"Bush campaign ads using team"

[dwa]

We did not "flirt with socialism" I'd like to think we still have a system which combines market economy...

There's clearly some misconceptions here about basic economic terms

1) "socialism" is an economic system where means of production are either owned or run by the government, and decisions regarding the economy are largely (or entirely) run by the same. It is not "taking care of the less fortunate", though that may be one of the goals, and yes, it is a bad word, for reasons that should be obvious (trusting a beuracracy far removed from the individuals it runs tends to lead to bad things, as history has aptly shown us).

2) a market economy is one in which decisions regarding economic transactions are run by the people making the transactions themselves.

It should be obvious that one cannot "combine" them; one can only replace one with the other, depending on the sphere of economics one is discussing. And, historically speaking, it should be obvious which one is prefered; things like the potato famine in Ireland (where, due to the Corn Laws, Ireland was a net grain exporter during the famine, as it was economically unfeasable to sell to the local populace), the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism.