Ask HN: What is the future of programming languages? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN. The recent post about "Programming Languages Are Simply Not Powerful Enough" got me thinking about what will be the next major change in programming language paradigms.
It seems JS is getting really big lately, since everything is going to the web. But there must be something next that is just a leap different than everything going on right now.
Everything moves to be of higher abstraction to where it's more natural for humans to think and perhaps eventually it will be like writing an essay to get what you want [1].
But what will be after the current languages we see now? With more things relying on computers and people hoping more will get into computers, are there languages that could be made to encourage that?
I have a bunch of random thoughts but I am curious to hear what people that have been involved with computers longer than me think (and ones newer to computers think as well). My little time with prolog made me wish there were more declarative languages.
Any thoughts would be great! I am also kind of looking to see if anyone knows of any open source current programming languages that are trying to 'disrupt' the current way of doing things.
Thanks.
[1] http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/11/16/programming-with-natural-language-is-actually-going-to-work/ <comment><USER2> >Everything moves to be of higher abstraction to where it's more natural for humans to think and perhaps eventually it will be like writing an essay to get what you want

I hold the opposite view. Now that compilers are getting smart enough to do very good type inference, and the fact that tools are evolving, I believe strict, static typing will be the future.

The better the type system, the more runtime bugs you prevent from happening. While fighting against the compiler as a veteran programmer is a bit foreign (and makes you feel dumb), it's infinitely preferable than having to debug obscure production bugs.

Good compilers are like a massive suite of unit tests you get for free.

I also see the future of programming languages being functional in nature. Not because of the oft-repeated 'good for concurrency' misnomer (it's an orthogonal issue), but simply because it forces you to think a different way that ends up being more correct than imperative styles.

It takes me much longer (somewhat ashamed to admit) to write a functional library than an imperative one, however, I've been amazed at how well they've turned out and the reuse is much greater.

</comment><comment><USER3> Functional programming. At the very least, systems where all logic heavy code is handed off to a functional language and the imperative language serves as the glue (with something like Scala, we won't need even that much). Seriously, that post reminded me of the same thing.

Also, by functional, I DONT mean just map/reduce/filter. The advantage of FP is really in being able to define types and mini DSLs very easily, the kinds of patterns higher order functions allow you to capture, the simplifications afforded by immutable types add up to make functional code the cleanest representation of the problem itself, without any of the cruft.

Try learning Scala, Clojure, or another functional language, and write some serious code in it. Go through a book or a course though, because if you try to pick it up by google and blog posts, you might end up writing basically imperative code in the language, which defeats the purpose.

Personally, writing functional code for the first time opened my eyes to how many problems that I thought were more or less fundamental were just artifacts of the level of abstraction being too low.

<comment><USER4> (())()()(()) Parentheses in FP makes me dizzy, is there an IDE based solution to that ? FP almost feels like speaking a very long statement while running out of breath!

<comment><USER5> There _is_ an IDE-based solution! It's called Paredit and can be combined with something like SLIME. (All this for Emacs, of course, but Emacs has all the capabilities of an IDE, especially for Lisp.)

After a while of using paredit, I actually grew to rather like the parentheses. At the very least, it lets me edit in a slightly more semantic fashion: I can navigate, select and modify code based on its structure because the structure is defined by the parentheses.

That said, I actually do prefer not having nearly as many parentheses, which is why I like ML-style syntaxes. Especially Haskell. Idiomatic Haskell is very light on parentheses and braces and brackets--it's a surprisingly minimalistic syntax. I love it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I believe the next big thing will be time based programming, it's hard to explain because it's something that you only experience for the first few days when you start to learn programming. It feels like a "goto" for the mind: When you first learn to program, you often think to yourself "why can't I just jump to that block of execution now, jump back to that block with that new info then jump back again into the past where I left off and continue with the new /modified data?" I still experience this frustration sometimes when I have a hard algorithm to solve and I really believe that all current programming languages are just insufficient to model how the mind would work and wants to work.

<comment><USER7> > When you first learn to program, you often think to yourself "why can't I > just jump to that block of execution now, jump back to that block with that > new info then jump back again into the past where I left off and continue > with the new /modified data?"

I'm not 100% certain what you are describing, but it sounds like using continuations.

<comment><USER6> Maybe a very dumb example: Suppose I get a pointer to an empty byte array. At the very start of the program I had a full byte array. I want to fill my empty array with the stuff I had at the start. But now I have to rewrite my program so that I still have a reference to the "start" (=which is sort of a time, isn't it?), so that I am able to assign that pointer that data. Right now I'm in some function somewhere far far away in the source code. Basically: Jump back in time where I have all my data, references, whatever, work with that state _and_ layout of the program and then jump back out to where I was. So it is sort of like not only modifying the state of the program that I'm going to create, but also modifying the state of the _code_ that I'm creating. Basically the code itself is a program as well.

I have made a gist which should illustrate it maybe a little better: <https://gist.github.com/anonymous/24a43cd81843e79df52d>

<comment><USER8> The way you describe it as "time" and "history" is confusing. In your gist, essentially you want to roll backwards, fetch the value you had in the previous layer of the stack, and then jump forward to your current execution, but with that reference in tow. So I think I get where you're going, but it doesn't seem very useful to me. The whole point of passing the reference when you need it is that you're giving your code some meaningful context. If any reference were accessible from any method, you'd essentially be dealing with a giant global context of everything. (Isn't that what singletons are for?)

<comment><USER6> You are thinking way too much in terms of programming. What's wrong with global context? Your mind is one huge global context, and it seems to work fine. You fetch stuff all the time from one big pool. Sure, there's hierarchy in there. Just like in my example: Different times, different functions, they all provide hierarchy and structure to the times you can fetch data from.

<comment><USER9> This sounds like state based programming. IIRC this was a moderately popular way of programming games in the past. The resulting code is somewhat monolithic however, hard to maintain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It seems JS is getting really big lately, since everything is going to the web. But there must be something next that is just a leap different than everything going on right now."

I doubt it. You'll just be compiling JS (or a JS descendant) down to a quantum machine or DNA or who knows what. Change is incremental. People talk about the rapid pace of change in technology, but if you learned C in 1985 and no other language for 25 years, you'd not be very far behind right now.

</comment><comment><USER11> JS is still pretty sub-optimal, it's not as fast as people make it out to be. Ever try rendering like 30kb of json with node? It's not very fast compared to compiled languages or anything on the JVM.

I think there's tremendous value in having server and client code being in the same language though. I think the future will have things like GWT for other languages as long as JS is what's being ran in the browser.</comment>


English is not normal - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages <comment><USER2> As a german the commentary here strikes me as sadly defensive.

I'm in contact with and kinda familiar with a lot of languages, and out of the ones i know English is the weirdest one, if only by its most basic property:

English text does not remotely map to english pronounciation.

This may sound weird to native english speakers, but it's the truth. To give a more concrete example: With many languages in movies, it is easy for me to listen to them, i.e. in a movie, even when whispered, and accurately transcribe them into script; even when i don't actually speak them. English movies consistently keep me getting subtitles because i can't make out what's being said even at normal volume.

His mention of the existence of a "spelling bee" as a sign of how weird english is was spot-on.

<comment><USER3> As a native English speaker, I struggle with many modern movies. I find the speech very muttered and scripts full of quick, short retorts. English /can/ be perfectly clear. There must be other explanations.

<comment> nommm-nommm I know quite a few non hard of hearing native English speakers who watch movies with the closed captioning on for that reason as well.

Movies are unique in that sense, not sure what it is about them.

<comment><USER4> Yeah this perplexes me too because my hearing is otherwise decent but I almost always need subtitles. I've looked into it a bit and some people are surmising that it has to do with poor audio engineering for home release. Films audio is recorded to be played back in a spacious theater with surround sound, good acoustics, and speakers with high range. Then you have people's home audio setups: noisy listening environments with people right next to the audio source, poor acoustics and stereo sound, and poor speakers from laptops, smartphones, or those built in to flatscreen tv's. The sound mixing also relies on these factors as well as the theater experience so explosions are super loud and quiet moments are eerily silent. (Not to mention that dialogue takes a backseat in many modern films) The audio might be poorly remixed, if at all for home release and the poor playback equipment exacerbates the issue. It's similar to developers saying "works on my machine", where in this case the machine is properly calibrated, thousands of dollars, and top-of-the-line.

<comment><USER5> This is what the Dynamic Range Compression setting is for on Dolby Digital decoders. Do the new Blu-Ray formats have a similar option? If you aren't in a quiet home theater with no neighbors to bother, you want DRC on maximum compression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > What's the difference? It's that -ful and -ly are Germanic endings, while > -ity came in with French. French and Latin endings pull the accent closer – > TEM-pest, tem-PEST-uous – while Germanic ones leave the accent alone.

As someone learning English as a second language, I must say that I'm really grateful to have read that passage. This spares me a lot of learning accents by rote.

</comment><comment><USER7> I found this article mediocre and its conceit, that English is "weirdly different", not well justified.

But what I have discovered recently, on the same subject, is a podcast called _The History of English_ [1]. It's very, very detailed. So far there have been 69 episodes made, each about 45 minutes long, and the creator has only just got up to the Norman Invasion. I've listened to the first 22 episodes and in the last two episodes it's only just started discussing Old Germanic. So maybe more detailed than most people want but it's very good and quite easy to listen to.

[1] [http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/episodes/](http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/episodes/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Regarding spelling bees being unique to English. While it's probably true, spelling competitions exist in other languages but in a form of dictation. Do a search for "national dictation contest" to see it happening in multiple countries and, I imagine, searching in different languages will reveal more. I figure the reason why spelling single words is not practiced in other languages is that many languages inflect words in irregular ways so being able to correctly spell a default form of a word is not a very impressive skill. But I would be very surprised if a form of spelling bee does not exists in China.

</comment><comment><USER9> English is the PHP of languages

It has its weirdnesses, but in the end it's easier to learn than other languages (and thankfully, unlike PHP, natural languages don't have issues with maintainability or addition of new features)

<comment><USER10> It's in no way easier to learn. It's just more ubiquitous.

<comment><USER11> Hardest part is what the author has mentioned: vocabulary. Those french words drive me crazy when I tried to memorize them for the sake of GRE. Very little pattern, and the pronunciation is also different, some of them I don't even know how to start, e.g. cliché.

<comment><USER9> GRE?

<comment><USER10> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Record_Examinations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Record_Examinations)

It's one of those tests American takes to get into university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having learned English as my third language (after French and Farsi) I found it more streamlined, full of shortcuts and easier to pick up than any other language. Not sure if that counts as weird.

<comment><USER13> I think that's more a function of easy exposure and constant bombardment by English medium content that makes it less strenuous on your brain's language center to make the necessary connections to retain it effectively.

I felt the same way about Japanese because I consumed a lot of anime and other Japanese media as hobbies I enjoyed. However, it is objectively a harder-to- learn language than Korean, which I had markedly less success with. And I don't think I have some kind of untraditional language processing algorithm in my brain.

<comment><USER10> Objectively harder than korean? I've always been told Korean is more difficult than Japanese in terms of grammar. Obviously it has a simpler writing system, but I'm not sure that counts as the language, fundamentally. More as a gateway to the language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Almost any largely spoken old language will have unique quirks of its own... stating some unique and weird points of english don't suddenly make it extra unique.

</comment><comment><USER15> While this article has surprisingly little of it, there's still some bæd linguistix here. Among others, comparing the utterly conservative Icelandic, spoken on a remote island by (today!) merely 300,000 people, with the language of England, which was invaded from every which way every couple of centuries until the 1400s. That's just ridiculous. To take a _much_ more adequate example: To most Germans, the Nibelungenlied in its original rendition is just about as understandable as Beowulf is to modern English speakers.

English _is_ in dire need of a spelling reform (the Celts have you one-upped here, Scottish and Irish have had very successful reforms,) but I don't think it is "weirder" than many other languages of peoples that have had widespread linguistic contact to other societies. French, German, Spanish, all have their oddities, on a similar scale of magnitude as English.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, I heard several times that English has almost a double-size vocabulary[0] since it imported almost all of French on top of Anglo-Saxon, but this guy says it was only about 10,000 words, and there was a bit of Latin too. Now which is it?

Note that most other European languages also imported roughly the same scientific vocabulary from Latin and Greek.

[0] compared to other somewhat comparable languages such as German and French, and assuming you can find suitable criteria for determining what a word is; e.g., discounting compound words such as the Dutch _roltrommelhuisvuilophaalwagen._

</comment><comment><USER17> I think you could find the similar problems with many languages (for example, my native Czech has a unique sound that's quite difficult to learn, and all the different declensions and conjugations will make your head spin).

But I also take the issue with: "Spelling is a matter of writing, of course, whereas language is fundamentally about speaking." I think with English it's not the case, English is like modern Latin, more people write/read in English than those who speak it.

</comment><comment><USER18> All languages are not normal in that same sense.

Study any language and you will be struck with "weird" all the time.

<comment><USER19> I learnt French, German and Italian in school. Those languages may have complexities (eg. In German, Gender for a table is male, a fly is female). However, if you heard a word, you could spell it and vice versa.

English has many inconsistencies: Spelling vs pronunciation, completely different words for tenses (eg. Go/went), inconsistent pluralisation rules (look up fish vs fishes as one example), "me and" vs "and I" rules, etc.

I've heard many people say that English is one of the hardest European languages to learn. Supposedly, Japanese and Chinese are a different league altogether.

<comment><USER2> Japanese and Chinese are in different leagues because they come from a completely different language root than european languages and require one to _think_ differently.

For example instead of common sound based words in writing, they use kanji, which effectively are either small, simple and time-corrupted little pictures, or combinations of less complex pictures.

For example 新 consists of 7 "prime" pictures, of which three are easily recognizable, and as such can be remembered as "axe | standing-up, tree" => "new". ( [http://jisho.org/search/%E6%96%B0%20%23kanji](http://jisho.org/search/%E6%96%B0%20%23kanji) )

This is easly memorized but cannot re-use latin-based language patterns and requires creation of entirely new language circuitry in the brain.

<comment><USER20> Kanji writing is learnt by heart and repetition by japanese folks, certainly not the way you describe. I live in Japan.

<comment><USER2> Well, i'm not saying that is how it is read in practice, because obviously that would be much too slow to be practical. Nevertheless the structure and meaning is there, and for beginners it helps a lot to memorize complex kanji as combinations of radicals instead of a giant blob of context-free lines, until subconscious pattern recognition has a big enough body of data to work and start matching with.

Obviously there is also a difference in how japanese children and foreigners learn the language, since children in japan are, since birth, surrounded by kanji and very often see them in context with their meaning, while for foreigners they're completely new and some kind of mental context needs to be established in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> German is far ahead in weirdness compared to english. It is the 10th most weird language in the world. English is only on place 33. See

[http://idibon.com/the-weirdest-languages/](http://idibon.com/the-weirdest- languages/)

</comment><comment><USER22> "In Old English, however, 'Ving-Thor was mad when he woke up' would have been Wraþmod wæs Ving-Þórr/he áwæcnede. We can just about wrap our heads around this as 'English'"

That particular example doesn't appear to be so hard:

Wrath-mad was Ving-Thor, he awokend.

<comment><USER16> I'd say wrath-mood and awakened, but yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would love it if I could say groundwrought, endsay and saywhat. It would be very good if we could make a pressed together work and come up with a word list of other ways to say words of French root.

</comment><comment><USER24> What a conceptually interesting article. There are a few cool framing devices in here.

I like how is using English to describe how English is weird. That's like using a spray can to illegally graffiti the phrase "vandalism is dumb" on a building.

The author is "going meta" to English, while using English. Respect to that strange and thoughtful recursive writing technique

Gosh this comment is weird

</comment><comment><USER25> Fun read, but alas factually inaccurate. Article says: "almost all European languages belong to one family – Indo-European – and of all of them, English is the only one that doesn't assign genders that way."

1\. There're quite a few languages in Europe that do not belong to Indo- European: Basque, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Hungarian, Turkish...

2\. It is not true that English is the only Indo-European language the nouns of which don't have gender. Armenian for instance, does not and there are probably others.

<comment><USER26> You ignored the word 'almost'.

<comment><USER27> You didn't read the quote.

> almost all European languages belong to one family – Indo-European

This is where we see "almost". Basque, for example, is a European language, but famously does not belong to the Indo-European language family.

> and of all of them, English is the only one that doesn't assign genders that > way

No qualifier here. Armenian is an Indo-European language with no grammatical gender (making it even less gendered than English), which the quote states, boldly and without qualification, to be impossible.

You could make the argument that he ignored the word "European", because to you Armenian is an Asian language and not a European one -- but saying "English is the only language _within an oddly-shaped geographic region_ to have some special feature" is a very strange way to assign significance. Saying "English is the only descendant of Proto-Indo-European to have mostly lost its grammatical gender" gets the idea of "what might be interesting" right -- it makes more sense to compare English to sister languages than to compare it to unrelated languages that happen to lie within the same weird gerrymander outline you drew on a map -- but it isn't true.

<comment><USER2> "them" in that case is the group of languages belonging to the family "Indo- European". He was selecting a group of language from the european ones and then making a statement about that group.

<comment><USER27> You're agreeing with me. Where "them" is the family of Indo-European languages, the claim "of all of them, English is the only one that doesn't assign genders that way" is false, and is not qualified with the word "almost".

Where "them" is the special-pleading-based group of Indo-European languages currently spoken within "Europe", the claim is less false than otherwise (but still not great), and it's _still not qualified with the word "almost"_.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, i misunderstood you a little. Nevertheless your initial complaint is mistaken.

Honestly, this is a nice example of attribution of responsibility in message comprehension. As a professor he constructs elaborate structures to convey meaning and puts the responsibility to understand on the reader. As an internet commentor you put the responsibility to express himself clearly on him.

You considered it ridiculous that he may have meant "European" languages, but he clearly constructed the group out of those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Obviously whoever wrote this is far from being a luingist or even familiar with several languages. So many of his statements are completely false.

<comment><USER28> According to the byline, "John McWhorter is a professor of linguistics and American studies at Columbia University."

<comment><USER20> Well then i would avoid learning anything from him.</comment></comment></comment>


Facial Recognition in Stores Can Spot Angry Customers - <AUTHOR> https://yellrobot.com/facial-recognition-in-stores/ <comment><USER2> I would be super creeped out from going into a store if some $15/hr security guard sitting behind a screen could see the associations of people currently in the store with their: Name, Gender, Spending Habits, Items Purchased, Day/Time of Visits, etc.</comment>


What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/business/07write.html?ex=1260162000&en=ceef4ee37d74c0ee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland <comment><USER2> Also, I can't type ™ (that's a (tm)) without  appearing before it. Unicode problem? To reproduce, go to a text box and hold ALT. Press 00153 on the number keypad, then release ALT, then post.

