beneath the slogans is a generation that feels economically cheated. Many young Americans no longer believe they will achieve the stability their parents took for granted. They face higher tuition, heavier debt, steeper housing costs, and a stagnant job market. Upward mobility feels elusive. The milestones of adulthood feel delayed or impossible.
A whole generation was raised to believe they deserved certain outcomes, and now those outcomes aren’t materializing. They look at the system around them and see barriers, not opportunities. And when people believe a system is rigged against them, they don’t try to fix it. They try to tear it down.
Capitalism becomes the obvious villain. If America runs on capitalism, and America feels broken, then capitalism must be the cause. And if capitalism is the cause, socialism must be the solution.
But what if their diagnosis is wrong? What if the system crushing young Americans isn’t capitalism at all, but the layers of socialist-style policies woven into the economy over the past century, policies that subtly push wealth upward and shift long-term obligations downward?
America has built an economy where one generation’s comfort is paid for by the next generation’s sacrifice. Over the last century, the United States has added an expanding array of redistribution programs to its market system. These programs were often passed in the name of compassion and fairness, but their structure consistently produces unintended consequences. Chief among them is a subtle, ongoing transfer of wealth and opportunity away from the young. That intergenerational transfer, not capitalism, is the real source of the resentment so many young people feel.
To be clear, we’re talking about generational systems and policies, not the moral character of individuals. No generation is monolithic. But the economic structures we’ve built have produced consistent patterns that burden the young generations far more than prior ones. 
Here are three examples.
<h3>1. Student Loans: A Program Intended to Help that Ended Up Doing the Opposite</h3>
Federal student loans were created to help lower-income students attend college. In practice, they allowed universities to raise tuition year after year with impunity. If students can always borrow more, colleges can always charge more. The result has been runaway tuition, bloated bureaucracies, and an entire ecosystem built on the assumption that young people will take on enormous debt to obtain a degree whose value steadily erodes as more people have one.
Universities prospered. Administrators prospered. Students did not. Many began adulthood burdened by debt so large that it delayed every milestone from homeownership to marriage to starting a family.
This isn’t capitalism. It’s a government-engineered system that transfers wealth upward and locks the young into financial servitude through a student-debt burden that is nearly impossible to escape.
<h3>2. Social Security: A Safety Net That Became a Generational Burden</h3>
Social Security began as a modest safety net. It has become a demographic time bomb. With declining birth rates and rising life expectancy, fewer workers now support a growing number of retirees. Younger Americans pay heavily into a system they know won’t give them the same benefits.
The trust fund they’re told exists is filled with IOUs, because previous generations already spent the money. Today’s young workers aren’t contributing to their own retirement. They’re funding someone else’s.
Again, this isn’t capitalism. It’s the socialization of what was once the personal responsibility to save for your own retirement, now transformed into a compulsory system whose costs fall increasingly on the younger generation.
<h3>3. Government Debt: One Generation Enjoys the Benefits, the Next Pays the Bill</h3>
Government debt isn’t like personal debt. Individuals repay their own loans. Governments create social debt that hands the bill to future taxpayers. Jefferson warned that one generation has no moral right to bind another with debt. Yet that is precisely what we’ve done.
When borrowing finances bridges or innovation, future generations share in the benefit. But when it finances entitlements or political consumption, future generations inherit only the cost, through higher taxes, inflation, and a rising cost of living.
Now put the pieces together.
Student loans transfer prosperity upward. 
Social Security transfers income upward. 
And government debt transfers obligations downward.
The younger generation isn’t imagining things. They’re up against a system that limits their progress while shielding older generations from the consequences of past decisions. It’s no surprise they’re angry. It’s no surprise they want dramatic change.
What is surprising is the conclusions they’re drawing and where they’ve aimed their anger. Socialism now looks appealing, and capitalism gets blamed for problems created by socialist-style policies. Young Americans aren’t wrong to feel betrayed. But they are wrong about who betrayed them.
Capitalism isn’t the culprit. Intergenerational redistribution is. Policies designed to protect the vulnerable have, in practice, stacked the deck against the young. Intentional or not, socialist-style programs have loaded a massive financial burden onto the rising generation.
Unless we acknowledge the real source of this injustice, we won’t have any chance of correcting it. And if we don&#8217;t correct it, the crisis simmering beneath the surface will eventually erupt.
We’re approaching a turning point. A society cannot survive if its young are convinced their future has been taken from them. While their frustration may be misdirected, it isn’t baseless. And until we confront this generational injustice, the revolt against capitalism won’t fade. It will intensify, fueled by a volatile mix of youthful anger and misguided ignorance.
There’s still time to chart a different course. If society can finally acknowledge the injustice, and the young can understand how socialist-style policies have undermined their economic future, we can avoid the tragic outcome of a generation that destroys the very system that remains its best chance for a prosperous future.
* * *
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer host the “<a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/">Physics to God</a>” podcast.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Harvard Holds 374th Commencement

