Are Index Funds Communist? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-24/are-index-funds-communist <comment><USER2> Ask most people how they invest and they'll tell you that they are passive investors, they only buy very diversified Vanguard ETF's with low fees.

This makes sense, the US, Canadian and most European stock markets have performed well over the past 100 years.

Here is a though experiment....

[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN- GE653_nikkei_G...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN- GE653_nikkei_G_20141229024237.jpg)

This is a chart of the Japanese stock market's returns over the past 25ish years. As you can see it's flat.

Japan stock market has been in a low interest rate, low growth regime for a long time now. You'll notice that its now back to where it was roughly in 1988.

What should people invest in when you are in a zero interest rate and zero growth stock market?

Bonds won't pay much in low interest rate environments and I'd/expect dividends to also be relatively paltry.

This is one area where I believe that active investing, specifically hedge funds, or other "smart beta" funds can be a win over passive investing. Though I might be biased.....

What other strategies can someone use in a stagnant growth and low interest rate environment?

Thoughts??

<comment><USER3> I have a thought...it borderlines on conspiracy theory, so I don't take it _too_ seriously...but I think index funds are actually damaging to the economy. It all starts from the premise that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Think about a truly reductionist outlook on the product of index funds: put money into this thing, with very little effort on your part, and you'll make enough money to retire on! Sounds way too good to be true, to just throw money at something and it makes you money.

One argument is that well, you're investing in the US economy (or the global economy, depending on your index fund). You're putting faith into the economy as a whole...but that means you're also blindly investing into businesses that may not (and should not) be performing well. Companies that may be lagging behind will be artificially inflated in a groupthink (or I guess groupinvest) mentality.

At a smaller level, this becomes a problem when those funds differentiate on things like market cap. If a company has a bad year and drops market cap from $2.5B to $1.8B, that means the company went from being a large cap to a mid cap company in the eyes of institutional investors. So based solely on market cap (and not fundamentals of the business), Vanguard will dump it from it's large cap funds and buy it up on it's mid cap funds. And if most people are only investing in the S&P 500 or Large Blend funds, then you're seeing a massive shift in ownership in companies solely based on one metric. How can this be sustainable for the overall economy? Warren Buffett and many successful investors have told people that you should treat a stock as owning a portion of a business. We've completely separated ourselves from that ownership (and responsibility) when we entrust our money in index funds. And when some of the largest companies are owned by some of the largest financial institutions, it seems like the companies are getting in bed with the same architects of our recent financial meltdowns.

In conclusion, something just seems off about throwing money at a fund that makes somewhat arbitrary decisions for how it owns businesses, and supports the bigger businesses while penalizing the smaller ones (via groupthink and ownership).

<comment><USER4> I don't think your idea is nuts at all. I see the TLDR of this article as (quoted from the article)

"...active management has positive externalities, and if no one will pay for it, those benefits will disappear."

It probably contributes to poor corporate governance. The more your shareholders don't even bother to vote their proxies or even think or read about them, the easier it is for management to gradually evolve into caring more about padding their position and making short term results look good than catering to long term shareholders

It's a bit of a free-rider problem -- as long as there's enough active shareholders, passive shareholders can get a free ride and profit from the (averaged) wisdom of the active ones without paying for it in time/effort. But if that keeps growing, eventually the active shareholders who care are a minority in the company, and at that point management is incentivized to ignore the minority that cares and just "appease Wall Street", ie do whatever gives short term stock boosts.

> And if most people are only investing in the S&P 500 or Large Blend funds

BTW, IIRC, the largest firms are so large that most of the market by market cap consists of the largest few, so investing in just large cap vs investing in the total market is close to the same -- you have to manually skew towards medium and small if you don't want them to be negligible in your portfolio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What? There is a choice involved in taking money out of one kind of index fund and putting it into another kind. There isn't one single fucking index fund!

Index funds are capitalist: cut out some of the lazy middle men (who doesn't care whether you win or lose, as long as he gets his cut) and lower the management fee.

Eliminating useless moochers is just as capitalist as it is communist. (All that differs is how "moocher" is defined, and whether force is used, or market choice).

</comment><comment><USER6> Nah. There's enough privately funded traders to keep the system going despite freeriding.

Fund managers playing the market with borrowed money might be in jeopardy though.

<comment><USER7> This. In fact, less active money sloshing around in the market should in theory create more opportunities for arbitrage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a market for active management services. If more active management is not adding value to customers portfolios on a marginal basis, customers will purchase less active management services. This happened over the past twenty years. He asserts "...active management has positive externalities, and if no one will pay for it, those benefits will disappear." There's no question that it produces positive externalities, for example setting bond prices, but this doesn't have to be static -- if public equity prices become less accurate, the bond guys will just have to start doing the research that the equity guys used to. Then equities traders will start looking at bond prices to guide equity purchases.

Looking at a macro/whole economy level, the only capital allocation questions are how to price an IPO or secondary offering, what to do with distributions, and corporate governance. Everything else is just moving money from one pocket to another, and once a company has gotten to S&P 500 size, there aren't very many secondary offerings. It seems highly unreasonable to me (and all of the other index investors) that this function is worth 1% of the market cap of all public companies, every single year, particularly when E/P ratios are 4%. That means your fund manager is taking 25% of the profits of all of the companies you own just for picking which ones to buy.