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone knows how to fix this, let me know. Someone told me I could fix it by adding a tag saying

meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"

within the head on every page, but this had no effect. Would appreciate it if anyone could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

<comment><USER3> Setting the charset on each page is necessary but not sufficient.

My guess: you also need to tell the browser to send form data as utf8. Perhaps by specifying "accept-charset" as UTF-8 in each form tag.

<comment><USER4> If that works it would be better than guessing. :)

Since you are sanitizing the input string, I still recommed translating to native mzScheme/Arc unicode, doing the transformations in that format, then retranslating back to utf-8 for display. The call to get a canonical string from utf-8 is:

(bytes->string/utf-8 input-txt)

<comment><USER4> And if I may abuse this thread to add one request, please store the raw string as you got it from the browser, and do the processing before displaying it (unless you determine that would be a security risk or a performance killer). If I use ampersand tags or other formatting to write a comment, they are lost when I edit it. It's kinda irritating to lose the indentation of a code sample (lots of  s) when editing out a mistake. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> " "If you want to indicate stronger emphasis, use all capital letters and toss in some extra exclamation points," Ms. Sherwood advises in her guide, available at www.webfoot.com, where she offers a vivid example:

"Should I boost the power on the thrombo?

"NO!!!! If you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors, and IT MIGHT EXPLODE!!""

Well, yes. If the consequences are fatal, an all-caps message is a good idea. But intensifiers only stay intense if they're used rarely -- if you're always fucking swearing, for example, you can't use swearing to express anyfuckingthing.

<comment><USER6> if you're always fucking swearing, for example, you can't use swearing to express anyfuckingthing.

I worked with a guy who used "fuck", and assorted variations, the way people use "um", "like", and "you know".

I had a hard time following what he was saying because I was so distracted with wondering how many times he would use that word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "E-mail is a party to which English teachers have not been invited," Dr. Hogan said.

"hI KATHY i am sending u the assignmnet again," one student wrote to her recently. "i had sent you the assignment earlier but i didnt get a respond. If u get this assgnment could u please respond . thanking u for ur cooperation."

__Most of her students are midcareer professionals in high-tech industries,__ Ms. Keenan said.

</comment><comment><USER4> Enlightenment is 11 bucks away. :)

[http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William- Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0126140-9313474?ie=UTF8&s;=books&qid;=1182549113&sr;=8-1](http://www.amazon.com/Elements- Style-Fourth-William- Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0126140-9313474?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182549113&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is why I take honors writing classes alongside my CS degree, despite my counselor's caution that it's "unnecessary."

<comment><USER6> I minored in Tech Writing for my CS major, despite my counselor asserting (before he knew my plans) that such a combination would not make sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope that some day I'll be smart enough to have an idea that can't be expressed without a semicolon.

Writing well is easy. Just use shorter sentences that don't "take advantage" of English's more esoteric features. You don't really lose that much, if anything. Plus, it forces you to think (and write) more lucidly.

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow.. Well, where I work it's nowhere near that bad. Everyone's fully punctional(tm) and coherent, except one guy (an artist). He makes up for it by being a totally awesome person. ;)

Writing skills are usually a must though.

</comment><comment><USER10> VC DO NOT WANT BOOTSTRAPERZ ROOL</comment>


Scala-native was just shown. Article shows how to setup working dev environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.smartjava.org/content/getting-started-scala-native <comment><USER2> In the example, why is it necessary to import stdlib? Is it different from the Scala standard library?

<comment><USER3> It isn't necessary, it's libc++, and is there to illustrate binding to native code not compiled with scala-native.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Really long shell command more performant than many short ones? - <AUTHOR> I'm experiencing something that I'm not sure about.
I'm noticing a huge performance gain between concatenating commands with && and running the commands one by one.
None of the commands fail, so I'm not sure why that would be.
Is this normal? <comment><USER2> Could it be network lag from a remote server? And when doing single commands the prompt doesn't appear right away, so it seems slower?

<comment><USER3> When using remote servers, especially when connecting via HSDPA, I prefer to use [https://mosh.org](https://mosh.org) instead of ssh. Although it doesn't impact upon the underlying processing speed, the console terminal becomes more responsive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Which shell, which OS? Is it within a script or when entering from the console? Have you actually timed your tests?

My first reaction to your question was that each command is executed as a separate process and depending on what you are doing, e.g. piping outputs to inputs, using temporary files, other operations could create lots of variances between one run and the next.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps the CPU scheduler is working to your disadvantage with multiple commands running separately.

Another thought is maybe data is in a faster state of cache in the combined command, but in separate commands is getting dumped to something slower.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could you please provide an example?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm on mobile :-/

I'll post again once I'm back at the PC.</comment></comment>


In 24 Hours, Netflix Could Lose 25% of Its Subscribers - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenmcbride1/2019/11/11/in-24-hours-netflix-could-lose-25-of-its-subscriber/ <comment><USER2> Mostly sounds true, but one thing Netflix offered that none of the per-studio streaming services can: it was one subscription with everything.

All the others will have their own catalog, but they won't have each others'. Is everything you want to watch coming from the same place? Which one will you pick, or do you want to manage five accounts each with their own bill?

(admittedly, if you only watch movies and not much TV, the answer might be "yes, Disney")

My personal solution to this is to subscribe ad-hoc, without renewal, only when I want to watch something; basically I'm treat it as the individual- rental model with a discount if I happen to want to see two things from the same service in quick succession (hasn't happened yet). If you watch more than me that might not be practical; I usually watch less than five shows or movies in a year, and half of that is when family members want to show me so it's on their accounts.</comment>


Rob Pike at Google: Concurrency/message passing in Newsqueak [video] - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=810232012617965344

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the interesting things about this to me is how this argues for Stackless Python (and likely Erlang and others, though I'm not yet well enough versed in Erlang to say) as a way to think about problems, not just -- or even primarily -- a solution for getting performance out of increasingly parallel machines.(1) Over time, it's become increasingly apparent to me how much I would love green threads (implemented with channels, etc.) in order to write software the communicates with other processes via blocking network calls. Being able to write one function that sends requests and receives the results as a normal function call, rather than writing handlers for each message and separating the logic out among them, would be a very powerful tool to have, though I'm sure there are many other places where logically concurrent designs would be simpler than the more serial designs I often use today.

(1) I know Stackless doesn't actually help with hardware parallelism, outside of being able to possibly pickle and transfer threadlets between processes, but a lot of people come to Stackless looking for a solution to this problem.

<comment><USER2> Can you point at examples? The examples on the standard page are still standard concurrent programs ([http://code.google.com/p/stacklessexamples/wiki/StacklessExa...](http://code.google.com/p/stacklessexamples/wiki/StacklessExamples)). I'm sure an example of stackless in, say, indexing text would be most appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> NB: Newsqueak != Squeak, the Smalltalk. It's a C-like thing that looks allot like Pike (the language) and Awk.</comment>


How did non US citizen founders funded by YC get allowed to work in the US? - <AUTHOR> Hi, first time posting here.
I've been thinking about applying to YC but the thing is that I am not a US citizen. I know I can travel to the US to do busines (attending meetings and such) done so fo my current employer. But how about starting a company and writing code?
I've read somewhere that YC has funded startups with non US citizen founders so it should be possible somehow. If there are any YC funded startups founded by non US citizens reading this (or anyone else that knows anything about this), how did you do it?
Note that I do not have a green card or visa or anything like that.
Cheers <comment><USER2> I have been on 6 different visas, over 15 years, I have quite a bit of experience in the matter.

1\. 90% of the answers in this thread are _bad_ advice. Some of it really bad. A lot of it just misleading, bogus or exaggerated (on HN, it's bad form to criticize others, but when it comes to life-altering advice such as here, I can't let it stand).

2\. It's too complicated to explain in a paragraph. It depends on too many factors.

3\. The best lawyer site I have ever seen is <http://usvisanews.com>. Read this weekly for 6 months, then you'll start having an idea of how it works

A few facts:

a. anybody can incorporate a US corporation. You don't even have to set foot in the US, by the way, to do so.

b. the main issue is living in the US while having some kind of activity for a company. It's usually defined as work, and that's when you must be very careful and have the right status.

<comment><USER3> Yup, agreed with Alain that there's so much legally correct, but also legally wrong statements on this thread. This immigration question depends on like a million factors. To name a few,

* which country you are a citizen of makes a HUGE difference - every country has a different relationship with the US. Some citizens walk in and out freely and do almost anything they want, while others can't even get their foot in the door

* what stage/maturity of your startup is in. If you're already proving that you have profits, can hire US citizens, have raised $, you're going to look a lot better than having nothing but an idea (again, just a broad generalization)

* Immigration fraud is a HUGE no-no. If you get caught, they might not ever let you in again. Ever. Depending on severity

* A million other tactics. I'm not a lawyer. But I know this is a question that needs an answer that is more than just cookie-cutter advice (if you're serious about your intentions). Talk to a lawyer. Many lawyers.

