RE: Europe's Quid pro Quo
"people like you"... how charming...
actually the other way around. i noticed a lot of republicans call out the democrats for being "socialist" and even the democrat candidates wrongly call them self "socialist like norway" when actually they mean "social democratic"....
this can be very confusing for "people like you" since you live in an unregulated capitalism where rich can lobby law makers to cut tax for rich... hence anything more left than that looks left, but this can be remarkable differences like the difference between venezuela and denmark.... difference between vietnam and indonesia (might feel less like comparing apples and oranges)...
socialist parties are part of "socialist international" while social democratic parties part of "progressive aliance"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Alliance
you see the differene between countries with leading or co-leading parties that are socialist (red) or social democratic (green)?
these are parties united by an ideology...
all of europe is green, and most of our countries have either free hospitals or a working health insurance for all system, and most of us have free education...
also whats not marked red there are socialist/communist dictatorships i notice like vietnam or china
some of the social democratic parties are actually still member of the socialist international aswell for some reason, since the progressive aliance is kinda new when european social democrats were pissed off that is was too socialist and too little social democratic and made their own group "progressive aliance"
How is it unregulated?
companies are allowed to have monopolies and charge whatever for it.... medicine prices are unregulated in US for example, hence in US a medicine costs 10 times more... in most of the world the nation approves the medicine, and then negotiates a price with the company, instead of letting it be priced whatever... profits of companies are less taxed which makes billionairs possible and makes it cheaper to write more of their expenditure as a company expenditure (as if a yacht would be needed by ur company)... inheritance and wealth are not taxed and in most countries they tax either or both to stop an accumilation of wealth (bad wealth distribution is bad for the economy, but is characteristic to developing countries)... the health system isnt even following capitalistic ideology because companies are not made to compete, but are allowed to form monopolies like the ones for medicine or hospitals in US are not required to show their prices, hence when you go to the hospital you are getting surprised after what ur hospital bill is, which can be any arbitrary number, even an ambulance can cost u 1000$... in the capitalistic - social democratic system in germany and denmark, companies are made to compete, while in frances very strange capitalistic system, the government buys a large amount of shares of the company and mostly owns the company and hence gets to decide aswell in the company (i dont like their capitalistic system it does not make sense to me and it also means they have monopolies)... i believe americans are very proud of capitalism, and they believe capitalism is better if people compete and provide a better service by trying to outcompete each other, but in an unregulated capitalism like US what good does competition do if companies use loopholes to avoid the competition... universal healthcare for all would for example give the insurance the ability to see hospital prices and the insurance gets to negotiate the price, while the sick person does not have to worry about "am i sick enough to go to hospital" because he will be able to afford free healthcare... free healthcare not only brings back competition and the leverage of the insurance to lower the price, it also means young people like you will subsidize the healthcare for old, meaning when you get old you dont have to pay an arm and a leg (and thats how europeans treat their elders with respect)... universities is also unregulated capitalism as all universities raise the price together, while in other countries that dont have free education the cost of university is up to 10 000 $ (i had in the UK where i had free education cuz im EU classmates from US who came because 10 000$ was cheaper than US for them)...