In the places where there are real decisions to be made, i.e. IPOs and governance, there are specialist companies that exist to make these decisions and try to profit from them -- activist investors and funds, private equity, and investment bank underwriters.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can't say enough good things about Francis Spufford's "Red Plenty." Great book.</comment>


Yahoo to Announce Zimbra Sale to VMware Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100111/yahoo-will-announce-zimbra-sale-to-vmware-tomorrow-as-it-looks-over-bids-for-small-biz-unit/ <comment><USER2> Vmware buying Zimbra intrigues me more than yahoo selling it. It would be interesting to see what they want to do with it since they dont really have any products currently in this space.

<comment><USER3> Near the end of the article:

 _One source noted that the reason VMware was interested in nabbing Zimbra is that its execs want to expand "up the stack" from the Silicon Valley software company's position in virtualization._

<comment><USER4> "One source noted that the reason VMware was interested in nabbing Zimbra is that its execs want to expand "up the stack" from the Silicon Valley software company's position in virtualization."

Too many clueless MBA types in VMWare?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if VMWare will change licensing schemes. Yahoo's model was by going through "value added resellers" and "hosting service partners".</comment>


Inventor designs 'Star Wars' hoverbikes that can reach speeds of 100mph - <AUTHOR> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/inventor-designs-star-wars-hoverbikes-4117343 <comment><USER2> I'd imagine this would function much like the Star Wars hoverbikes too, particularly in its tendency to kill four out of five riders within the first couple of minutes.

No seriously, good on him if he can get it to work, though I have my doubts. A hoverbike probably makes more sense than a hovercar, because while a car has to carry around all the weight of an enclosed cabin a bike can pretty much just be an engine with a seat.

On the other hand, if you take the danger of a regular motorcycle, and multiply it by the instability of a model helicopter, and then throw in four giant spinning blades, I think you have something that looks a lot like a floating death machine.</comment>


Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life on stricken spacecraft - I-M-S https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52264743 <comment><AUTHOR> I remember watching the Apollo 13 movie for the first time in 1995 and thinking at the time how modern they were in those far off days of 1970. Now the same length of time has passed since 1995 (in the blink of an eye) and it still hasn't dated. The internet is huge but it feels like the only thing we've done since 1970.

<comment><USER2> I understand that space fanbois find manned space exploration romantic. But it's not all about entertaining you.

Manned space flight has been a complete waste of resources and money, and likely will remain that way for the next 100 years.

Since 1970 far more influential events:

\- 747 (early 1970)

\- Intel 4004 (1971)

\- GPS (1980s)

\- Internet (1990s)

But aside from that, there have been incremental improvements of 1%/year in areas like fuel efficiency, medicine and metallurgy. That really adds up over 50 years.

The Space Shuttle literally ate America's space exploration budget, and didn't even go past LEO. Everybody knew this, yet nobody did anything about it.

The US needs to adopt space policies that actually advance science and technology, not manned spaceflight just for feel-good PR shots.

A good start would be de-orbiting the ISS ASAP - the final manned space flight should be to send somebody to the ISS with a chain saw.

<comment><USER3> The problem is not manned space exploration. The problem is a lack of focus on making space exploration cheaper, and a lack of investment.

Space Shuttle wasn't cheaper. It was ridiculously expensive, with designs decisions that shouldn't be made in the first place. If it was just a rocket that launched astronauts into space. That would be one thing. It's quite another to carry literal deadweight into space.

Look at SpaceX's starship program. It's much more ambitious than anything we have on the drawing board. It isn't just another super heavy lift rocket, but a _mass manufacturable_ reusable launch system. Everyone else is still thinking about how they will make reusuable rockets. Meanwhile, SpaceX is making their own game, playing on their own level.

Manned flight isn't a burden. It has nothing to do with why we stagnated in rocket development. In fact, manned flight is the point of SpaceX, especially colonization.

<comment><USER4> Can you image the government in charge of mobile phone design? The incredible innovation of Space X is primarily that it's a private company with accountability and incentives around it's customers, and of course run by someone who truly understands both the problem and the evolving technology.

<comment><USER5> Can you imagine mobile devices that are not built to extract the maximum possible profit from the systematic exploitation of people's private data and attention spans, leading to political manipulation and instability, all to further fill the coffers of the global elite, who already own most of the world?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not directly related to the article, but I would like to point out that Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, is a fantastic public speaker, have a look at this talk he gave at MIT: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUgTavzgSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUgTavzgSk).

</comment><comment><USER7> Anybody else who got curious as I did at which pre-Sony Walkman portable tape recorder the Apollo program used, it's _probably_ the Sony TC-50. My search brought me to this excellent techmoan video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXRVyszFbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXRVyszFbo)

</comment><comment><USER8> Basically, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensation) plus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super- resolution_imaging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_imaging)

</comment><comment><USER9> When reading the title, I first thought NASA found microbes or other forms of life on pictures of the spacecraft. That would have been an insane level of enhancement. Still a very interesting read though.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I was imagining they had used image enhancement to see thermal signatures of the astronauts from exterior terrestrial photographs during the radio blackout.

</comment></comment><comment> AA-BA-94-2A-56 Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life...

:D

...on stricken spacecraft...

:|</comment>


U.S. bans American companies from selling to Chinese phone maker ZTE - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-zte/u-s-bans-american-companies-from-selling-to-chinese-phone-maker-zte-idUSKBN1HN1P1 <comment><USER2> dupe [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16849392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16849392)

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad. I did post it a minute before.</comment></comment>


Solving the "Causes" Levenshtein Distance challenge - <AUTHOR> http://andothernoise.blogspot.com/2011/08/solving-causes-levenshtein-distance.html

<comment><USER2> On my local box, pypy changes execution time from ~17 seconds to 10 seconds.</comment>


Tutorial – Write a System Call - <AUTHOR> https://brennan.io/2016/11/14/kernel-dev-ep3/ <comment><USER2> I decided to read ep1[0] too and I saw a picture "use all the memory". I don't know if it's funnier that I checked if you have an "alt" HTML tag or that you actually wrote the text from the picture. People with alt tags are MVPs. :)

[0] - [https://brennan.io/2016/10/13/kernel-dev- ep1/](https://brennan.io/2016/10/13/kernel-dev-ep1/)

<comment><USER3> Do you remember when mousing over a picture would show the alt tag in something resembling a tooltip? (Maybe it can still be set like this, but isn't default in Chrome or Firefox anymore.) I recall being quite amused sometimes at what people would write as their alt text.

