Hi Pertti

>On Europeans -- being one myself, living in the USA, I have to say that it annoys me to no end when I sense the European holier-than-tho -attitude. Europeans basically want the same as the Americans -- food, comfort, power, money, safety... It is a bit too much to hear a "European" criticize USA for imperialism or greed or what-not. What about the Vikings. British Empire. Napoleon. Hitler. Stalin. Ottoman Empire. Spanish Conquistadors. Dutch slave trade. Roman Empire. And on and on and on.

So you want to compare todays america with europe at least 50 - 2000 years ago ? I'm sad you feel this way. The world is evolving as we speak. I can tell you that as an european it annoys me to no end when I hear an american speak like there is no world outside america and they are the 'world'. Of course when it comes to ensuring world resources (oil) and battling terrorist they might start a campain abroad, but as soon that is ' solved' the abbroad does not exist anymore.

Can you tell us how the scandinavian politics compare to the american ?

>On politicians -- there are a few good ones out there, I believe. They are the ones who do not worry about securing their own next term. Easy to identify.

>On distribution of wealth -- great idea, but doesn't work in practice. See what happened in Russia. I remember standing on the Red Square in 1971. Poor old ladies half frozen, waiting for hours in line for their daily food allocation, watching luxurious Zils and Volgas zooming in and out of the Kreml. Someone had much more than enough, someone had nothing, regardless of the stated ideology of the state.

Pure communism does not work. I think we all agree with that. OTOH, I don't think that pure capatalism does work in the end also. There must be some middleground.

>So far, the Scandinavian social democratic system, while not ideal, seems to work the best. But then again, I'm partial.

The scandinavion system is well known in europe as a solid democratic system. However, who is to determine what is the best system ? Look at the swiss system where every major decision is to be made by the people: is that going to work ?

>My aging, terminally ill mother is taken care of VERY well by the Finnish medical system. She doesn't have to worry about affording her care or medicine, it is all taken care of for her by the society. She only has to pay what she can reasonably afford, yet the level of care is the same for her as the next person who may be able to afford a lot more or a lot less than she.

Sorry to hear about your mother. I hope all is going to end the best possible way. About the health care system: The same up here in holland. In the US it is totally money driven, which is bad from a number of aspects. Example: IVF clinics are totally commercial, so they want to attract as many patients they could. One of the instruments they use is the advertisements pregnancy rates (we got a 90% pregnancy rate). Since US clients have to pay about all for their IVF treatment they want to go for the clinic with the highest pregnancy rate. Clinics are increasing their pregnancy rates by transferring 6 or more embryo's resulting in the absurd high risks of having a 6 baby pregnancy, with all the medical risks for both baby and mother.

Compare that to for example the scandinavian policy where only 1 embryo is transferred (by law). Sure the pregnancy rates are not that high, but since the IVF procedures are a lot more affordable and less risky than in the US, this is generally not a problem.

>On good people -- USA, too, is full of them. People who are willing to sacrifice their time and money to help others, work for a better future at home and abroad. But this is not a particularly American trait -- these people are everywhere, they just don't make a whole lot of noise about themselves.

By no means I was trying to imply otherwise. I guess it needs time before a good man stands up and does the job.

>IMO the main thing is to not give in to cynicism and despair, but to see and work for the good all around us. It is there, even if it is sometimes hard to see. So call me idealist!

By no means you're an idealist. I've been in the US a couple of times and I agree that the average american surely is a friendly one, work hard and have a good heart. It only seems that the people at the top are complete a**holes. But again this is the impression you get when you watch the TV (Yes I do watch CNN). I still can't believe the american people have a president with the brains of a peanut and it's sole reason for beeing in that position is his very influentual family.

Sure, we have had some simular scandals up here for running up to mayer where people with some the right 'friends' tried to buy their way in. Of course we've had pretty bad ministers who had the one disaster project after another and still able to qualify for a high position in the government. But now the tide seems to change up here. The people in the netherlands use their mouth more frequently. A supermarket chain went into trouble when it became known that the president earned an absurd amount of money a year. A lot of people stopped buing at that supermarket. It had to lower the salary a bit (distraction) and lower their salesprices causing a huge pricing battle between supermarket chains.

We don't accept the absurd high salaries of top manager any more (though there seems that we are not yet capable of preventing that), they don't accept the tollerancy we had in the past and lead to fraud and corruption. They don't accept the large numbers of economical refugees. They don't accept the bureaucracy of the government anymore.

Sorry for the long winded response.

Walter,