"Bush campaign ads using team"

[eppie]

I think you flirted with Socialism after WWII because you could afford it due to your past colonial adventures, particularly the diamond trade in Africa. Your society has some very extremely wealthy people who were supporting an inordinately large welfare population. Your society was once described to me when I was younger as a place where half the population supported the other half, but I think that level of generosity had faded recently.

We did not "flirt with socialism" I'd like to think we still have a system which combines market econmoy and socialism. Of course some laws left too much space for people who just did not like to work or commited fraud, but that is just a question of making the rules better. Socialsm is not a bad word, it means just that as a society you take care of the less fortunate people.
And why is socialism combined with market economy not possible in the US?.
I heard from several people here that you also have things like unemployemnet money and tax cuts for peopl that make too little money etc. So I don't see the difference really. Of course you can make gradations but making sure that everybody can get good free (through government insurance) health care should be possible. (this point is also stuff for some nice debates in holland. Things like should your (government)insurance pay for plastic surgery etc.)