Yes, it sucks and all this is very anti- to the idea that America is the land of opportunity :( Good luck and wish you guys all the best. Do share what worked and what didn't with your fellow immigrant entrepreneurs

<comment><USER4> "which country you are a citizen of makes a HUGE difference"

While it makes a big difference in getting into the US (legally) and acquiring whatever visa you need, it makes no difference whatsoever with regards to requirements to work legally within US. You have to have legal authorization to work in the US (i.e. either being a citizen, permanent resident or a temporary resident) regardless of your citizenship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect that while the non-US teams are at YC, some of them are technically 'tourists' (i.e just on holiday). They don't need a visa to enter the country so it's a case of hear-no-evil, see-no-evil.

If they decide to stay in the US after YC, then they have to deal with the nightmare of immigration and get themselves proper work permits.

For those who need a tourist visa to even enter the US, I have no idea.

<comment><USER6> "Seeking investment" is a valid reason to enter the US from visa waiver countries. My (German) co-founder used that when entering for YC and had no problems. It's also a perfectly reasonable simplification of what happens at YC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am an Indian on H1B Visa, possibly the worst country to be from relative to the US Immigration System.

An immigration lawyer told me that I can register a company but I cannot work for it. But later when I find U.S investors who will own equity in my company I can ask them to sponsor the transfer of my H1B Visa to my own company.

This doesn't make me thrilled, but hey - it is something. Sitting on my hands is killing me, so I am moonlighting in the hopes that the lawyer is right, and that I can find investment using only my moonlighting efforts.

If anyone knows better please let me know.

<comment><USER8> talk to a different lawyer. Try these dudes:

Leon Hazany 310-500-5052 email@example.com

Robert Goodman 914-935-0015 firstname.lastname@example.com <http://www.rigoodmanlaw.com/>

Leon is based in LA and was very helpful when i spoke w him about my co- founder. Robert is based in NYC and was particularly knowledgeable about tech and immigration.

also, fyi, ALWAYS TALK TO MULTIPLE LAWYERS, especially when one does not give you a satisfactory response. Immigration is complex and many are bleeding heart save-the-poor types who do not understand the biz/startup side of the equation at all.

Every lawyer will give you 30-60min of their time on the phone for free. Multiply that by the number of lawyers in the world and you can get A LOT of legal advice for free.

Good luck!

<comment><USER7> Thank you MediaSquirrel. I sure will talk to other lawyers. But based on your talks you find the above scenario not feasible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a slightly different question: considering I have no interest in emigrating to the States, what if my hypothetical startup gets funded by YC or any other american early stage venture firm?

Would I be able to incorporate in US and pay taxes accordingly? Can I keep working from my home country? What are the real, tangible advantages of running your team in US, other then the favorable startup environment you can get in places such as the Valley/SF? Are investors much less inclined to funding foreign teams, does it makes it more troublesome?

Sorry for the loads of questions, but sometimes I fail at understanding why so many people think is a _must_ to go to the states to get a startup off the ground.

And thanks to anyone who will take the time to answer.

<comment><USER10> This probably becomes off-topic to this OP, but the whole point of YC is the resources and network you get accepted into. And you need to be here for that.

Also, if the idea is to obtain funding during/after the YC program you will find that VCs will rarely invest in distant companies.

If you don't want to be here for that, even for the duration of the program, (and really, with the aim of moving here) then YC is probably not for you - but perhaps there is a similar program locally to you?

(NB: I'm not connected with, nor work for, YC)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Adioso (YC W09), originally Australian, "re-incorporated" in the US.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605659>

<comment><USER12> This doesn't allow us to work in the US. We still don't have working visas, and we spend most of our time back in Australia, coming and going from the US on Visa Waiver for meetings etc.

<comment><USER13> Hey Tom, too long between nights out on Russian Hill :) I can't remember if we talked about it, but you should look at the E3 visa - no cost for the company, and relatively straightforward process at the US Consulate in Sydney. The main gotchas are that you need to show either education or equivalent experience in a specialised field related to the position you list for, get a Condition of Labour Application completed, and be paid the going market rate for the position. It's a special visa for Australians under the US-AUS free trade agreement, and the number of people who apply each year is way under the quote. I was told the Melbourne Consulate isn't so straightforward, so do through Sydney. In the interview they were ok with us basically taking an australian company and expanding it to the US so long as you are upfront about what you're doing. If you can find a US board member and have US shareholders then that seems to count in the interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was planning to work for a company in the USA via Faculty (Java & Database stuff), for 4 months - during the summer, and as I was reading, the applicant gets a J-1 visa (or it was J-2, I can't recall now), but I got another offer so I didn't go.

My point is, J-1 & J-2 are visas for students, teachers, business trainees, certain specialists, and more... If YC wants you, maybe you're eligible for this kind of visa.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've also been interested in how they get around this.

Technically on a business tourist visa (forgotten what it is called, but if you are from the right country you just tick a box on your way in) I think you are allowed to attend meetings and tradeshows. From an IT perspective I am pretty sure you are able to do analysis if the aim is then go back to your home country and do development. But I cannot see how a startup can go there and actively start a business (although I guess you could argue it is similar to sitting around a pool on holiday checking a blackberry - big argument, but there is a case there - it isn't like you are an employee of anyone there).

Entering the US is always a bit painful, but I think when you come from a country that they don't have a major overstayer problem with then you are probably OK.

I'd be interested in how people from countries that don't qualify for visa waiver get on.

<comment><USER16> its called b1/b2 and even if you are from country that qualify for waiver you should get it. it gives you 6m+6m instead of 3month and more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope you will get some good answers. Just a short note: Please do not include HTML-tags in your posts. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for that. Don't know where those html-tags came from.

<comment><USER18> You should still be able to edit your submission and remove them. For paragraph breaks, just insert a blank line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I lived in the US for 7 years, did both degrees there and worked in between.

Thoroughly familiar with the immigration system.

The short answer is, without making a 'large' investment (i.e. $500K min) + showing that you can provide at least 10 jobs in 2 years - you have a steep climb to be able to stay in the US.

That being said, anyone can register a company - from any country. You can have the company in the US, register a bank account, get a tax ID, pay taxes, etc....but unless you are doing a certain amount of business and creating at least 10 jobs, you can't actually live here.

People will say you can register a company on a student visa (F1), that's BS. Don't do it. You might not get caught immediately, but it violates the intent of the student visa - which is a 'non-immigrant student visa'. i.e. you have no intention of staying in the US. You are just there to work.

The same applies to H1-B, and other work visas. All of those visas are non- immigrant visas, which means you don't intend to migrate to the US permanently.

Some people have successfully started a company on F1, but if you ever get audited by the US Immigration service, there is a very high probability that you will get deported.

All of that being said, don't worry about it. You can travel to the US on a visitors visa, or a business visa, for a few months (for e.g. to participate in YC), and then go home - while still having your company operating in the US. Once you are big enough, if you sell to a large company, like Facebook or Google or something, they can do an internal transfer (I believe it is a J-visa).

Also, there are paths to a green card (family, marriage, or investment) that given your situation the best would probably be investment once your company grows enough for you to open an office in the US.

All of that being said, make sure to see an immigration attorney and get good advice. But more importantly, read the various requirements for yourself - from the links others have posted here.

Some attorneys might tell you they can get you a green card through an F1 or H1-B....make sure you know your stuff, and be suspicious.

I have many friends that have told me that they have spoken to attorneys that assure them they can start a company on an F1 visa. I have spent hundreds of dollars and visited at least 4 different attorneys (including a past immigration judge) and they all tell me the same thing. By doing that, you violate the intent of the law.

<comment><USER20> About starting a business on F1: you can do it if you're on OPT and got your EAD card. Being self-employed is noted as one way to keep your status as an F1 with OPT (as 90 days unemployment means you're out of status), besides getting a job or volunteering. I'm doing that now myself, after talking to my international student advisors and a couple lawyers.

Thing is, the business MUST be in a field related to what you studied on your F1 visa, which is severely limiting.

As for the green card, DO NOT apply for it during your F1, as that's a non- immigrant single-intent visa. Your purpose is to study and _leave_. However, the H1-B has a well-established route to a green card (after you work for 6 years or something), as it is a dual-intent visa. I'm not sure about particulars, but I know many go through this route successfully. No reason to be suspicious about this if a lawyer mentions it.

<comment><USER19> That's definitely wrong.

I can guarantee you, if the USCIS finds that you have registered a company on your F1, they will likely cancel your visa.

[http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b...](http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=e34c83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e34c83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD)

Employment

F-1 students may not work off-campus during the first academic year, but may accept on-campus employment subject to certain conditions and restrictions. There are various programs available for F-1 students to seek off-campus employment, after the first academic year. F-1 students may engage in three types of off-campus employment, after they have studying for one academic year.

These three types of employment are:

Curricular Practical Training (CPT) Optional Practical Training (OPT) (pre- completion or post-completion) Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Optional Practical Training Extension (OPT)

Optional Practical Training is for you to get a job in your field. That's it. Not start a company.

Edit: Ok...I take that back. You can't do it, if you want to stay in the good graces of USCIS and stay in the US. If you don't mind being deported...then you most definitely can. Nothing is stopping you - once you have an SSN.