<comment><USER4> I think the `title` attribute is used to show the tooltips.

> I recall being quite amused sometimes at what people would write as their > alt text.

XKCD :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial, but why would one want to make a custom system call? What superpowers does this give you? Thanks in advance for your answers.

<comment><USER6> It's your best interface with the kernel. It's simple and high-performance. It's specifically what you want if you want to pass structured data in-memory to the kernel.

In a strict technical sense, there's nothing you _need_ a syscall for, you can just read/write data (or maybe do an ioctl) on a new device node or something. In fact, OpenAFS supports routing its "syscall" on Linux through ioctls on /proc/fs/openafs/syscall, because Linux makes it deliberately annoying to patch the syscall table from a kernel module so as to make life harder for rootkits.

However, it's simpler to pass data structures if you can use a syscall. It's much higher-performance than opening a file node. And if you expect to run in an environment where you don't know if a particular file will exist (e.g., a chroot), it's useful to use a syscall directly, because that's always available. For instance, getrandom was added in July 2014 partly for this reason, and partly so that if you ran out of file descriptors to open /dev/urandom you could still get randomness.

Here are all the syscalls added in the last two years:

* pkey_mprotect, pkey_alloc, pkey_free: support for a new Intel processor feature, Memory Protection Keys [https://lwn.net/Articles/643797/](https://lwn.net/Articles/643797/)

* preadv2, pwritev2: add a flags argument so you can do a non-blocking preadv or pwritev without opening the file in non-blocking mode [https://lwn.net/Articles/670231/](https://lwn.net/Articles/670231/)

* copy_file_range: copy data between two file descriptors, using filesystem support for efficient copies if possible [https://lwn.net/Articles/659523/](https://lwn.net/Articles/659523/)

* mlock2: add a flags argument so you can mlock memory when it's next accessed [https://lwn.net/Articles/650538/](https://lwn.net/Articles/650538/)

* membarrier: force a memory barrier on all running threads to help with userspace RCU, garbage collection, etc. [http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/membarrier.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/membarrier.2.html)

* userfaultfd: implement userspace paging [https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/vm/userfaultfd.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/vm/userfaultfd.txt)

* execveat: a version of execve that takes a file descriptor (or a fd and relative path) instead of a string to execute [http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/execveat.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/execveat.2.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmm... This is certainly very interesting. Can anyone think of any neat kernel-only things that one might implement for kicks as a learning project? Particularly for someone who hasn't done kernel programming? It could definitely be a silly thing, but probably more useful than printing to the kernel log.

<comment><USER8> Providing guaranteed access to random numbers has been a recent example of a new, badly needed, but fairly simple syscall. With getrandom(), you avoid the complexities of open/read/close and its associated error handling.

[https://lwn.net/Articles/606141/](https://lwn.net/Articles/606141/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great tutorial. Just a tip - if you change www.kernel.org to cdn.kernel.org you'll get a closer mirror site.

<comment><USER10> Oh very nice, thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One correction to the strncpy_from_user part, specifically this:

> The process could try to read another process's memory by giving a pointer > that maps into another process's address space.

This cannot happen, there is no such thing as "a pointer that maps into another process's address space". A virtual address in Linux (on x86 and probably almost all arches) accesses either the processes own memory map (where access to unmapped addresses causes a fault even when done from ring 0) or the kernel virtual mapping.

</comment><comment><USER12> Really cool tutorial, thanks for writing this up !

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought Linux uses sysenter/sysexit, not int 0x80/iret?

Still a good tutorial; there is no magic, it's all just software.

<comment><USER14> You are right, Linux uses INT 0x80 on x86 only when the SYSCALL/SYSENTER and SYSRET/SYSEXIT instructions are not available.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Web 2.0 and The Four Steps to the Epiphany - <AUTHOR>

Folks,
Those of you who have read Steven Gary Blank's excellent book "The Four Steps to the Epiphany", do you think these principles apply to Web 2.0 companies. In general every commercial business entity must make profits. And most successful enterprise software/hardware companies surprisingly seem to fit the model described in the book. But the majority of the Web 2.0 companies seem to defy this model but still continue to be popular (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc). Note: popular != commercially successful.
So, my question to the startup community is -- does anyone have an opinion on how the "Four Steps ..." can be applied to Web 2.0 companies. Most, if not all (including Google), seem to have evolved using the "Product Development Model" and not the "Customer development model". Those of you who have spent time in Enterprise software know that all most all successful companies in that space seemed to have followed the "Customer Development Model".
Your thoughts?
-- PS: PG's opinion on this would be very valuable to the community. <comment><USER2> I was going to buy this book...but I read this review...<http://eightpence.com/the-four-steps-to-the-epiphany-review/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I strongly believe it's a valuable resource, especially for web 2.0 companies. You can read my review here:

[http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-is- cu...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-is-customer- development.html)

And how it fits in with agile development here:

[http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/combining-...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/combining- agile-development-with.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Any chance of a quick outline of what the four steps are?</comment>


Ask HN: Are you an indie developer? please share your story! - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I've always loved building new things ever since I learnt about the power of programming. Since then I've developed many small tools to solve the problems that I faced in everyday life. Recently I watched Pieter Levels' Turning Side Projects Into Profitable Startups video and I came to know about the existence of solo entrepreneurs who are making money from their side projects. I think this is what I've always wanted to do. I'm a beginner in this space and I'm struggling to get good project ideas which can make money. So I would like to know how you guys got started, came up with an idea and earned your first $. Also, please share the things that you wish you knew when you started!
Regards, Sunil <comment><USER2> I haven't made any money running a business. I think I understand how to, but it'd be some time before money comes in. (As the saying goes, it takes ten years to become an overnight success).

