Peter James

Breaking: The Florida Panthers are trading for Brady Tkachuk, where he will play with his brother Matthew, sources tell @emilymkaplan. The Senators will receive two first-round picks in the 2026 draft, as well as a future first and second-round pick.

This is just intellectual nonsense @friedberg and wouldn't get a passing grade at a place like University Chicago in a freshman seminar. You know that. I can't believe you are defending without a shred of introspection the unfair and lopsided economy where nearly 80 percent of Americans believe the American dream is dead, but 19 billionaires are worth as much as 12 percent of our GDP (three times the concentration of the gilded age). It's a comparison, and I get the difference between stock and flow. Do you not believe that there must be some democratic check on "blind economic forces" and "blindly selfish men" seeking to hoard this nation's wealth and power. There must be some check to rampant speculation, monopolization, and war profiteering where the capital class builds fortunes in its sleep, but nurses, teachers, doctors, firefighters, carpenters, HVAC technicians who work long days can't afford to even buy a house. I am for a free enterprise system that works for hard working men and women in every part of America, not just the connected and privileged. I am for a patriotic capitalism, instead of an extractive capitalism. I celebrate entrepreneurs and those that build businesses. I am absolutely not for taking away their property or having the government control their business. A private sector is necessary to be a free society so that government does not control every aspect of our life. But men should not be allowed to buy politicians with their wealth and skew the laws in their favor. They should not be allowed to evade justice as we saw with the Epstein class. They should pay a fair tax before they die, like ordinary Americans do, so that every American can have the basic necessities of healthcare and education. There are many business leaders who still believe in the social contract and recognize their obligations to their employees, to the community, to their customers, and to our nation. I call them economic patriots. The problem is with arrogance of those billionaires who believe they are better than us, that they are entitled to rule, that somehow they are better allocators of capital than the American people. Really? The American people who defeated Nazism and communism, funded the Moon landing and creation of the internet, and who have built the greatest economic engine the world has seen. I want an America where every has the chance to build wealth, where the political opinion of a billionaire does not matter more than that of a nurse, and where the success of our business leaders leads to the success of all Americans. When young people start cheering prominent business leaders, you will know we are headed in that direction. Right now they are being booed, not by politicians, but by an entire generation that feels forsaken.