Young Americans Aren’t Wrong To Feel Betrayed But Capitalism Isn’t The Culprit

Affordable

Gen Z

National Debt

Social Security

Socialism

Student Loans

The first time I met Cory Pesaturo, he had just hijacked the stage at a wedding in Boston with an accordion strapped to his chest. Little did I know he would do the impossible: make me a fan of the accordion.
Cory is — and I’m not exaggerating — the world’s best accordion player. He’s won the accordion World Championship three times. He holds the Guinness World Record for playing the accordion for the longest continuous time. He brings his accordion with him <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DPY132wkTkt/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">everywhere</a>, and can play just about anything, including the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CknQsS8uqcW/?hl=en&amp;img_index=4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accordion tracks</a> in the feature film “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.”
Most recently, he took his talents to Saudi Arabia, which is now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-officially-designates-saudi-arabia-a-major-ally-of-united-states?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Officially+Designates+Saudi+Arabia+A+%E2%80%98Major%E2%80%99+Ally+Of+United+States" target="_blank" rel="noopener">officially</a> a “major ally” of the United States. The Saudi Arabia he presents is much different from the Saudi Arabia most Americans probably imagine. — Brent Scher
***
Earlier this month, I arrived in Saudi Arabia for my second visit to a country which has always seemed like a forbidden land to the West. I’d been invited again as a guest star to play accordion in the “Riyadh Season” concert series — this time with Egypt’s biggest singing sensation, Angham.
What struck me, on both trips, was how aggressively the Saudis are betting on capitalism.
Everywhere you go, the top Western brands are visible: Dunkin’ Donuts, Texas Roadhouse, Bath &amp; Body Works, Chuck E. Cheese, and yes, Randy’s Donuts, with the giant donut on the roof are there for you in Riyadh. There is even a Disney castle and theme park.
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On every corner there seem to be concerts, tourist attractions, and massive development projects. The music you hear playing through the speakers of high-end locations? Jazz, Lady Gaga, or Burt Bacharach. The style of filming for major concerts?  Straight out of CBS’s Grammys playbook.
Could a country truly hate America if this is what I was seeing?
When I first traveled to Saudi Arabia two years ago, I didn’t even tell my father. You can’t lie to an Italian mother, of course, but my father? If he had known I was flying to a country he associated with the worst terror attack in American history, he would have tied me to my bed. Many of my friends felt the same, judging by their reactions when I returned: “Saudi Arabia? Are you insane? Are you trying to get arrested or killed?”
But over the past decade, the Kingdom, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has charted a different course. One built on peace, prosperity, and a surprisingly familiar engine: Western-style capitalism.
It is true that in Saudi Arabia, you have no real rights against the state — no First Amendment protections, no guarantee of a fair trial, a mandatory dress code, and laws that make smoking pot or ordering a margarita about as plausible as Cardi B performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on the accordion — a stunt I once pulled to win a national title.
Yet, regardless of this different universe of ideas from the United States, I wasn’t afraid.
The free market being unleashed in Saudi Arabia, even if still in a more state-run manner, is the greatest modern example of how a country thought to be an untrustworthy foe can turn into an important ally.
What struck me most, though, was that while I was in Saudi Arabia, a Muslim socialist won the mayor’s seat in the financial capital of the world, New York City. Three different Saudis during the trip (including a Syrian security worker at the venue who had fled Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s regime) asked me some version of the same question: “What on earth are you Americans doing electing Mamdani? He’s crazy.” This, again, from inside the very center of Islam. And even they aren’t at all sold on the politics that Zohran Mamdani represents.
My insight is anecdotal, but the friendships I’ve formed in Saudi Arabia reveal a people not so different from my own friends back home. They want peace. They want prosperity. They want their families to be happy. They want to travel. They want to have fun.
I asked them everything — about Israel, Islamic extremism, terrorism, drinking, drugs, dating, hating their boss, weekend plans, and which video games keep them up until 4:00 a.m.
Watching a group of young men in Riyadh blast pop music at 1:30 a.m. as they inched through a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through, talking about girls and killing time, looked the same as you’d see in America. Different faiths, different cultures, same very human scene.
A handful of companies profit from global conflict. But 99.9% of businesses in a free-market economy — from Nike and Coca-Cola to Apple and Tesla — depend on global stability and rising disposable income. Peace is profitable.
In just a decade, Saudi Arabia has gone from a place many Americans fear to visit to a place I can’t recommend enough to go see. If that’s the result of “greedy capitalism,” then count me in.
Cory Pesaturo is a three-time World Champion accordionist and Guinness World Record holder who has performed on six continents and at the White House four times. In addition to giving five TEDx Talks, he is also active in the motorsports world, bringing his signature blend of innovation and artistry to audiences around the globe.
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The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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President Trump Makes First Middle East Trip Of His Second Term