<comment><USER21> Wrong. Read the OPT Policy Guidance, section 7.2.1:

All OPT employment, including post-completion OPT, must be in a job that is related to the student's degree program. For students who are not on a 17-month extension, this employment may include: (...) Self-employed business owner. A student on OPT may start a business and be self-employed. The student must be able to prove that he or she has the proper business licenses and is actively engaged in a business related to the student's degree program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What about the EB-5 visa? (The Entrepreneur's Visa)

The specifics of the visa are: 1\. Each year 10,000 entrepreneurs allowed into the US. 2\. The entrepreneur has to attract investment of 1 million. 3\. In which after he attains this, he is granted with a 2 year period of 'probation'. 4\. In these 2 years, he has to create at least 10 full time American jobs and make a revenue or attract an additional 1 million dollars. 5\. If this is achieved, he will be granted a green card. If not, he has to go back.

So my questions are:

A. I know it seems impossible, but how many foreign entrepreneurs actually can achieve this? Are there numbers of how many get this type of visa each year?

B. When is the EB-6 visa coming out? (Same visa but only with 1/2 requirements)

<comment><USER22> For more info go to: <http://startupvisa.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you enter the US on a B2 business visitor visa, after being in the country for 60 days you can petition in writing for an Adjustment of Status to change your visa to another type. You can remain in the US under the terms of the B2 until you get a reply to your petition, even if it is after the 90 day expiration of the B2.

Note that the above is true for canadians. Ymmv for other nationalities.

<comment><USER10> I don't think this is correct. NEVER stay in the US longer than the duration of your visa on your i94 under ANY circumstances. Even if it's day 89 and the airport is closed for bad weather you _must_ drive to the border (or whatever) to leave otherwise next time you come back into the country it will be picked up and you can get deported + bared from entering US.

PLEASE get legal advice if this is your situation.

(source: I'm a foreign national working in US on a visa, having spent a lot of time + money with my visa lawyer on this issue. I also have a startup investor friend who went over his visa duration and is barred from entering the US again.)

<comment><USER23> If you overstay your visa, then you're absolutely right, you're in for a world of trouble.

However, ONCE you have entered the US on a B2, you can file an I-539 to permit you to extend your stay and apply to change your status to another class of visa.

As it happens, this is precisely the process I've gone through to go from B2 -> TN-1.

That said: Ben's right that you should seek legal counsel from an immigration attorney on all things related to the visa process.

<comment><USER10> So I have a TN (as it happens). If you are looking to get a TN as a Canadian citizen _(rather than Mexican, different rules apply for them)_ you can actually apply for a TN at any airport (not just via Canada). This is a little known fact.

The advice given to me was just to take a trip somewhere and come back into the country to get the TN rather than apply for an AoS with the DHS (which can take ages to process - they are not really incentivized to process it with a short turnover).

I got my most recent TN at SFO in secondary checking, it was trivial (assuming you qualify + your paperwork is in order, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Surprised nobody has mentioned the O-1 visa for "aliens of extraordinary ability":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-1_visa>

AFAIK, a couple of non-US citizens have gotten them to work in the US on YC (the Auctomatic guys). I know DHH was on one to work for 37S.

</comment><comment><USER25> non residents can open company in most if not all states. once entity is created - anyone can fund it. you just can't be hired by this company and be US resident in the same time. But you can be on US territory to sign contracts, or you can work for company while being out of US land.

but after going through work visa i can say it's doable, but really complex if you are not from "good" country, like canada, australia, etc. =)

</comment><comment><USER26> This site has some info <http://startupvisa.com/about/>

<comment><USER27> "We hope to have one or both of these bills formally presented to Congress sometime later this year."

<comment><USER28> So in another 15 years, there will be subsidies for startups that grow corn?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> apply for a hsmp visa in UK or canadian permanent residence.

Most of the advice in this thread - except for the first two - alain and tololRon - is very very dangerous - it'll get you barred from US forever if you try some of the stunts recommended.

</comment><comment><USER30> Does YC consider funding an idea for a startup with non-US resident founders?

<comment><USER31> It says so on their faq page which is why I have applied :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So thus we have a good reason to have more women founders - immigrant hacker- startup guys are usually male. Thus, they can just marry their US-citizen startup cofounders.

<comment><USER10> Or we all push for marriage equality so that LGBT folks can marry too, with full federal recognition including immigration status for the other partner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am not YC founder, so i dont know how YC do that. But technically everyone can come to US, register a company and work for it. Its YOUR company, so no prob here.

Although you might need to come back to your country every 6 months or so.

Edit: Surprised to see so many comments and and downvotes from "experts" for that. Get business/tourist (b1/b2). You are not working you are considering investing in US- one of the simples rules to remember when crossing border- and there are many others.

<comment><USER33> There is a visa (It's one of the E visas) for people bringing capital into the states but you it's not a trivial amount and you need to prove that you will employ a certain number of Americans.

<comment><USER34> Info on the E1 (trader) and E2 (investor) on the US Embassy in Mexico <http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/eng/evisas_E.html>

Highlights for the investor visa: \- The investor must be coming to the United States solely to develop and direct the enterprise \- The investment must be substantial. It must be sufficient to ensure the successful operation of the enterprise \- must have the capacity to generate significantly more income than just enough to provide a living to the investor and his or her family, or it must have a significant economic impact in the United States

I'm not sure if a YC funded founder would be elegible, but seems hard

<comment><USER35> I've been running my own business in the US on an E-2 visa for the last 12 years. The minimum recommended initial investment is of the order of $100,000 - and a majority the E-2 company must be owned by citizens of the non-US 'treaty country'.

Rough guide to application : 0.5-1.0 inch thick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Okay, first things first. Apply for a greencard. I know it's a long process, it's expensive, and it's very invasive but do this first. People assume they don't qualify and don't even bother asking. But the US still has the highest immigration of all countries, only the UK is a distant 2nd. So obviously, people are getting in everyday.

Now, contact the US embassy in your country. Get all your paperwork together, set an appointment, pay the fees, and wait. Depending on the country you are coming from can be the difference between success and failure. Each country has quotas and some are filled immediately (Mexico, for example) and some go unmet (Switzerland, because no one ever leaves switzerland)

So do all the paperwork, fill in the envelope and mail it, and wait. That's all you really can do.

<comment><USER37> This is lousy advice. It's not as if just anyone can "apply for a green card". You need to have a sponsor who is either a relative and US citizen, or you are already employed by a US company on a work visa and they are willing to sponsor your green card application. (I am in the second category.)

Even if you have an employer willing to sponsor your green card application, the preliminary paperwork can take over a year before you're officially in the green card pipeline. How long you have to wait depends on your country of origin. Canadians can expect to wait at least two years, Indians and Chinese five years or more. But the kicker is that if you lose your job or change companies while you're in the pipeline, _the whole process restarts_! (Unless you're in the final stage, but that's comparatively short compared to the whole process.) That is, if you can find a new job. If you can't, you have to leave the US.

The US is unique among western countries in not have a way for skilled immigrants to get into the country unless they first have a sponsor. The US work visa program effectively creates a class of indentured laborers as their continued residency in the US is entirely dependent on their employers.

<comment><USER38> For Canadians, there's also TN-1 visa, which is a simplified way to get a work permit for a year. It has limitations compared to H1-B in terms of occupations, but it is much simpler to get. You need to have a letter from the company stating that they intend to employ you.

Now, how that relates to startups and whether your own corporation can sponsor you - I honestly do not know.

<comment><USER37> Sure, TN is easy to get (I've had it) but there are two major restrictions:

1\. You _cannot apply for a green card_ on TN visa 2\. It has to be renewed annually, and you have to demonstrate continued strong ties to Canada (bank accounts, family, etc.), so US immigration would no doubt get suspicious if you kept renewing

<comment><USER24> > You cannot apply for a green card on TN visa

Actually, you can:

<http://www.naftatnlawyer.com/applying-for-green-card-tn-st/>

> It has to be renewed annually

There's a 3 year TN now:

[http://www.naftatnlawyer.com/nafta-tn- blog/2008/10/16/three-...](http://www.naftatnlawyer.com/nafta-tn- blog/2008/10/16/three-year-tn-rule-approved.html)

If you're Canadian, I suggest subscribing to the Grasmick.com newsletter and poking around the site. Lots of good info there.

<comment><USER10> _If you're Canadian, I suggest subscribing to the Grasmick.com newsletter_

Not sure if the _newsletter_ is up to date but I noticed that the most recent items on Grasmick.com's News section dates back to 2001!

The world of immigration into the US has really changed quite a bit since 2001, post-9/11 especially. For a start the INS doesn't even exist anymore and was replaced with the DHS.

So if the rest of his information is from this era and pre-DHS then it's pretty much worthless.

<comment><USER24> The newsletter is indeed up to date. For example, it's where I learned about the new 3 year TN back when it was approved in Oct 08.

For some silly reason he's basically abandoned the website and what used to be incredibly helpful forums.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ROM found in popular chinese USB to Serial chip (CH340) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ringoware/status/1300545649029517312 <comment><USER2> Why is this surprising? In bulk, ROM is cheaper than EEPROM and I'm sure there's a good amount of USB-related functionality or logic that can be stored there. It's not a passive device by any means, so I'm not sure why there's the implied "where it shouldn't be" in the thread/title?

