I would just like to use a different word than "leftwing" -to start with, the centre is not the same in all countries, and left/right is too reductive to describe policies.

Let's say that progressive redistribution works better than laissez-faire (not to mention upwards redistribution), for everyone but for very few extremely wealthy souls. And even for them, they may only be worse in purely financial terms (one need not ascribe no value to living in a land where poverty has disappeared, whether for altruistic or even selfish reasons, like less fears of violence).

Also, there are a number of fields where a level of government intervention is simply more efficient for all. Healthcare, energy supply are obvious examples.

But there are also some "leftwing" policies that do not work so well.

"The womb that spawned that thing is fertile yet"

So what does this mean for

1. Europe (this is ET, after all);

2. The US.

I'm a problem solver.  How do we get from here to there?  Does ET have a role?

McCain/Palin ... total sacks of SHIT!

Talking point:

Far from being DFHs, peasants, losers, or whiners, the Left plays an essential role in societies by protecting the rich from the consequences of their own bad decisions.

The Right always creates disasters. Far from being 'the party of individuality and enterprise', the Right is the party of chaos and insecurity.

Only progressives can offer stable prosperity.

Can you provide anything, what Lula actually has done, to produce such results?
The income increases are not at all a safe sign, that redistributional policies were at work. Convincing would be e.g. if the pretax income would have been developed inverse to the cited aftertax(?) numbers.

Globalisation leads tendencially to an equalisation of wages across the globe. As the poorest people of Brasil were probably poorer than the average, an increase in their wages can entirely by a result of market forces. With European welfare above the world average wage, the same policies here could do just nothing.

That 'the rich' didn't become much richer is anyhow not too surprising. Looked how the stock market has performed in that time? Effortless income was meager in the last decade. Interest income was low, too - and is globally similar, e.g. a western capital owners can invest in Brasil, getting the same amount back, as a Brasilian capital owners. But a Brasilian worker of course gets higher wage increases than a western worker, as there is an equalisation tendency, and he starts lower.

Lich King/Caribou Barbie 08
Pain brings Katharsis

While the top 10 percent of Brazil's earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent

The Brazilian model anyone?

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.