That said, the system I've found that resonates the best with me at the moment is at [https://stackingthebricks.com/](https://stackingthebricks.com/) . It is very different from the typical lean startup model.</comment>


Announcing the full roll-out of the updated Google Maps for desktop - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!category-topic/maps/news/Zgqoqsvfipc <comment><USER2> Classic maps was usable and feature rich. New maps is terrible on both fronts.

<comment><USER3> I use google maps for about 15-20 minutes a day, every day. I didn't even realize we had been upgraded to a new version - Just took a quick peek, and the 4-5 things I do (Satellite, Transit, Traffic, Address Lookup, Driving Directions, Street View) - all seem to work pretty much the same on both maps - the newer interface seems to be more modern to me.

I have to believe, based on my what I would consider my own moderate google maps power users perspective, that fewer than 1% of google maps users will have any issues with this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, some of the user feedback in that thread is brutal.

<comment><USER3> Agreed - people are going ballistic. It's actually a good thread - I've learned how to:

      o Measure distances in google Maps (and put a nice marker on the screen)

      o Get the Long Lat for any point on a map.

The thing is - I don't actually know _why_ they are so upset, because they are, for the most part, not really calling out what their issues are, and the ones they have, seem kind of minor, like Missing a zoom bar.

Some of their rants are about things that exist (showing distance bars in Metric or Imperial, on the screen)

And some of them seem really, really niche: "Photo icons placed at the location of the photo overlaid on the map, and not in some useless "carousel" feature."

Some of them seem wrong, "Autocomplete not working" \- sure works for me. To a spooky degree that makes me wonder how it knows from "St. R " to automatically fill out "St. Regis, Singapore" \- I mean, yes, that's what I wanted, but seriously, WTF - how did you know?

Anyways, I'm guessing that their user interaction surveys have shown that nobody except the die-hard classic maps users will care. I wonder if there was a similar uproar when Apple decided to shut down aperture, and move to photos. Probably not, as all the people who cared had probably switched to lightroom a long, long time ago - and the ones left on aperture are probably going to be totally happy with Photos. (raises hand)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great so this is the way a good product becomes AWFUL.

\- Classic maps is great on all devices New Maps sucks when there is a lower power CPU? Slow and laggy

\- Why is there a Honking big Search box Hiding my map

\- AutoZoom that randomly decides that a "drag action' is a Zoom

\- Where are my previous searches? Why do they show up at-Most one at a time?

\-- On and on

This is truly a step backwards.

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't realize it wasn't completely rolled out. I've been using it for _years_.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd really like to see some basic navigation fixed first. For example, I was visiting Paris last week and you cannot get directions from airport (CDG) to any street address in the city for public transit. Similar to other route reachable via RER trains (ex. Disneyland Park). I'm sure Maps are great in USA, but they turned out to be quite useless for simple tour in one of the world's major cities.

And I'm not talking about departure/arrival times here. Just basic routing from point A to point B.

</comment><comment><USER8> My real complaint with google maps of late is how terribly slow they've been. I've tried on an android phone, an osx laptop, a windows desktop, all at different locations. The common theme is the abysmally slow load time. Bing maps has loaded quickly, as has open streetmap.

I'm not sure what's going on with their setup, but that's my only real complaint.

<comment><USER7> It seems to me that CPU is the bottleneck as it requires a lot of processing power. For example it feels really slow both on my Intel Core2Duo computer and on my Samsung Galaxy S2 Android phone. On the other hand, it works really fast on 2014 MacBook Pro with Intel Core i7 and it's solid on Nexus 10 tablet (although, this has degraded a lot after upgrading it to Lollipop).

Apparently Google engineers are using top of the line hardware and nobody is aware of the issue. Looks like some dogfooding is required. :)

<comment><USER9> Yeah, the new maps is entirely unusable on older hardware, especially hardware without GPU rendering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am curious if this will affect maps built using the API. I have a few sites and apps using the API that were created a number of years ago.

Haven't been able to find any comments that mention the API, so I'm hopeful it will be a transparent switch.

</comment><comment><USER11> I guess I'm among the minority of people who use google maps just to look up directions, see traffic, and look up nearby businesses, and that's enough for me. The one feature I don't see though is the ability do traffic estimations which was convenient.

I know the team will get there, I cannot fully support their decision to disable old maps but I can understand it. Most of flame in that thread is unfortunate and unnecessary and reminds me of this comic where in the first panel someone introduces a new feature, the customer complains and moans, and say the first version was good enough, then the next panel they introduce yet another version and it's the same behavior as the first panel, they want the one that is just about to get taken from them, always and forever.

<comment><USER12> The biggest complaint I'm seeing is that a specific feature is removed from the new version.

I too previously had a complaint about the peg man being removed. It was impossible to find the street view I needed without that.

<comment><USER3> But, peg man is back, right?