Is Saudi Arabian Capitalism Bringing Peace To The Middle East?

Islam

Israel

Saudi Arabia

John Adams and the other founders of the United States believed that the country they were establishing could only thrive if it remained a religious and moral society within the framework of Judeo-Christian values. In that same vein, I believe a healthy free market can only work if the people who participate in it understand that the ultimate purpose of commerce is to serve the greater good.
Unfortunately, when it comes to artificial intelligence, we are witnessing too many corporate leaders adopt a morally vacuous and inhumane attitude, one that divorces innovation and productivity from human dignity. Leaders at companies like Amazon, which is expected to cut <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/">as many as 30,000 jobs</a> very soon, are convincing themselves that eliminating human beings in favor of robots — yes, robots — is in their business’s and their customers’ best long-term interests. It is staggeringly short-sighted. Even mad.
<div id="attachment_995297" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-995297" class="size-large wp-image-995297" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2243466511-864x576.jpg" alt="An Amazon Prime e-cargo delivery bike in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. Amazon.com Inc. is expected to release earnings figures on October 30. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2243466511-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2243466511-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2243466511-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/GettyImages-2243466511.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Competition, innovation, and productivity are principles worth adhering to because doing so leads to the best outcome for society at large. Of course, an indispensable part of all this is the commitment to provide for the destitute and those who truly cannot provide for themselves.
But right before our eyes, we are watching industry leaders succumb to pride, greed, and selfishness in a way that we couldn’t have imagined even twenty years ago. The mad dash to adopt anything and everything AI threatens to undermine both economic and social structures in potentially irreparable ways. And the only way to stop it is for corporate leaders to do something radical: recommit to the same moral principles that have undergirded our nation and society for more than two centuries.
Just in case anyone is wondering whether my perspective is driven by impracticality, mediocrity, or sentimentality, know that I have dedicated much of my career to helping organizations become successful by making them as healthy, effective, and productive as possible. What a blessing it has been that this pursuit has simultaneously served employees, leaders, customers, and, in the case of public companies, even shareholders. The new reality that AI is threatening to create will leave employees out of the equation, and ultimately, destroy the customer base of most companies because those customers will not have jobs.
Even a teenager can understand this dilemma, and yet, titans of industry seem to be allowing it to happen. There is no doubt that Amazon may be able to squeeze more margin out of its business in the short term by reducing costs related to salaries and benefits. This will benefit their leaders, the remaining employees, and shareholders for a while.
Ultimately, as more and more companies do the same, fewer people will be able to pay to have their whitening toothpaste sorted by robots and delivered by a drone. Toothpaste companies will suffer as product demand declines, leading to more layoffs. Eventually, even Amazon will have fewer robots, fewer drones, and even fewer employees. All this will take place in the name of innovation and productivity.
Again, an adolescent with a modicum of common sense can see where this is headed, even if Silicon Valley engineers with advanced degrees continue to dismiss it as fantasy. In the end, we will look back at the wanton pursuit of AI as a sort of slavish suicide, and we’ll have to answer to our children and grandchildren about what we were thinking and doing when it happened.
What is the solution? Well, it starts with adopting a new definition of success. When people make money — and I’m talking about IPOs and short-term stock windfalls — in a way that diminishes the dignity of employment, we have to call it what it is: inhuman. We have to see them the same way that people saw carpetbaggers after the Civil War. Or perhaps the way we look at pornographers and drug dealers. They are destroying the dignity of others to make themselves wealthier.
That sounds harsh, but it’s the new reality. When a man or woman claims to do something innovative at the expense of the greater good, that must be seen as exploitative.
Yes, AI is creating a whole new reality, and we must respond by changing the way we define successful innovation and productivity. People’s lives depend on it.
* * *
Pat Lencioni is one of the founders of The Table Group, a pioneer of the organizational health movement, and the creator of <a href="https://www.workinggenius.com/about?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=21520445429&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD4dDHRyei0FFfuRCa63VdPO11RDk&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwlaTGBhANEiwAoRgXBSUpr89SSKKSTeoiFk-LdSAKpBsTFlfYYrEIm9MHWtUL1HjC7imP1RoC65MQAvD_BwE">The Working Genius</a>, which helps leaders understand workplace efficiency. He is the best-selling author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” as well as 12 other books, which have sold over 10 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Robot building Ai sign

