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There have always been travelers in the world. They have long had friction with settled peoples who feel a fixed address is essential. Even American military m

There have always been travelers in the world. They have long had friction with settled peoples who feel a fixed address is essential. Even American military members have friction with the rest of America over this. It just gets mitigated by the fact that the federal government makes accommodations for them. Military members historically had trouble opening local bank accounts so there are military banks on military installations and when I was a military wife I could cash a check at the PX/BX because banks don't like cashing out of town checks. This is not just a homeless issue. This is problematic for all kinds of people with nomadic lives and this has long been true.

ghaff 5y ago
Of course, it's all tied up with state government too. You need to be a resident of some state to get a driver's license. And no high tax state wants, say, Nevada to offer state residency that puts your name on an office door in exchange for an annual fee. Then there's voting/jury duty/etc.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Well heeled people already do pretty much as they please. Own a house in one state, travel as you see fit in your RV or whatever. It's only a serious hardship for poor people.
  - skybrian 5y ago
    Or alternatively, have a relative who will let you use their address? That seems a lot cheaper. A hard case is combination of not having money and not having family.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Homeless people frequently are homeless in part because they don't have any relatives they are on good terms with. Most of the world blames the homeless person and chalks it up to their presumed bad behavior but it's not unusual for them to be fleeing an abusive situation.
      - skybrian 5y ago
        Yes, I should have said "not having family they're on good terms with."
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Even absent owning a house or otherwise having a permanent address in a given state, well heeled people probably have a stable/trusted relative or friend who can serve as a nominal permanent address and place to receive official mail. I did this for someone for a few years.
    - mperham 5y ago
      A PO Box costs ~$100/yr.
      - leephillips 5y ago
        Doesn’t work. Usually banks, for example, won’t accept a PO box as a residential address. They need to know where you actually live.
        13of40 5y ago
        There are private services that make it look like a real street address. The top hit when I just googled it was $9.99 a month, so pretty affordable.
        leephillips 5y ago
        Banks and some other entities have databases of these services. Some will not accept these addresses. They will let you use them for mail, but they will also require a physical address and proof that you live there. But others will not. It depends on which mailing service you use and which bank, etc. This is my personal experience.
        skissane 5y ago
        Recently, when I (in Australia) opened a US investment account, the US firm I was using wanted to see a utility bill to prove I actually lived at my home address. I ended up sending them a copy of my water bill, which they accepted. However, if a person owns multiple residences, all that proves is that you own that residence, not that you actually live there at all. At least in my jurisdiction, landlords receive and pay water bills (and the tenant has to reimburse the landlord the usage portion of the bill), so a water bill could even be from an investment property one is renting out.
  - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
    Maybe it’s better to think of local government as a Proof of Stake system. Where you Stake the value of land+house as collateral (using an address) to access trust based services like voting, banking, etc. such that everyone is clear that you can pay the annual fees or penalties (if ever applicable) for that local government / bank. Sadly that does mean poor people who can’t stake capital or spend capital on rent in an area get left out of the system. What would a system look like that didn’t use Proof of Stake as collateral to get people access to trust based systems?
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      I live in a town with tons and tons of students. They live here for a few years and move on. I’m glad they avoid voting. They’d just vote for high taxes, which they wouldn’t have to pay for very long. The city has a good system for dealing with political activism by students: there are a ton of unpaid committees with actual power - but exercising the power requires jumping throwing hoops to make sure it’s used well. In practice this means students can get lots of influence, if they’re willing to put in the time and effort. That seems like a good system to me. It also makes me very cynical about voting in general. The fact that someone is willing to wait in line for 20 minutes and check a piece of paper says little about their ideas. Spending 20 hours a week - evening and weekends - to research and write reports shows you care.
      - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
        Proof of Time frankly is really just Proof of Stake with a different monetize-able asset. Not to say the time isn’t worth it, or doesn’t need to be put in. I just don’t feel like it’s substantially different (for the purpose of this conversation) to buying a house in the area. ie. The homeless can’t spend time on committees.
        pyuser583 5y ago
        The Committee on Homelessness requires that some of its members currently be homeless, and other members be formerly homeless.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  There’s other weirdness too. CDLs are different between states. Oregon used to issue lots of shady licenses to undocumented and on the run type people.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  This of course is a particular peculiarity with the US, having such varying state taxes.
  - skissane 5y ago
    It is actually very common in federal systems to have state/province-level taxation, driver's licensing, etc. I don't think the US is particularly peculiar here at all. Canadian provinces also have individual GST and income tax rates. In some ways, I'd say Australia is actually more peculiar than the US, in that the Australian states have significantly more limited taxation powers than American states or Canadian provinces do – here, the federal government banned state income tax and state sales taxes (GST/VAT), forcing uniform national tax rates and collection for both. However, Australian states still retain the power to levy some other taxes independently, such as land taxes and payroll taxes.
zabzonk 5y ago
Is this a USA thing? As a child of an RAF pilot who moved around a lot (here and overseas), I have never encountered this. My Dad had the same bank account all his life, at the bank in the town he was born in, in the UK, and never (as far as I know) had any problems cashing cheques etc. back when such were things.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I'm American, so, yes, I'm describing my experience with the USA.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  It was. The US has/had a distributed banking system with thousands of banks. It’s archaic and stupid. Basically, you can tell from the routing number on a check where the bank is. Back in the day, if the bank wasn’t from NYC or the same region they wouldn’t honor the check. Checks were mailed between clearing systems and would take weeks to clear. My dad maintained a bank account at the Bank of New York specifically for business travel in the 80s. That’s mostly gone now as ACH is automated and quick.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    The problem is that the US is rather larger than the UK, so a distributed system was (and maybe still is) a natural fit. For the same reason, all the citizens of the US can't just come to one place and vote for a President, like ancient Athenians could.
- ISL 5y ago
  Not cashing out of town checks (especially in large amounts) is definitely a thing in the US. For larger transactions, it is also common to get a "cashier's check", drawn on the bank's own accounts to minimize the seller's counterparty risk. The rationale for the in-town restriction is also to limit counterparty risk: if the check is from an unfamiliar bank, it is more likely to be bogus and the seller won't be able to verify the account with a quick call to a known bank nor expect to be able to address fraud within the local law-enforcement framework.
Angostura 5y ago
Fundamentally it's an issue of how people in a settle community, with communal rules and support handle people who aren't part of that community.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  It's frequently outright abusive of the nomadic peoples. People want soldiers to lay down their lives for national security, natural disasters, etc but then want to treat them as unwelcome outsiders, don't want to hire their spouses, will happily gouge them for rent, etc.
  - passerby1 5y ago
    > will happily gouge for rent Making profit is the goal for renting out, right?
pyuser583 5y ago
Yes, and “travelers” have historically had their own systems of law and governance. The US military being an excellent example. Extraterritoriality for merchants was a big thing in the 19th century. Ecclesiastical laws was a big thing before that (not all clerics were travelers - monks needed their own legal system for the opposite reason). But nobody said “screw physical jurisdictions” - they just created a new, non-territorial jurisdiction for a select few.