<comment><USER12> Yes, and that's when I started using the new version. So I understand the complaints about features missing. If there were no peg man I'd probably be pretty frustrated using Maps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The new version has been working great for a while now. My only complaint is how search results are displayed. Using svg over images is important.

</comment><comment><USER3> Note that Multi-Point distance measurement is _magical_ on the new Google Maps - is that even possible on the Classic?

<comment><USER3> For the downvoter - try it. I don't think i've ever seen anything like it on a mapping application - I added about 20 points, and it worked flawlessly.</comment></comment>


Why Some Cultures Frown on Smiling (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/culture-and-smiling/483827/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Sensationalist oversimplification.

For Russians, a smile serves a different function than for Americans. It's not used for communicating with others and does not serve as a social marker of openness or good mood. The social expectation is that a smile must always be prompted by something, whether it's someone's joke, or a humorous occurrence, or even own embarrassment.

People don't smile in posed group photos for the same reason sitters don't smile in Renaissance portraits. Does it really follow that smiles and laughter are alien to these weird people?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+cadets+smiling+milit...](https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+cadets+smiling+military+parade&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7oNz_1NDWAhVQxWMKHWoZD7UQ_AUICigB&biw=1281&bih=705#imgrc=m_V_OFNM0H1m_M):

<comment><USER3> _> the social expectation is that a smile must always be prompted by something_

Well, that's exactly the point that's interesting to analyze. I.e. _why_ there is such social expectation.

<comment><USER4> > why there is such social expectation.

Do you consider laughing at people at random to be socially acceptable? Why would smiling be fine but laughing not be?

Now the question becomes, _why_ do some cultures have the social expectation that an impromptu smile is acceptable?

<comment><USER3> See elsewhere in this thread. Cultures where smiles aren't common usually have something social attached to it. I.e. bloody historic past, constant instability and so on.

So I don't see here anything out of the ordinary. It's quite an expected effect on human emotions.

<comment><USER5> > _Cultures where smiles aren 't common usually have something social attached > to it. I.e. bloody historic past, constant instability and so on._

That's the premise of the article, but it's shody and hand wavy at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Krys focused on a cultural phenomenon called "uncertainty avoidance." > Cultures that are low on this scale tend to have social systems—courts, > health-care systems, safety nets, and so forth—that are unstable. Therefore, > people there view the future as unpredictable and uncontrollable. Smiling is > a sign of certainty and confidence, so when people in those countries smile, > they might seem odd. Why would you smile when fate is an invisible wolf > waiting to shred you? You might, in those "low-UA" countries, even be > considered stupid for smiling. Krys also hypothesized that smiling in > corrupt countries would be, um, frowned upon. When everyone's trying to pull > one over on each other, you don't know if someone's smiling with good > intentions, or because they're trying to trick you._

Sounds a little sketchy to me. For one, tons of e.g. African, Latin American, etc countries are way more unstable and/or corrupt than the Eastern Europe/Russia countries the author mentions and yet they smile all the time without an issue.

Heck, he has Japan, France and South Korea high in the "unsmiling" countries and Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Philippines, China etc high in the "smiling" ones -- I guess no corruption on the latter group.

All the data table shows it "fuck if we know the actual reason" and not "it's corruption and lack of trust".

</comment><comment><USER6> There's a point to be made by (sometimes snarky) non-Americans about the stereotypical "dumb, always smiling" American - there are times when it _is_ insincere or a bit unnecessary and I think that this _is_ unique to America. I also find this stereotype to vary by location - it's more apparent when venturing down South, for example, but less so in a place like NYC.

That being said, and this is anecdotal, but I've had experiences from all over the country - I've lived in the Northeast, spent extensive time and have family in the South, etc; a lot of the time people _are_ smiling genuinely or being cheerful with purpose. Most of the time it's not a facade, naivety, or sign of stupidity, as some would like to think.

Is it really hard to consider the possibility that Americans just have a more positive attitude? And why is that a bad thing?

<comment><USER7> I saw a lot of this with tourists posing for pictures at the 9/11 memorial in NYC. Cringe. There are times when it is absolutely inappropriate to smile.

<comment><USER6> Sure, I totally agree.

I was referring to more "day to day" attitudes than situational though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> _> It's evidence that you're a fool—a tricky fool._

I'd say it's not as much a sign of trickery, as a sign of inner confidence, or to put it better, inner freedom. That's already standing out in 1984-like society, or society described in "Collective responsibility"[1][2]. And standing out there could bears risks. So no smiling can be perceived as an implicit defensive expression.

[1]: [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Скованные_одной_цепью](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Скованные_одной_цепью)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0QuEpg4V4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0QuEpg4V4U)

</comment><comment><USER8> > _Why do some societies not encourage casual smiling?_

Because smiling is a thing you do (as opposed to something you actively avoid doing), and doing something with no reason is silly.

> _Russian women do not have to worry about being instructed by random men to > "smile."_

That's also a very good reason.

<comment><USER9> Is the stranger men telling women to smile really the thing in America?

<comment><USER10> Perhaps in the older generation it may have been tolerated, but in the current generation it would considered be very offensive.

It's a behavior outside of the norm and associated with men who don't respect social boundaries with women for whatever reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of when my wife conveyed enthusiasm about her tech job to some family and friends of family back in France, how interesting the work was, creative, etc, only to have them snicker and declare, "look at you, so American now, you can't stop smiling." And yes, the connotation was something like vanity and superficiality.

</comment><comment><USER12> Knew this would be about Russia.

I've often heard it said that the Slavic soul is one of constant malaise. Who knows if it's true, but living up in an inhospitable climate and 1000 years of war and strife can certainly shape a culture.