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed... Ryan Ringo (@ringoware) is an experienced reverse engineer. I assume other USB2Serial ICs have been reversed in the past, so I am curious to why he regards this as "something unexpected". I guess we'll find out once the bit extraction is completed.</comment></comment>


Mercury News laying off about quarter of newsroom? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2007/06/01/mercury-news-laying-off-about-quarter-of-newsroom/ <comment><USER2> People from both the Merc and the Chronicle talked to me about doing work for them; I've heard both are laying off a good chunk of the staff. The inevitability of this was one of the reasons I didn't pursue either. (I hope I can do enough online video to make the same thing happen with TV networks.)</comment>


China's Subprime Crisis Is Here - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-02-17/china-s-600-billion-subprime-crisis-is-already-here <comment><USER2> The American media seems to jump at any opportunity to dismiss China as an economic threat. It makes us feel more secure but leads to a public informed only about one side of China's story. Namely the part our ego can handle. China has regularly surpassed the US in number of cars sold since 2009. China also holds more US debt than any other country. Another way to put that is the US government owes China over 1 trillion USD. This, I believe, is the real reason the American media trips over themselves to write stories that sooth away the nagging fear that China is, or even already has surpassed us economically.

Edit: more interesting facts.

\- China's percent GDP growth is more than twice that of the US. (7.4% vs 2.4% in 2015)

\- China's government has $3.9T in cash reserves vs the US' $434B.

\- China has twice as many children enrolled in primary and secondary school and 50% more undergrads than the US.

We can only say but, but, but for so long.

<comment><USER3> China can do things at a scale the West in general, and the US in particular can't even fathom.

I was in Tibet with some friends in October. At one point, our tour bus was detoured, because the bridge on our scheduled route wasn't big enough for it, so we drove a couple hours out of our way, and just happened to pass a 10MW solar plant. In the middle of Nowhere, Tibet. A thing we wouldn't even have seen if we hadn't had to detour down a dirt track road, still under construction (to the point that we had to stop and wait for the equipment that was carving the road bed out of the mountain face to clear enough room for our bus to pass). Who knows how many other such hidden infrastructure gems there are, down other roads that tourists don't get permission to use?

Later, we passed a seemingly endless convoy of dozens of fuel tankers and flatbeds loaded with construction equipment — all military green — headed south, as we were returning to Lhasa from Mt. Everest base camp. Doing some digging, it turns out this materiel was all accumulating at the Nepalese border.

See, just a week or two previously, Nepal had passed its new constitution, which favored closer ties with China over India. India, used to being Nepal's big brother and pushing it around, subsequently closed their border with Nepal — the border which, by treaty, was the only route through which Nepal could import fuel. Consequently, Nepal was starting to experience a ridiculous fuel shortage. (Talking with a taxi driver in Kathmandu a few days after having seen this convoy, the petrol rationing was down to 7L per family per week. Our flight from Kathmandu to Lhasa — about a 90 minute flight, going the long way, so people could get a view of Everest — was on an Air China A340, because they needed to send a plane that could carry enough fuel for the round trip, as there wasn't enough Jet A at KTM for the return.)

These convoys of fuel and construction equipment were waiting for a new treaty to be signed between Nepal and China, allowing emergency fuel imports from China. The purpose for all the construction equipment? The Nepalese side of the road that runs from Kathmandu to Lhasa was still destroyed from the Gorkha earthquake. The estimates I was reading suggested that, once the border was opened, the Chinese would be able to rebuild the road from the border to Kathmandu in about three days, and have fuel continually running down the repaired road as long as Nepal needed it.

China just happened to have the materiel on hand, _in Tibet_ , to respond within _days_ of India closing the border and Nepal going into crisis, with sufficient manpower, equipment, and fuel to rebuild a hundred-odd kilometers of mountain road in a few days and keep a city of a million people, and who knows how much of the rest of Nepal, from collapsing.

But they're completely backwards and corrupt, and have no idea what they're doing.

<comment><USER4> That's a neighbour so there's an obvious local power advantage. It's not unimpressive though and I completely agree about there being a scale and general surplus of engineering prowess that the rest of us just can't comprehend.

What is perhaps more alarming is their development of Africa. I passed through a few African countries last year and China was _everywhere_. They're in the up-and-coming metropolises like Addis Ababa, they're in despot states like Zimbabwe and they own vast numbers of resource mines in places like Zambia (copper) and Namibia (uranium).

Now almost _every_ sub-Saharan African country has Chinese mining activity.

And the story is the same in all these places. China promises roads and power stations for mining rights, then they do _all_ the work. They ship everything over, including workers. If there is any untrained scrot work for locals, they get paid a tiny fraction of what a Chinese worker would —let that sink in— but anything else is Chinese. There's no local training, no real number of local jobs.

They're investing hundreds of millions in exchange for the infrastructure _they use_ to strip-mine a country.

While we're all fretting about how much cash China has, they have built a resource network that covers half the planet. They have millions of engineers and ton of resources and the political power (the debts of every other major power) to get away with nearly anything.

<comment> saiya-jin well, and now let's look what their "competitor" (west) have done during those hundreds of years of presence there...

Yes Chinese are not saints but pure capitalists, I see no evil in their actions. On the other hand, white man's actions there were evil on quite a few occasions

<comment><USER5> What's more evil: China following unethical economic practices to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, or China following the rule book and letting hundreds of millions languish in poverty?

From where I stand, China NOT being pure capitalists for the good of their citizens is more evil.

It's well and good when a developed country talks about ethics and capitalism - they have the luxury to. But when a country where millions live in humiliating poverty, don't have enough to eat, and have no hope for the future, it would be far more evil to follow the book and let down these millions.

<comment><USER6> What kind of poverty is going to be left after the investments are done and the resources are extracted?

Should the people living there leave, like they are leaving Alberta and North Dakota now? Is your country going to take them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This doesn't seem like a particularly compelling argument. Bad loan volumes have risen, but not above historical highs.

As a percentage of total debt, the article says bad debt is at 1.67%. This is up 51% from 1.25% in the last year. Considering the amount of margin that's been wiped out as a result of the stock bubble popping, this doesn't seem terrible. In addition, it doesn't seem like this rate is accelerating (since 2009), but linearly increasing.

Maybe Chinese banks are consistently increasing the amount of debt they issue and the risk they take per unit debt as a rational response to increasing productivity of Chinese businesses. This implies a greater amount of leverage for the Chinese economy, but not necessarily extreme irrationality.

Maybe there's something here (I actually think there are structural problems in the Chinese economy) but this article does not make a compelling case.

<comment><USER8> Isn't the bigger issues China's structural draconian limits to freer movement of capital, external investment, the imaginary/real value of ghost cities and scale of holding illiquid foreign debt?

<comment><USER7> One by one:

1\. Freer movement of capital. This is a false herring in my opinion. Virtually no countries outside the US/EU offer completely free movement of money. The thing that matters is whether this prevents foreign capital investment (because people are scared of not being able to get their money back). In China, I don't think it does based on the last few decades of foreign investment.

2\. External investment. As above, I don't think people are discouraged by the rules. Yes, you have to make a 50% joint venture, bribe government officials, share technology, have no copyright/IP protection, and risk your partner entering the market as a competitor once they learn your business (see Asus). But, you can still make so much money that it's probably worth it (or so American corporations seem to believe).

3\. Ghost cities. I don't know much about this one honestly. I've been hearing about this since 2009, but consider that China is increasing their urbanization rate by 1 percentage point per year (~10M people/yr). If I were asked to manage that as a central planner, having excess inventory of housing would be critical to prevent slowdowns and allowing for some burstiness. Yeah, there's probably ghost cities, but how long do they remain before becoming occupied. Are the same cities hanging around forever (and people complaining about them forever), or is it new stock every year?

4\. Illiquid foreign debt. Most of China's debt is in two categories: 1) Popular debt (US/EU) or 2) strategically important countries. For (1), there's likely some market. You're right that they can't sell too much, but they've already notified the world that they will begin selling their holdings over the next decade and since central banks in the western world are trying to increase the reserve interest rate there should be people willing to buy this stuff (or the government can buy it and reissue at a higher interest rate to make people want it). For (2), don't think of it as debt, but operating expense, never to be recovered.

<comment><USER9> A few counterpoints.

From your original comment

> In addition, it doesn't seem like this rate is accelerating (since 2009), > but linearly increasing.

That is the overall percentage of bad debt increasing linearly, meaning accumulation of bad debt is accelerating faster than growth of "good" debt. This was also the case in the US mortgage crisis.

From this comment

1) It would be less of a concern if China had less liquidity while Chinese companies were also getting less access to liquidity. Shadow lending from wealth management product (WMPs) is a massive structural issue for the Chinese economy. When the underlying assets fail, you have a recession. It also means a centralized economy with lots of the downsides (bribes, joint ventures, etc.) but without the control.

2) American corporations _believe_ there is tons of money to be made, but not many have been successful. In the event of a Chinese recession, those experiments will be vastly drawn back when Chinese consumers become pessimistic. In the event of an American correction, they'll pull back to invest in proven markets.

3) I haven't seen evidence that these ghost cities are the result of central planners building slack for expected growth.

4) Internal private debt (see 1) is a much larger problem. Most of that is owned by the central government, which means either a bailout when companies fail, continued lending until a bailout, or letting their economy correct.

<comment><USER7> Linearly increasing: True. I misread the axis. It still doesn't seem to have the form of something in a bubble or clearly unsustainable.

1\. That's a fair point. But I suspect this has more to do with less developed capital markets in China than systematic weakness. I wonder if local supply of capital will be able to step up in the next American recession.

2\. I think many have been successful in lowering their manufacturing costs. Not sure how an American correction would affect the Chinese economy.

