What the Heck IS Obama?

[ZSorenson]

As a Canadian I think I can help answer that question.. haha. For the past 50 or 60 years while we have been instituting all of these ridiculous policies we have, much like the rest of the "civilized" world, been mooching off of the US in order to survive. The US has been the only thing keeping the world afloat and I am very interested to see what will happen once you guys fully jump on the Socialism bandwagon... my predictions are not exactly optimistic

Getting a 'sense' of the 'success' of a country seems rather hard. I guess you can look at cGDP or something, but the rest is anecdotal. European social democracy is well-adored in American intellectual circles, but I understand that Europe's pretty miserable.

France might have a great culinary culture, but isn't America's food industry many times over more robust and wealth-productive? Americans just have a thing for Domino's and McDonald's.

Does anyone know of where to look for evidence of what European social democracy is 'really like'. My question about Canada was along the lines of 'what is it really like'? I don't know how you answer that, or where to look, but I want to know. I am certain that most people who talk about it do not know.