My Ukrainian family also never smiles, even at the happiest of times it was barely more than a smirk, and laughter was never really a thing. No smiles in photos, ever. Yet all were stoic and content, probably happier than most.

<comment><USER13> Which part of Ukraine, if you don't mind sharing?

<comment><USER12> Ukrainian Canadian, so western Ukraine, was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Even though several generations grew up here, my family mostly lived in an ethnic enclave, I'm the first who doesn't speak Ukrainian.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The extremes in the graph are interesting - Japanese think smilers are the stupidest, Germans think they're the smartest but not that honest. The Swiss think smilers are very smart and very honest, Iranians think they are studpid and dishonest.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is fascinating stuff. Ta to whomever put it here for broadening my horizons a bit.

I've been aware that my general cultural norms are not transferable worldwide but I'd always considered smiling a universal human thing that worked everywhere as a sign of friendliness.

Many cultures nod their head for yes and shake for no. Some do the reverse. This I get (eventually) but smiling - really? Well, yes ... why not?

I think that there is a more fundamental thing to smiling/frowning/scowling as opposed to nodding and shaking the head as expressions.

It's complicated.

<comment><USER16> >smiling a universal human thing that worked everywhere as a sign of friendliness

Smiling is always a sign of friendliness. It's just that some places you cannot expect to smile at nothing and will end up looking silly. In those places even small talk is frowned upon unless you really want to be their friends.

The author missed the most important part in this: In these countries you cannot be friendly and not be friends. In western countries it's polite to smile and be friendly to strangers but we do not expect them to become our friends

>Many cultures nod their head for yes and shake for no. Some do the reverse.

I am not sure if you are thinking of India and it's a general stereotype that Indians do it reverse but we nod for yes and shake for no like the rest of the world with two exceptions: It's rude to say no to seniors in most asian cultures so juniors always say yes AND we have a third head shake which means I agree/ You are correct/ I will do it/Subject to interpretation

<comment><USER17> He's probably thinking about Bulgaria, which is famous for this.

<comment><USER15> Yes I was - never been to India but I have been to Bulgaria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To me a much simpler explanation is that people in Russia are incredibly sad and life there is very sad and hard. However almost no one there realizes it until they get out for a prolonged period of time.

Me and my wife were born and spent most of our life in Russia, we were pretty well of and yet since moving to US we realized how sad it actually was.

The collective consciousness of Russia is still heavily polluted with pain, fear, uncertainty and mistrust of everyone because of the terrible events that unfolded throughout it's history, but mostly in 20th century. Millions were murdered and executed during and after the revolution, more were executed before 2nd world war, 10s of millions died in the 2nd world war.

Repressions, starvation, constant economic struggles nullifying people's saving and results of life's work and at the end of work life, a sight of a miserly pension that unifies everyone, regardless of previous status in life, in poverty. Most old people who live on a pension look like homeless people in US.

Russian families mostly are highly codependent and dysfunctional, a lot of men drink and women resort to constant unhappy nagging and displeased demeanor. A lot of spouse relationships play out the role child/parent, where the wife is being a parent and husband is being unruly child, avoiding the responsibilities and hiding from the consequences. Public displays of affection are almost non-existant, very hard to find genuinely happy couples, especially those who've been married for a while.

The country itself has terrible ecology, most cities struggle with crazy levels of pollution because of the car traffic and factories built within city limits. A lot of cars are from soviet times so they produce a lot of smoke, sometimes after a bus passes you by you can't see anything because of the clouds of black smoke.

The cities are covered in soot and the roads are covered in dirt, sand and road salt. That dirt is everywhere, covering the trees, cars, houses. It's unthinkable to live in Russia and don't clean you shoes every couple of days, because they get very dirty. After every rain the dirt is everywhere. All of this combined makes cities look grey, especially during the spring, winter and fall, excluding the short summer period that lasts usually around 3 months where green of the trees and grass dilutes all of this a bit.

Don't take my word for it, here's the real Russian news site of the city Krasnoyarsk, population 1 mil. It shows center of the city:

[http://prima- tv.ru/news/incidents/43896-sosulka_ubila_muzhch...](http://prima- tv.ru/news/incidents/43896-sosulka_ubila_muzhchinu_v_centre_goroda/)

To me all of that explains really well why there's not much to smile about. If you're smiling without a reason people see you as someone who have things going well and feel jealousy and want to bring you down in their own heads to justify their own misery.

A lot of people in Russia leave in the denial of the true causes of their suffering and unhappiness and I'm sure they'll downvote this.

<comment><USER13> Ukraine was hit just as hard during the 20th century, if not harder, and yet I have observed the inhabitants of Kiev to be the most cheerful and smiling people (that was 20 years ago).

<comment><USER18> I completely agree with your assessment, and that leads me to believe that the Ukrainians and Russians do in fact have different cultures.

A lot of countries have been hit pretty hard during 20th century, but Russians were especially cruel to their own people and I believe that cuts much deeper. For example Golodomor in Ukraine is thought of as an external act of violence of Russians / Soviets, while concentration camps, mass executions in Soviet Russia were all done by Russians to Russians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article reconciles with my experience of some older Indian relatives who considered smiling to the point of revealing your teeth showing yourself to be moronic. Even some phrases like 'he/she has got their teeth out'. Of course there were exceptions for a particularly funny social joke but yeah in general standing around smiling comes across as daft to them.

</comment><comment><USER20> I actually thought the smiling people in the images seemed less intelligent and less honest than the neutral looking people.

<comment><USER21> For me there's a big difference between someone flashing their teeth in a big grin, and a photo that freezes the moment in time. The longer I look at such a motionless smile, the sillier it seems.

