“This could be a teaching moment, could it not for the teabaggers?” Maher declared. “Or maybe all of America – who don’t understand that socialism doesn’t mean we’re going to come to your house and make you work on a collective farm. You know, in Europe, socialism is just another political party and it doesn’t mean that we’re against making a profit. It just means that government takes over certain things like hospitals and prisons, and the military, schools – and things that should not be run for profit.”

Gillian Tett, the U.S. managing editor for the Financial Times, explained it was even simpler than that because in some cases government knows better than markets, which makes socialism viable.