AI Without A Soul: How Corporate Greed Is Destroying Human Dignity

The Problem With AI Is Human

Founding Fathers

Free Market

Silicon Valley

When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent engineered a unique deal with Argentina’s Javier Milei, Guy Nohra started paying attention to Bessent’s moves. 
Nohra, a venture capitalist with over three decades of experience, knows a solid operator when he sees one.
In the Trump administration, Nohra says that guy is Scott Bessent. — The Daily Wire
* * *
After more than three decades investing in life sciences, co-founding Alta Partners and backing more than 180 breakthrough companies, I’ve learned a simple truth: innovation thrives when financial stability meets vision. Under Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, America is delivering both.
This week’s $20 billion swap line with Argentina, paired with the U.S. purchase of Argentine pesos to stabilize markets, showed a different face of American leadership — one built on partnership rather than pressure. At home, Bessent’s confirmation that fiscal year 2025 closed with a lower deficit-to-GDP ratio than the year before signaled a welcome return to fiscal discipline. For investors like me, that message matters.
In biotech, one of the few if not the only sectors where pre-revenue companies go public in bull markets, a steady and clear hand at the Department of Treasury is a must. Secretary Bessent’s quiet confidence is a welcome change from Janet Yellen’s “inflation is transitory” approach. The life sciences public sector has been in a funk since 2021 and is finally showing signs of recovery.
Furthermore, venture funding in private life sciences companies has climbed roughly 25% year over year, according to PitchBook. That is not coincidence; it is cause and effect. Bessent’s push for clarity and transparency in financial markets helps all sectors, but especially fragile ecosystems such as biotechnology.
Bessent also understands how fiscal health drives innovation. In recent remarks to community-bank CEOs, he urged them to “go on the offense” by adopting fintech and AI. That was not banker talk; it was a blueprint for growth. By modernizing lending rules and keeping borrowing costs low, he has opened new paths for regional lenders to support early-stage biotechs and rural innovation hubs.
Some critics claim his attention to global markets, such as the Argentina initiative, distracts from domestic priorities. They miss the larger point. In life sciences, borders are illusions. A stable global economy ensures supply-chain reliability, research collaboration, and steady talent flow. Bessent’s diplomacy prevents the kind of market shocks that raise costs and choke investment at home.
What sets him apart is a blend of intellectual rigor and street-smart optimism, refined through years in global markets and at the helm of his own firm, Key Square Capital. He is not a bureaucrat trading in slogans but a market-tested operator who knows how to turn downturns into momentum. In his speech at the Federal Reserve’s Community Bank Conference, he described a future where small lenders and big ideas combine to help America out-innovate China in quantum computing, biologics, and sustainable manufacturing. For those of us funding the next generation of cures, that vision is a North Star.
As we approach a decade that could redefine human health — CRISPR 2.0, personalized medicine at scale, regenerative medicine — Scott Bessent’s steady leadership is providing the runway. His policies may not make flashy headlines, but they are quietly powering America’s next economic renaissance.
To my fellow investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers: let’s double down on this moment. His 3% average GDP growth, 3% annual budget deficits (as a percentage of GDP), and three million barrel increase in domestic oil production are aggressive but achievable goals.
Let’s support the initiatives Bessent is advancing, from expanded R&amp;D incentives to bold public-private partnerships in health technology. The future of life sciences, and of American competitiveness, depends on it.
* * *
Guy Paul Nohra is Co-Founder of Alta Partners and Co-Founder of Alta Life Sciences Spain. He is a venture capitalist, philanthropist, and former GOP gubernatorial candidate for Nevada. He holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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White House To Ratchet Up Russia Sanctions, Bessent Says