ghaff 5y ago

Of course, it's all tied up with state government too. You need to be a resident of some state to get a driver's license. And no high tax state wants, say, Nevada to offer state residency that puts your name on an office door in exchange for an annual fee. Then there's voting/jury duty/etc.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Well heeled people already do pretty much as they please. Own a house in one state, travel as you see fit in your RV or whatever. It's only a serious hardship for poor people.
- skybrian 5y ago
  Or alternatively, have a relative who will let you use their address? That seems a lot cheaper. A hard case is combination of not having money and not having family.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Homeless people frequently are homeless in part because they don't have any relatives they are on good terms with. Most of the world blames the homeless person and chalks it up to their presumed bad behavior but it's not unusual for them to be fleeing an abusive situation.
    - skybrian 5y ago
      Yes, I should have said "not having family they're on good terms with."
- ghaff 5y ago
  Even absent owning a house or otherwise having a permanent address in a given state, well heeled people probably have a stable/trusted relative or friend who can serve as a nominal permanent address and place to receive official mail. I did this for someone for a few years.
  - mperham 5y ago
    A PO Box costs ~$100/yr.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Doesn’t work. Usually banks, for example, won’t accept a PO box as a residential address. They need to know where you actually live.
      - 13of40 5y ago
        There are private services that make it look like a real street address. The top hit when I just googled it was $9.99 a month, so pretty affordable.
        leephillips 5y ago
        Banks and some other entities have databases of these services. Some will not accept these addresses. They will let you use them for mail, but they will also require a physical address and proof that you live there. But others will not. It depends on which mailing service you use and which bank, etc. This is my personal experience.
        skissane 5y ago
        Recently, when I (in Australia) opened a US investment account, the US firm I was using wanted to see a utility bill to prove I actually lived at my home address. I ended up sending them a copy of my water bill, which they accepted. However, if a person owns multiple residences, all that proves is that you own that residence, not that you actually live there at all. At least in my jurisdiction, landlords receive and pay water bills (and the tenant has to reimburse the landlord the usage portion of the bill), so a water bill could even be from an investment property one is renting out.
- yazaddaruvala 5y ago
  Maybe it’s better to think of local government as a Proof of Stake system. Where you Stake the value of land+house as collateral (using an address) to access trust based services like voting, banking, etc. such that everyone is clear that you can pay the annual fees or penalties (if ever applicable) for that local government / bank. Sadly that does mean poor people who can’t stake capital or spend capital on rent in an area get left out of the system. What would a system look like that didn’t use Proof of Stake as collateral to get people access to trust based systems?
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    I live in a town with tons and tons of students. They live here for a few years and move on. I’m glad they avoid voting. They’d just vote for high taxes, which they wouldn’t have to pay for very long. The city has a good system for dealing with political activism by students: there are a ton of unpaid committees with actual power - but exercising the power requires jumping throwing hoops to make sure it’s used well. In practice this means students can get lots of influence, if they’re willing to put in the time and effort. That seems like a good system to me. It also makes me very cynical about voting in general. The fact that someone is willing to wait in line for 20 minutes and check a piece of paper says little about their ideas. Spending 20 hours a week - evening and weekends - to research and write reports shows you care.
    - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
      Proof of Time frankly is really just Proof of Stake with a different monetize-able asset. Not to say the time isn’t worth it, or doesn’t need to be put in. I just don’t feel like it’s substantially different (for the purpose of this conversation) to buying a house in the area. ie. The homeless can’t spend time on committees.
      - pyuser583 5y ago
        The Committee on Homelessness requires that some of its members currently be homeless, and other members be formerly homeless.
Spooky23 5y ago
There’s other weirdness too. CDLs are different between states. Oregon used to issue lots of shady licenses to undocumented and on the run type people.
madeofpalk 5y ago
This of course is a particular peculiarity with the US, having such varying state taxes.
- skissane 5y ago
  It is actually very common in federal systems to have state/province-level taxation, driver's licensing, etc. I don't think the US is particularly peculiar here at all. Canadian provinces also have individual GST and income tax rates. In some ways, I'd say Australia is actually more peculiar than the US, in that the Australian states have significantly more limited taxation powers than American states or Canadian provinces do – here, the federal government banned state income tax and state sales taxes (GST/VAT), forcing uniform national tax rates and collection for both. However, Australian states still retain the power to levy some other taxes independently, such as land taxes and payroll taxes.

zabzonk 5y ago

Is this a USA thing? As a child of an RAF pilot who moved around a lot (here and overseas), I have never encountered this. My Dad had the same bank account all his life, at the bank in the town he was born in, in the UK, and never (as far as I know) had any problems cashing cheques etc. back when such were things.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
I'm American, so, yes, I'm describing my experience with the USA.
Spooky23 5y ago
It was. The US has/had a distributed banking system with thousands of banks. It’s archaic and stupid. Basically, you can tell from the routing number on a check where the bank is. Back in the day, if the bank wasn’t from NYC or the same region they wouldn’t honor the check. Checks were mailed between clearing systems and would take weeks to clear. My dad maintained a bank account at the Bank of New York specifically for business travel in the 80s. That’s mostly gone now as ACH is automated and quick.
- nine_k 5y ago
  The problem is that the US is rather larger than the UK, so a distributed system was (and maybe still is) a natural fit. For the same reason, all the citizens of the US can't just come to one place and vote for a President, like ancient Athenians could.
ISL 5y ago
Not cashing out of town checks (especially in large amounts) is definitely a thing in the US. For larger transactions, it is also common to get a "cashier's check", drawn on the bank's own accounts to minimize the seller's counterparty risk. The rationale for the in-town restriction is also to limit counterparty risk: if the check is from an unfamiliar bank, it is more likely to be bogus and the seller won't be able to verify the account with a quick call to a known bank nor expect to be able to address fraud within the local law-enforcement framework.

Angostura 5y ago

Fundamentally it's an issue of how people in a settle community, with communal rules and support handle people who aren't part of that community.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
It's frequently outright abusive of the nomadic peoples. People want soldiers to lay down their lives for national security, natural disasters, etc but then want to treat them as unwelcome outsiders, don't want to hire their spouses, will happily gouge them for rent, etc.
- passerby1 5y ago
  > will happily gouge for rent Making profit is the goal for renting out, right?

pyuser583 5y ago

Yes, and “travelers” have historically had their own systems of law and governance. The US military being an excellent example. Extraterritoriality for merchants was a big thing in the 19th century. Ecclesiastical laws was a big thing before that (not all clerics were travelers - monks needed their own legal system for the opposite reason). But nobody said “screw physical jurisdictions” - they just created a new, non-territorial jurisdiction for a select few.