3\. Fair.

4\. I'm generally skeptical of this argument. US corporations and households have maintained a high level of debt for more than 50 years without significant effect. I guess the Federal gov hasn't been the holder of that debt, but it actually seems better that way because they have the ability to print cash and add a stabilizing effect.

I guess my point is that none of these individually seem extreme enough to cause a problem. Maybe in aggregate there could be a storm.

<comment><USER9> Interesting point on (1). I wonder if that could trigger relaxed repatriation taxes for corporations in the US. Bringing a few hundred billion home would be great in a liquidity crisis.

I wasn't thinking of (2) that way, but in that case you're right that southeast asian competition is a bigger factor. If cheap manufacturing leaves, China would need to shift to consumer growth, which American companies thus far haven't really cracked (except Apple to an underwhelming degree.)

An interesting aside on (2) would be if a trade-protectionist president is elected in the US. This would re-prioritize from cheap manufacturing overseas to better jobs at home—triggering or accelerating what you were talking about. The New Yorker had a great piece today on how both Sanders and Trump are of that mindset.[1]

(4) might be a case of six in one hand, half dozen in the other. Turned out that the US government _did_ (indirectly) hold all that mortgage debt when it bailed out the banks. That said, it looks better externally to institute QE to bailout companies who backed bad debt than to print money to pay off your own debt.

Either way, I'm not sure we are or aren't at a crisis yet, but they also haven't fixed some basic structural problems.

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/trump- sanders-a...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/trump-sanders-and- the-american-worker)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a conjecture, in economics, that out of a fixed exchange rates, free capital flows and a sovereign monetary policy, a country can only pick two. This is known as the Impossible Trinity [1].

The United States plays strategy b, relinquishing a fixed exchange rate. Greece plays a, trading away its monetary-policy sovereignty within the eurozone.

China is trying to move from c (ex free capital flows) to b (ex fixed exchange rates). In the process, it's caught in the Impossible Trinity. Either coördinated decisiveness or some combination of a currency and/or capital- outflow will force them into a stable configuration.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity)

</comment><comment><USER11> This article is good, but it underscores how fast and catastrophic China's collapse is.

\- China's total debt risen to 346% of GDP in 2015. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/3852886-chinese-debt- problem...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/3852886-chinese-debt-problem-stay)

\- China exports fall 11.2% in January, imports down 18.8% [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data- for...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data-for-january- yuan-denominated-and-us-dollar-imports-and-exports.html)

\- China's $6.7 trillion bond market is flashing the same danger signs that triggered a tumble in stocks [http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business- news/2015/10/10/...](http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business- news/2015/10/10/if-you-think-chinas-equity-bubble-is-scary-check-out- bonds/?style=biz)

\- China Capital Outflows Rise to Estimated $1 Trillion in 2015 [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/china- capi...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/china-capital- outflows-climb-to-estimated-1-trillion-in-2015)

\- China's Net Capital Outflows Probably Hit $113 Billion In January [http://www.actionforex.com/analysis/daily-forex- fundamentals...](http://www.actionforex.com/analysis/daily-forex- fundamentals/china's-net-capital-outflows-probably-hit-$113-billion-in- january:-iif-20160210257745/)

\- "Chinese banks will lose approximately $3.5 trillion of equity if China's banking system loses 10 percent of assets" (all of its reserve would be gone) [http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/10/kyle-bass-china-banks-may- los...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/10/kyle-bass-china-banks-may-lose-5-times- us-banks-subprime-losses-in-credit-crisis.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Michael Pettis is one my favourite China commentators, with a big focus on the shifts necessary in the balance sheet and composition of growth, and whether that can be done smoothly or necessarily through some catastrophe. Not to mention a broader view of the political economy of the change.

Here's a recent post he did that's worth a read (at least through the nine point summary): [http://blog.mpettis.com/2016/01/will-chinas-new-supply- side-...](http://blog.mpettis.com/2016/01/will-chinas-new-supply-side-reforms- help-china/)

<comment><USER13> Pettis is the man. Essential reading for understanding China's economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The root cause of 08 financial crisis is not simply 'subprime loans' that can't be repaid. It's because of trillions of derivatives that those banks hold, and lack of liquidity when banks are making wrong bet.

China doesn't have many complex financial engineerings as US did in 07/08.

<comment><USER15> It was broader than subprime and derivatives even. It was a general real estate (housing) bubble. Home prices became massively inflated and the various investments tied to housing came crashing down. A similar result can be expected in China when the music eventually stops.

<comment><USER14> When price go up it doesn't mean a it's a bubble.

Getting loans is way harder/regulated in China than 06/07 US. Currently 25+% down payment or 70% for 2nd home is required. -- Comparing in 2007 banks only asks for 3% down.

<comment><USER16> China have aggressively lowered the requirements the last years. At the moment it should be 20% for first and 30% for 2nd home. Still some way to go for US levels ofc.

www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/china-real-estate-research-policy/china- lowered-downpayments-but-will-it-help-sell-homes-in-the-hinterland/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> FWIW, George Friedman (of STRATFOR) predicted this, except he believed the implosion of China would be on a truly catastrophic scale. So they could still be at the edge of a much deeper hole.

See: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057)

<comment><USER18> He also predicted Mexico and Poland would become world powers soon. Although there are some interesting insights, I take his predictions with a whole shaker of salt.

<comment><USER17> Not really "soon" — more like towards the middle of the century for Poland, and end of the century for Mexico. I'm curious about his predictions on Russia and Turkey in particular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you keep saying China has economic crisis, finally you are gonna be right some day.

<comment><USER20> There should have been a crisis a few years ago but the government has chosen to keep the bubbles from popping. $1 million for a 90 sqm apartment in Beijing that rents form $1500/month is pretty frothy.

But the CPC repealed the law of gravity, so it doesn't apply to the Chinese economy. Maybe it's really different this time. But probably not. The only question now: will they inflate the currency turning all those savers into losers, or reign in credit and bad debts, choking the economy and growth. They won't be able to just hide behind growth now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ahhh the old' China crisis again! The dog that didn't bark. The Charlie Brown football that never got kicked. The constant and unending crisis that is on its way any day now.

As I have explained over the years in many previous comments, China's banking system is partially privatized central planning, the government prints it's own money. Thus, when there is a credit crisis the government just recapitalizes the banks with freshly printed Yuan and sells off the bad loans at a discount. Bankers who behaved badly get executed or disappeared and the whole thing starts over.

Don't believe me? Let's take a trip down memory lane on HN:

China: Crisis Gauge Rises to Record High 2 points Cless __2 years ago __0 comments ([http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/crisis-gauge- rises-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/crisis-gauge-rises-to- record-high-as-swaps-avoided.html))

China Interbank Rates at Record High (think Lehman Bros.) 1 points teawithcarl __3 years ago __0 comments ([http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/118747-china- banking-crisis-in...](http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/118747-china-banking- crisis-interbank-rates-at-record/))

China's Brewing Crisis Is a Thousand Times Greece's 8 points ytNumbers __6 months ago __4 comments ([http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/08/25/ch...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/08/25/chinas- brewing-crisis-is-a-thousand-times-greeces/))

Skyscraper index points to elevated risk of financial crisis in China, India 2 points cs702 __4 years ago __0 comments ([http://www.scribd.com/doc/78470886/Index-Bubble- Building-100...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/78470886/Index-Bubble- Building-100112-2-1-14300620))

China fears bond crisis as it slams quantitative easing 1 points chaostheory __7 years ago __0 comments ([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfina...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5286832/China- fears-bond-crisis-as-it-slams-quantitative-easing.html))

China hit hardest by US Downgrade 2 points ca136 __5 years ago __0 comments ([http://gulfnews.com/opinions/editorials/us-crisis-hits- china...](http://gulfnews.com/opinions/editorials/us-crisis-hits-china- hardest-1.848525))

China's Coming Economic Crisis? 3 points kercker __2 years ago __0 comments ([http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/08/chinas- comin...](http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/08/chinas-coming- economic-crisis?hp&rref=opinion))

Why China Will Have an Economic Crisis 1 points eande __4 years ago __0 comments ([http://business.time.com/2012/02/27/why-china-will-have- an-e...](http://business.time.com/2012/02/27/why-china-will-have-an-economic- crisis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Fbusiness+%28TIME%3A+Top+Business+Stories%29))

Confidence of China VCs drops to new low 2 points ilamont __7 years ago __0 comments ([http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/29/global- economic-c...](http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/29/global-economic- crisis-drives-china-vc-confidence-new-low))

<comment><USER22> > the government prints it's own money. Thus, when there is a credit crisis > the government just recapitalizes the banks with freshly printed Yuan and > sells off the bad loans at a discount.

This has been tried by many governments and has a well-established track record as a disasterous solution. I believe the following is a well- established consensus in economics (though I may misremember some details):

Printing money on this scale doesn't add wealth to the economy, it just vastly increases the number of yuan available to buy each unit of actual value, increasing prices. For example, if you were in a universe of 10 people with $50 each in currency, and one day that increased to $500 each, you wouldn't be any wealthier: You couldn't buy any more; the numbers on the price tags would merely increase by a factor of 10 - inflation.