The Steady Hand Guiding America’s Economic Renaissance

Argentina

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Zohran Mamdani, who stunned Democrats when he snagged the party&#8217;s presumptive nomination for New York City mayor this week, lived up to his anti-capitalist reputation on Thursday.
Mamdani, a self-described Democratic socialist, came out swinging against capitalism during a television spot with CNN anchor Erin Burnett.
&#8220;Do you like capitalism?&#8221; Burnett asked the New York state assemblyman, who represents Queens.
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CNN: Do you like capitalism?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: No. I have many critiques of capitalism.
In the words of Dr. King decades ago, he said, &#39;Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism; there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God&#39;s children in this country.&#39;… <a href="https://t.co/iW02E21Qoe">pic.twitter.com/iW02E21Qoe</a>
&mdash; Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) <a href="https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1938448693138501832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;No, I have many critiques of capitalism,&#8221; Mamdani responded. &#8220;And I think ultimately the definition for me of why I call myself a democratic socialist is the words of Dr. King decades ago.&#8221;
&#8220;He said, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God&#8217;s children in this country,&#8221; Mamdani said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m focused on is dignity, and taking on income inequality.&#8221;
During a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, King reportedly <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/martin-luther-king-was-a-radical-not-a-saint/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/" data-sk="tooltip_parent">JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free</a>
In a major upset on Tuesday, Mamdani beat out former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of the Big Apple.
Cuomo is considering running as an independent in the wake of the shock results.
Current Mayor Eric Adams also launched his reelection campaign as an independent on Thursday at a rowdy rally on the steps of City Hall, where he took a shot at both Mamdani and &#8220;socialism.&#8221;
“This is a city not of socialism,” Adams <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-city-not-of-socialism-eric-adams-takes-shot-at-zohran-mamdani-as-he-launches-reelection-bid?author=Mairead+Elordi&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=‘A+City+Not+Of+Socialism’%3A+Eric+Adams+Takes+Shot+At+Zohran+Mamdani+As+He+Launches+Reelection+Bid">said</a> at his rally. “There’s no dignity in someone giving you everything for free. There’s dignity in giving you a job, so you can provide for your family and the opportunities that you deserve. This is not a city of handouts. This is a city of hands up. We’re going to lift up the City of New York.”
Mamdani has proposed expensive policies including rent freezes, government-run grocery stores, free buses, free city universities, free child care, increasing New York City’s minimum wage to $30 an hour, and investing $65 million in transgender drugs and surgeries.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), another self-described democratic socialist, referenced the same quote from King in 2021, a few days after former President Joe Biden took office.
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“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God&#39;s children.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
&mdash; Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1353101452281962496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, the volunteer group dedicated to crime prevention on New York’s subways and streets since the late 1970s, won the Republican nomination for mayor.
The general election for mayor will be held on November 4.

Mayoral Candidate For New York Zohran Mamdani Holds Primary Election Night Party

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