Tootfinder

I grew up in a large city in a western democracy, with a socialist city government and it was fine.
There was basically no crime. People didn’t go hungry. Housing was affordable. Rent was regulated. Public transport was amazing. Education was free. Everyone had healthcare. Taxes were practically the same as in the US.
It was also much, much easier to start a business there than in the US. (Literally took an hour!)
People who wanted to get rich still could do it (there’s a few Austrian billionaires even).
I don’t understand how Americans got themselves so brainwashed that “socialism” is used as a term that sort of means “iworse than death”.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sonnet 125 - CXXV
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet, forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

"In 2020, Berlin passed a law that resulted in a five-year rent freeze [...] for 90% of the flats in the city. While the law offered relief to about 1.5 million households who had seen rents rise by an estimated third in the six years prior, it was ruled as unconstitutional in 2021 after Germany’s highest court sided with landlords and property investment lobbyists who had argued it was inappropriate and illegal for the state to meddle with the private market."

Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’
Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given