FWIW, I'm from Germany (way to the right on the graph) and probably somewhat of an outlier, since people kept asking me whether I was sad when I just made a neutral face. I ended up training myself to always curl my lips slightly to stop those questions.

<comment><USER22> "Where would we be without humor?"

"Germany"

<comment><USER20> I think Italians have less humor than Germans. Italian stand-up comedy is quite boring, from what I've seen so far.

<comment><USER23> We cant all be british. Which regarding humor is quite sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What about on social media? Do the profile pictures on Russian social media include smiling?

</comment><comment><USER25> I think people forget that, if by a "smile" we mean any showing of teeth, not all of them are created equal. And the impression they convey can radically change depending on facial expression. Some _do_ look stupid, or dishonest.

</comment><comment><USER26> The ease with which you smile might have a genetic component.

:Confirmation Bias Engaged: People with bigger mouths tend to smile more than those with smaller mouths. :Confirmation Bias Disengaged:

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm with the Russians on this one.

I hate smiling for photographs (hate getting my photograph taken in general), as it just feels totally forced and false.

</comment><comment><USER28> Atleast in India, cheaters do smile too much. it would look like too much fake smile.

</comment><comment><USER29> why are there so many photos of Putin smiling?

</comment><comment> throw-away-8 Same question in a mirror: why some cultures promote phoniness and avoid true feelings? Actually I wonder why some cultures are prone to inflicting genocide.

<comment><USER30> Perhaps you are referring to some dictatorships, e.g. fascism in Italy, where people where expected to be cheerful and optimistic at all times and being gloomy or pessimistic was strongly discouraged by the government.

<comment> throw-away-8 Nice try but not at all: governments come and go while cultures have a much longer lifetime. Witness "grim and gloomy" russians under prescriptive eternally optimistic communist dictatorship. I think those folks that downvoted my comment had a different idea and, perhaps, felt it's too close to home for comfort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Grim.

</comment><comment><USER11> "It's just that grinning without cause is not a skill Russians possess or feel compelled to cultivate."

Unlike depression, and mathematics.</comment>


Show HN: A foundation for building cross-browser extensions - <AUTHOR> https://www.emailthis.me/open-source/extension-boilerplate <comment><USER2> Wish I used something like this to build my Weather Extension [https://weatherextension.com/](https://weatherextension.com/)</comment>


A common bug in published code - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=\(int\)\s*Math\.random\(\)

<comment><USER2> For non-Java heads, (int) Math.random() generates a random double from [0,1) which is then cast as an integer (which means that it is always truncated to 0).

They probably wanted something like (int) (Math.random()*2) which will give you 0 half the time or 1 half the time.

Although it is still a really inefficient way to generate 1-bit of entropy (but sometimes it just isn't worth the trouble to instantiate a Random object, so I guess I could look past that ...).

<comment><USER3>
        (new Random()).nextBoolean();  // too much trouble?
        (new Random()).nextInt(2);     // too much trouble?

<comment><USER4> Aargh, no! That will seed the RNG on the basis of the current time. According to the docs, "Two Random objects created within the same millisecond will have the same sequence of random numbers" which really really isn't likely to be what you want.

To get sensible results, you need instead to keep a single Random object around and use it every time you need another bit. And yes, that's more trouble than just calling Math.random and tweaking the result.

<comment><USER4> Er, actually it looks as if exactly what this does depends on what version you're using. The Java Platform SE 6 docs say "This constructor sets the seed of the random number generator to a value very likely to be distinct from any other invocation of this constructor." Same for 5. But 1.4.2 has the text I quoted above.

In any case, creating a new Random object every time you want a random number is unlikely to give satisfactory results. There is certainly no guarantee that the implementation will try to make it do so.

<comment><USER5> Reread the docs! The API hasn't changed from 1.4 to 1.6. nextInt(x)'s is used to generate numbers from [0,x) Maybe in 1.6 they started using a better seeding source for randomness since they added System.nanoTime(). But, your original objection is a wrong interpretation of the API docs.

<comment><USER4> Huh? I didn't say anything about nextInt.

The point is that if every time you want a random number you construct a new Random object using the default constructor, then (1) if you're using version 1.4 or earlier then rapidly repeated "random" number generation will give you the same result over and over, and (2) if you're using version 1.5 or later then it's (quite rightly) almost entirely unspecified what you'll get and whether it will be "random enough" for any particular purpose and whether it will be terribly inefficient.

(I'm wondering whether perhaps you missed the fact that lucifer's proposed constructions involve making a new Random object each time you want some randomness.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google code search needs a "submit bug report to all" function.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's a good one - assignment inside an if: [http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=if\\(\w%...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=if\\\(\\w%2B\\s%2B%3D\\s*\\w%2B\\\)&sbtn=Search)

Not always a bug, but quite a few of these look like bugs - the first result is especially suspect!

<comment><USER8> I don't think that the first one is a bug. First, no programmer with any experience would write (variable == true) instead of (variable). Second, there are a number of lines commented out in that area so it's likely that that particular code was intended as a "temporary hack". I think the intention of the author was definitely assignment in that case, although it is expressed in a hackish, unreadable way. Seeing the previous revisions of the same file would be helpful.

EDIT/TLDR: It looks like it either is intentional, or written by very unexperienced developer.

<comment><USER7> It is almost certainly a bug.

Fact: mAutoCommit has a setter bean property.

mAutoCommit looks like it can be toggled to true/false to enable automatic updating of some configuration inside the setValue(Object) method. I'm 99.9999 percent sure that the author of the code did not intend to toggle the mAutoCommit option to 'true' each time a configuration value is set.

