[smoothy]

So this allows the electioneers to keep the message going but youth has to do more than receive a message to vote, how advanced are they towards an app which will allow SMS or other vote? Social media is the way to go to get youth more engaged in voting

Great way to bankrupt a country... by getting MORE people to vote for more free stuff they expect other people to pay for.

Meaning people that have no concept of the value of a dollar... that were brought up to believe they are entitled to everything they want and never have to work hard to pay for it themselves. Maybe your school systems are better than ours are today... here all they do is teach the evil rich people owe you everything. And never both teaching all you are entitled to is what you can afford to pay for yourself.

[paraclete]

Undoubted our school system is better, discipline is enforced, but some are there too long as is undoubtedly the case in yours, there is no point in educating a child to university level if they cannot afford to take up the opportunity. This is the problem with our schools everyone is educated to that level, so they could, theoretically, commence an advanced degree, but we have no ethos of sending the kids off to "college". Those who want to enter university find a way, those that don't, well they don't find a job easily.

Yes you have found many ways to bankrupt your country and the debt must be a tremendous burden. Some free stuff is important, like medical care when necessary and looking after people, but sometimes you can have too many public servants, too many public institutions. You have 50 states, we have 6 in the same area, we have about 1000 local government areas, couldn't imagine how many you have, but those sort of costs can be a huge burden, our schools are administered at state level, yours at local level, again costs upon costs. You see our basic thinking is different and I think that is so for the people who expect something for nothing

[smoothy]

Undoubted our school system is better, discipline is enforced, but some are there too long as is undoubtedly the case in yours, there is no point in educating a child to university level if they cannot afford to take up the opportunity. This is the problem with our schools everyone is educated to that level, so they could, theoretically, commence an advanced degree, but we have no ethos of sending the kids off to "college". Those who want to enter university find a way, those that don't, well they don't find a job easily.

Yes you have found many ways to bankrupt your country and the debt must be a tremendous burden. Some free stuff is important, like medical care when necessary and looking after people, but sometimes you can have too many public servants, too many public institutions. You have 50 states, we have 6 in the same area, we have about 1000 local government areas, couldn't imagine how many you have, but those sort of costs can be a huge burden, our schools are administered at state level, yours at local level, again costs upon costs. You see our basic thinking is different and I think that is so for the people who expect something for nothing

What makes it different is population densities. We have a significantly larger population. And well, as is the case everywhere... the more money a handful of people have control over.. the more greed and personal gain become the name of the game.

If we consolidated more then that temptation is even higher.

The county I live has a $2.5 BILLION dollar SCHOOL budget for this year. And for that kind of money you would think education would have a priority over indocrination...but you would be wrong. Though our schools are better than some of the surrounding counties....they are nowhere near what was accomplished 30-40 years ago at a fraction of the money (even factoring in for inflation)

Fairfax County Public Schools - FY 2015 Budget

[paraclete]

Yes a great deal of detail and yes population densities have impact on many things, however we are also highly urbanised with all the problems that that brings and with a multicultural complexity thrown in in some places. I think the difference lies in the willingness to centralise, our governments at state and federal level have worked hard to drive out duplication and there is a great deal of pressure on how funding is applied, A couple of years ago under a leftist government an ambitious funding revue was implemented which saw funding increased significantly but that brings with it the attendant strings like national cirriculum and teacher performance revue. I heard recently that large number of teachers were leaving the system which could produce some interesting results in future

Apparently you might spend a slightly higher percentage of GDP on education than we do but that isn't broken down between sectors and it is hard to get recent numbers, I would expect your tertiary sector would be a big number.