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[Max White]

I really am surprised you guys are still going strong without a HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme). Basically when you want tertiary study, you can take out a loan from the government to pay for it, it is zero interest forever, and you repay with a part of your income once you are earning over a certain amount.
You kind of need a system where people can become educated. Depending on visas for those technical skills is less and less sustainable in a world where those skills can be sold anywhere.

[Owlbread]

Hey! Many assholes I know would be offended to be compared to the Republicans!

As for the Democrats... They are the progressive, the more liberal party of the two, that's for sure. But I believe they suffer from similar problems: Lobbyism, reelection pressure, having to respond to crazy right-wing fucknuts (AKA tea-party, which I gather is unpopular with many Republicans too) and so on. That all makes it hard to do actual politics; but at least the Democrats are not in the grips of the likes of Norquist.

For information on the inner workings of the Republican party and the position of  the American people on the left-right spectrum please read "The Conscience of a Liberal" by Paul Krugmann and ask your doctor or pharmacist. (Seriously, it's a good - and very polemic! - book.)

I have said this before, but the Democrat Party in the USA is very similar to the British Conservative Party (almost identical, they even share the same party colours), but with the unholy addition of a strong leftist lobby that is frequently impatient and at odds with the reactionary policies of their leadership. I suppose that makes it a bit like our Labour Party, except more disfunctional.

[palsch]

Structurally, if not ideologically, they are closer to the pre-Clegg Lib Dems.

From their founding till the 2010 election the Lib Dems were a collection of very effective regional parties, each with their own agendas. They dominated local and by-elections with such flexibility combined with national fund raising and volunteers who could be focused on areas where they could win. There were national level ideological movements within the party, but these didn't force the local groups to fall in line and the movements were often contradictory. That's why you had the old school socialist groups alongside the Orange Book libertarians who took over the leadership and ended up in coalition with Cameron's Conservative leadership (who are far closer to Orange Book Lib Dems than to their own back benches).

Clegg manage to make his brand popular nation wide, but this didn't translate to the Lib Dems traditional focused votes and may have even hurt the local campaigns when you compare the national manifesto to their regional promises and outlooks.

Both American parties are coalitions of regional parties in a similar but larger scale model. Combine that with a very weak whip compared to the UK and you have such a wide range of 'Democrats' that it's almost absurd to use the same label for them. But you can't afford to split the party on a national level and trying to enforce greater party discipline would be catastrophic on a local level. Imagine if the progressive or black caucus were able to make Blue Dogs run on their policies in the south.

Then you have how much weaker the American leadership is when it comes to legislation in the US. The president and even House/Senate leadership have very limited powers to force through legislation when you compare to the British government. Any bill that the back bencher's aren't willing to literally dissolve the government over can be passed in the UK. In the US any bill that you can't get a supermajority of senators behind is not even worth proposing anymore. So suddenly you are relying on those regions not just for seats being filled but also for policy enforcement. And you get gridlock.

[DWC]

I really am surprised you guys are still going strong without a HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme). Basically when you want tertiary study, you can take out a loan from the government to pay for it, it is zero interest forever, and you repay with a part of your income once you are earning over a certain amount.
You kind of need a system where people can become educated. Depending on visas for those technical skills is less and less sustainable in a world where those skills can be sold anywhere.

Well, the US government does have the Pell Grant, which I've used. There is other scholarships and government grants and low/no interest loans out there, but the Pell Grant is available to basically anybody that's broke and wants to go to college. It's honestly not a whole lot, but it's free and easy to get. What shocks me is the prices of tuition and the prices of textbooks in the first place. But I've already said how I feel about debt anyways.

I'd wonder if a scheme like your country has would be a good thing, or tuition would suddenly quintuple in price with 500$ textbooks to fleece all the money going their way or something. I'd like to see some alternative form of accreditation for degrees. In the USA you can do what's called a CLEP, you do a test and are awarded credits as if you actually attended the relevant course. This way, you could just teach yourself subjects you are good at and take classes for ones you are crap at. More alternatives to traditional university and all it's binge drinking and expenses.

You are also correct with the price of rent, I've worked construction and probably should have known it depends mostly on banks, interest rates and availability up the supply chain for building material so construction costs are not constant. I do know I lucked out with an 320$/mo apartment with a utility stipend and endless air filter replacements like every 3 damn days and it was a decent place, even had security guards and a front gate.  Some nebulous massive corporation that was apparently struggling to rent these apartments out right after the real estate implosion/ world economic depression. I think I've been spoiled because I lived there paying such cheap rent for nice digs for so long I forget that shit isn't normal. It also leads me to believe they can probably make a profit with low rent, plenty of services and unoccupied units.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, that's cheap - i was paying about that much for a place with no heat or electricity I was sharing with a few other people.

More expensive than living out of the van though, which was still the best place I've lived. I miss that van. Spent a chunk of the money that WOULD have gone to rent each month making it a pretty nice little place to live. Didn't even mind the subzero winters so much.

[Max White]

I imagine with a van some utilities might be a little bit of an issue. Power, water, internet, how do you even?
Short of living in a caravan park, that is, and you know what people are like with their pride. They would rather be cold and dirty than live in any sort of close community without large fences to keep everybody out.