It creates high inflation, even hyperinflation, which has further consequences for savings (whose value is greatly reduced as prices shoot up - your $10,000 no longer can buy anything), receivables (which lose their value just like savings), people on fixed incomes (your pension's value drops just like savings), investment (what good is an investment that loses value quickly just from inflation?), interest rates, exchange rates, and international trade (when your currency is worthless, and is expected to lose more value tomorrow, few will take it as payment for anything).

<comment><USER23> Inflation doesn't happen here. Bad debts actually take money out of the system. Recapitalizing the banks just add back the destroyed money.

Modern monetary policies don't "print" money anymore. Debt creation and destruction are used as the primary mean to create and destroy money. Below is a very simplified version of money creation, skipping many other aspects.

The banks lend their deposit out to the public and money is created out of the thin air and starts to circulate in the system. The banks are regulated by the central bank to maintain a certain reserve ratio on the deposit so there is a maximum level that can be lent out and that becomes the limit on the money supply. When loans are paid back, the money is destroyed but the returned money can be lent out again thus the money supply is not changed.

Central banks can influence the money supply by setting the interest rate. Lowering rate causes more loans to be made thus expanding the money supply, conversely for raising rate.

Now when a loan has gone bad, there is no money paid back to the bank. The bank is short of that amount of money. It still has to maintain the reserve ratio and can't lend that much out again. The money is gone; essentially it has been destroyed from the system.

So a bad loan actually shrinks the money in circulation, lowering the money supply. Too many bad loans would cause a credit crunch - the banks simply can't get the loan money back to re-lend them out and thus there's not enough money to go around.

Here's where the central banks step in. They recapitalize the banks (fancy word to create money out of the thin air), by either giving created money to the banks to write off the bad loans, or in the U.S. case in 2008 the Fed buying the bad debts from the banks with new money it created out of the thin air. In either case the banks get money for getting rid off the bad debts and can lend again, re-balancing the money taken out of the system due to bad debts. Thus the money supply is back to normal and life goes on.

The bad debts held by the central banks are simply some numbers on some papers, whose value are questionable. Someday it might be decided that they are worthless and, puff, they are gone.

The Chinese central bank is basically using the same mechanisms to deal with bad debts.

<comment><USER21> Bravo, someone who gets it. The subtle difference with China is when the bailout happens, the government doesn't go into debt to do it and stick the taxpayer with the eventual interest bearing burden of the bailout. Instead, they print the money. This creates moral hazard. I think China's political system is better at dealing with banker moral hazard than ours is unfortunately.

<comment><USER23> Well, their bankers making the bad loans and the people failed to repay the loans might go the jail or got executed when illegal lending involved. Here bonuses are reduced.

<comment><USER24> I was just about to say, your OP was a great quick summary, but glossed over the loss of risk/punishment inherent in the system. Consider the loophole closed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Assuming this headline is correct, what effects would that have on the global economy?

<comment><USER26> Probably small. China's financial system isn't entwined with the US/European system as much (the Fed buys bonds from the ECB, and vice versa). Commodities will be hit the hardest, because China will stop importing them.

Alan S Blinder estimated that a very severe recession in China would affect the US GDP by .2% So that kind of gives you an idea.

<comment><USER2> China holds more US treasury bonds than any other country. How are we not intertwined?

<comment><USER26> The US holds _vastly_ more US treasury bonds than any other country. But look at the data: [http://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt](http://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt)

China holds about the same amount as Japan, and if you count Europe as a region, then Europe holds more than either of them.

Furthermore it doesn't really matter: it's not like they can 'call the debt.' China has to wait for their bonds to mature just like everyone else. Really it's rather nice of China to loan us the money.

<comment><USER2> You're right it doesn't matter that China has loaned us tons of money. You can talk your way around it and Wall Street and the American media outlets have done this for years but it does not change the facts. China continues to grow as an economic threat to the US and we don't want to believe it.

<comment><USER26> What exactly is an "economic threat?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Having lived in Beijing for 3 years, I try to pay more attention to the country's "hidden" or at least somewhat non obvious debts.

The Chinese soil is dying or dead.

The population as a whole and the younger generations in particular are facing future health issues of cataclysmic proportions.

The pace at which the country moves is sure to leave dozen of millions of people in the dust. Those already left in the dust endure, because their living conditions are better than those of their parents. Yet their kids' might not be, and they will choose to endure or not (and vent in a way they think appropriate). That, added to the dearth of females, and the Confucianist view of a man's place in society are already proving explosive.

China has a lot of potential, but it also faces challenges of epic proportions. To me, the economic problems are more a symptom of the problem rather than the problem to worry about.

</comment><comment><USER28> Everytime a piece about china is posted the comments are quickly the same in tone, "oh but China already surpassed US" uh no it fucking didn't not even close. Especially when the Chinese minister admitted China's GDP is complete fiction. Nobody in China even knows the score because it's super tough with all the corruption to get anything done with accuracy.

It's like there's no room for a China that is _fallible_. China is perfect the all knowing all seeing for these crowd. China is the future they claim.

Not with that ugly ass communist nanny state system suppressing free speech and censoring media you don't.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it right that China owns a lot of its own debt AND a lot of US debt as well? And also heard that China supposedly has the largest gold reserves in the world, dwarfing any other country in comparison. Could that count for something?

<comment><USER30> They would probably have to spend at least a good chunk their dollar reserves in order to manage a truly catastrophic currency decline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> At some point, some percentage of those loans will default.

Financially China can handle it, though when those loans default, the chain of events will also have some global consequences.

The question is, when the loans do default, and with it some effects to the real economy/people, what happens to the public perception of the government in China? There is a good chance of social unrest

</comment><comment><USER30> One factor not discussed in this article is the demographic headwinds that China is heading into. Their one child policy is only now resulting in greatly distorted working age ratios, which means that their non-working elderly population is increasing faster than the population of workers to support them. With a safety net in place that relies heavily on existing familial structures rather than government programs, there are reasons to be concerned about declining aggregate demand over the next several years, precisely as China is trying hardest to transition from export-led growth to a larger, domestically-focused economy.

</comment><comment><USER32> China's situation is a bit different to the US's in that given it's socialist leanings it will probably just keep lending and bailing out.

<comment><USER33> How is that different from the US situation? Isn't that exactly the US situation?

<comment><USER9> Yes, basically. Home owners were given mortgages they couldn't afford except under beyond-ideal circumstances. They then would refinance and take out other mortgages, until the whole house of cards came down.

The Saudis could maybe handle a situation like this, given their natural resources. As the current price of oil has shown, however, being rich in natural resources has its own issues.

The same principles apply across China, Saudi Arabia, and startups: at a certain point, you have to make money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think mr. Madoff need to be let out of jail to educate Chinese government.</comment>


Male Practice: Gender Inequality in Orthopaedic Surgery - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3706651/ <comment><USER2> > Here is the problem: The gender distribution of medical schools around the > country is about 50/50; orthopedic residency programs, by contrast, are > nearly 90% male.

ROTFL. The specialization requires applying quite large physical force, and they're surprised that women don't pursue it? Somebody must be out of their minds here.</comment>


Web 2.0 is all about the money - <AUTHOR> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/18/BUG4NPAB4N1.DTL <comment><AUTHOR> This article is pretty confused. It goes from web 2.0 to msft's objections to the doubleclick deal to a weird aside about a bank of america security breach. But this is what the masses read.

</comment><comment><USER2> Remarkable discovery: companies aim to make money.

This is at least a nice change from articles complaining that "Web 2.0" companies don't care enough about making money.

<comment><USER3> The first thing I thought when I saw the headline was, "Thank god for hard investigative journalism!"</comment></comment>


Syria Shuts Off Internet - <AUTHOR> http://m.readwriteweb.com/archives/syria_shuts_off_internet.php <comment><USER2> This is 2 days old. They already restored the internet and images and videos of the violence have already made their way out.</comment>


[Study] the Rise of Cloud Computing: Minding Your P's, Q's and K's - <AUTHOR> https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Conferences/2017-stats-forum/session-6-byrne.ashx <comment><AUTHOR> published as a working paper in NBER in Oct 2018: [https://www.nber.org/papers/w25188](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25188)</comment>


500 Startups Snaps Up LatAm Startup Accelerator Mexican.VC - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/07/500-startups-mexican-vc/

<comment><USER2> The microVC fund I started almost two years ago is now part of 500! Woot. There are awesome Mexican hackers down there and this should help us reach even more of them.

<comment><USER3> Seems like you're based in the US? can you elaborate on how you got this off the ground and how you overcame the problems of managing it remotely? Also, where is the capital coming from?

And a well deserved congratulations to you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is such a great accomplishment. My startup was part of the first generation of Mexican VC and I've seen the fund grow in leaps and bounds. I'm incredibly proud and I expect to see amazing things in the pipeline, both for Mexican VC and for the startup ecosystem in Mexico in general.

</comment><comment><USER5> With a Startup Weekend happening every 2 weeks, Startup Bus sending 3 buses next year, a vibrant ecosystem, and now official 500startups presence, can we officially say Mexico is happening?

<comment><USER6> Dude, I'd say so!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations to the MexicanVC team! Keep the good work!

</comment><comment><USER8> Let's GO!! Mexican VC

</comment><comment><USER9> Great job Mexican VC!

</comment><comment><USER10> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER11> ok, so I lied... we did have to kill a few chihuahuas to get this deal done. but it was quick and merciful. #RIP

</comment><comment><USER12> #GoMexicanVC

</comment><comment><USER13> Congrats #Mexican.VC</comment>