The We’re-Not-Europe Party (WSJ)

“For Americans, this has been a two-week cram course in what not to be if you hope to have a vibrant future. What was once an unfocused criticism of Mr. Obama and the Democrats, that they are nudging America toward a European-style social-market economy, came to awful life in the panicked, stricken faces of Europe’s leadership: Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown, Papandreou. They look like that because Europe has just seen the bond-market devil.”

Related: The Welfare State’s Death Spiral
Elena Kagan’s College Thesis (on Socialism)

Limestone Commentary
This proverb is apropos: Paradise and hell can be had in this world.