[DWC]

Well, I know a guy that lived in his van while working in Hawaii. Cost of living is high and property values are so high, that plenty of people like himself were working full-time jobs and were homeless. Only affordable housing on the island was lots built where the lava floe is. But Hawaii is nice year round, it's always mild and tolerable. That isn't normal though I have no idea how you'd survive in van when it's 40C outside in Texas or -40C in Alaska or something.

I never actually had to resort to living in my truck, but I planned it out because I knew it might happen. I read this guy's blog and he did so and his advice made complete and perfect sense to me.

http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/

This guy just had a regular family car for the sake of hiding the fact he's homeless and covered it with a tarp when he was sleeping. Nobody but homeless people have a creepy van with curtains and solar panels as a daily driver and nobody hires people driving such a rig to work.

So what you do is get a gym membership, because they are fairly inexpensive, you can loiter there, take showers, store some things, change, do personal hygiene, ect. Public library has internet. Water, I mean you can get in either of these places.

[GlyphGryph]

I imagine with a van some utilities might be a little bit of an issue. Power, water, internet, how do you even?
Short of living in a caravan park, that is, and you know what people are like with their pride. They would rather be cold and dirty than live in any sort of close community without large fences to keep everybody out.

I have no shame, but caravan parks are either expensive or illegal. I did end up spending a week at a campsite while dodging police (I had a spot I purchased for like 30 dollars a month for overnight parking, but the police would force you out despite your valid permit if they realized you were living there) but it's not really an issue. Water is in jugs, and you get it from a sink from a variety of places - library, job, gym. Gym membership certainly makes the whole exercise a lot more pleasant.

Most cars have power, though I barely ever used mine - to charge my cheapo (but long battery life and low battery use) phone and the temp battery for my flashlight, and occasionally for heat was I feeling particularly lazy. There's not really a whole lot you need power for that can't be managed off a small rechargeable battery. I liked not being exposed to time-wasting luxuries constantly, it was very relaxing, so lack of power and internet were positives in my opinion. If I wanted to go online, I'd hit the library or internet cafe like, you know, a normal person, instead of your average entitled first world upper/middle class person.

A cheapo chemical toilet install was a nice early addition, cost... 80 bucks, maybe? Plus like 5 dollars a month for the chemicals? Still, not bad.

I don't actually consider myself having been homeless during this period, to be honest. I know what it's like to be homeless, and this wasn't it - I HAD a home. It was the only place that's actually felt like home for me over the last... seven years? I lived out of that van for two years, and it had everything I could have wanted, it was cozy, it was personal, it was mine.

I don't know why I would have been considered homeless, but someone living out of an apartment wouldn't be - I had a home all to myself, they just have a couple rooms someone is letting them use until a better offer comes along, but which they have no control over. I certainly feel more homeless now than I did then, living out of what is honestly a nice apartment but it's not the same as having your own place.

That isn't normal though I have no idea how you'd survive in van when it's 40C outside in Texas or -40C in Alaska or something.

The heat is BY FAR the worst. The solution to cold is a good thermal sleeping bag, a reflective blanket, and then some thick blankets/rags/sheets/whatever else to pile on top of yourself. It also means you can actually buy and keep chilled food by storing it in a container under the vehicle and not worrying about it instantly going bad.

And then you praise the weather when it snows because it is amazing insulation and keeps you so warm inside. Getting snowed in was basically the best.

But heat? Bluh. There's no good way to deal with heat. It's just bad solutions and worse solutions.

[Truean]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/aaron-osmond-mandatory-education_n_3612150.html

Are you even kidding me?

So by his insane logic education makes parents not care about their kids and by taking away education, parents won't be able to pawn their kids off on the schools. Granted, lots of parents expect the schools to babysit their kids, but this can't be the answer.

[Ross Vernal]

This just might be me, but I consider the Republicans to be the extreme right and the Democrats to be the right-center.

The only leftist parties in the US are third parties, and people constantly perpetuate the circular logic of "Third parties don't win because people don't vote for them, therefore you shouldn't vote for them."

[Helgoland]

Naah, left and right are relative terms.

Otherwise you'd have a hard time describing German politics - they all are alike! The big ones, at least.

[PatriotSaint]

This just might be me, but I consider the Republicans to be the extreme right and the Democrats to be the right-center.

The only leftist parties in the US are third parties, and people constantly perpetuate the circular logic of "Third parties don't win because people don't vote for them, therefore you shouldn't vote for them."

U.S. democrats are left of center (and can go as far from the center as an individual decides to go) in U.S. terms, but in Europe I bet they're considered far right in many cases.

[Owlbread]

That whole "left and right are relative terms" thing is a bit irritating, I find. It's quite a fashionable way of thinking, closely related to stuff like "democracy is a relative thing", you know, that little soundbyte that lets the Chinese get off with internet censorship and totalitarian government.

The leaders of the free world, if my memory doesn't fail me, stood up on several occasions and said that it's just a part of Chinese culture and that what is democratic and isn't is relative to the country, but that's utter nonsense. Left and right aren't relative terms when we aren't going by the standards of a particular nation, but politics all over the world. When ideas like socialism and communism still exist then no, the democrats are not left wing. They may not be popular ideologies in the USA but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

[ChairmanPoo]

Left and right are relative terms insofar as trying to express the complexity of political nuances in a single scale is bound to be overly reductionist.

[Owlbread]

Left and right are relative terms insofar as trying to express the complexity of political nuances in a single scale is bound to be overly reductionist.

But it's broad enough to fit the purpose we're putting it to right now.