I will agree, however, that this is almost certainly written by an inexperienced developer. It's not a stretch to think that the inexperienced developer who might test a boolean with x == true might also forget an equals sign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hmph - second hit is in the OpenJDK code. I guess the author forgot to include braces and so randomDelay() always has a delay of 0.

<comment><USER10> int runs = (int) Math.random() * _1000000_ ;

is equivalent to int runs = (int) (Math.random() * 1000000);

This search is better ( "\s?[;)]" is added at the end): [http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=\%28int...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=\\%28int\\%29\\s*Math\\.random\\%28\\%29\\s*\[%3B%29\]&sbtn=Search)

<comment><USER11> Actually it looks like casting (being a unary operator) takes precedence over multiplication:

[http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/op...](http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/operators.html)

[http://www.cs.uwf.edu/~eelsheik/cop2253/resources/op_precede...](http://www.cs.uwf.edu/~eelsheik/cop2253/resources/op_precedence.html)

<comment><USER12> Right:

[http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/expre...](http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/expressions.doc.html#238146)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why is that a bug? 0 is as good a random number as any!

</comment><comment><USER14> Don't forget (long)Math.random(): [http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=%5C%28l...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=%5C%28long%5C%29%5Cs*Math%5C.random%5C%28%5C%29&sbtn=Search)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is terrible. Also, a great way to get high scores in games that use it.

<comment><USER16> ? how?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also available in python: [http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=int\%28...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=int\\%28random\\.random\\%28\\%29\\%29&sbtn=Search)

Only 7 matches though. 1 false positive (print(random.random()) in python itself, and no real bugs in projects that I recognize.

<comment><USER18> A minor tweak to your search to fix the false positives: [http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=[^\w]int\%28random\\.rando...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=\[^\\w\]int\\%28random\\.random\\%28\\%29\\%29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So what's the bug? Casting?</comment>


Ask HN: Alternative to Firebase? - <AUTHOR> Any recommendations on Firebase alternatives?
Would like: - DB - Authentication - Hosting of static files
Thank you! <comment><USER2> you might want to check Kinto: [https://kinto.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](https://kinto.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will check it out :)</comment></comment>


Evaluating State and Local Business Tax Incentives [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/slattery-zidar-taxincentives-2020.pdf <comment><USER2> The submitted title ('"No evidence" that tax incentives given to companies increased economic growth') broke the site guidelines, which say: " _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don 't editorialize._"

Cherry-picking the detail you think is most important from an article is a form of editorializing. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, do not do so by cherry-picking a detail to put in the title. Instead, post it is a comment in the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22level%20playing%20field%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

Edit: on top of that, it looks like the article is behind a hard paywall, so no one can actually read it. That means the thread is reacting mostly to the title, and mostly to the heavily editorialized title before we changed it. That isn't nearly enough information for a substantive discussion. Please don't make submissions like that to HN.

Edit 2: scratch that last point—there's a link to the paper downthread.

<comment><USER3> The paywall is not hard, since the paper is at [https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/file...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/slattery- zidar-taxincentives-2020.pdf) , found by Googling "pdf Evaluating State and Local Business Tax Incentives".

<comment><USER2> Oh good. Thanks!

Edit: seems reasonable to change the URL to that. Submitted URL was [https://www.nber.org/papers/w26603](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26603).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sort of reminds me of a conversation I had with a guy with a stake in a restaurant close to a major sports arena development where I grew up. It totally changed the way I looked at economic impact reports on commercial developments, particularly sports arenas.

The city put up millions in taxpayer funds to get the arena built for the local high-profile college basketball team, and numerous reports were published around the positive economic impact of the stadium, citing increased spending around downtown, etc.

However, the report failed to account for "micro" details that can have a major impact on local business, like traffic congestion, entertainment capacity, etc. On game days, his restaurant is overcrowded and turning away patrons, which negatively impacts his staff and quality of experience. But there are only 15 or so games per year, and the off-season attractions are hit-or-miss in terms of attendance. And when nothing is going on, business is even more varied.

It's relatively easy to calculate how many people come to town for a big event and how much they spend, extrapolating that out to some great figure, but a restaurant can't reasonably rely on ~15 big days per year. Quite often, economic impact reports are commissioned by folks who have business or political interests at stake, thereby overlooking the potential bottlenecks that such developments expose. And because most of the public doesn't understand finance or real estate, and yet they love the basketball team, a more nuanced conversation around the topic is harder to find.

<comment><USER5> As a non-sports person, I never understood our country's obsession, preferential treatment, and worshiping of anything that has to do with NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, be it tax subsidies of stadium, cable bundling of sports channel, or looking down on people who are not into sports.

<comment><USER6> Politics itself has become sports, too. Red team or blue team.

From up here in Canada the weird fusion of school and sport down there is also bizarre. Yes, people play sports in our schools... but wow is it cultish down there.

<comment><USER7> This describes the majority of voters which do not have a clue as to what they are voting for, or the platform that their favorite candidate stand on. The just blindly vote the party ticket because that's their team. Generally, it is the swing voters that are more informed on politics and don't necessarily vote the party ticket.

<comment><USER8> I heard this argument _a lot_ , and perhaps the people I find myself around are abnormal, but I'm trying and failing to come up with people I know who vote along party lines simply because it's one party or the other. Just about everyone has at least one major issue that keeps them from voting the other way, and most have multiple reasons.

I guess I have seen something like it, now that I'm thinking about it -- but it's generally a negative condition, i.e. "I'm _not_ voting for X simply because they are part of party Y." They're not necessarily voting for their party because it's their party, but they're doing it because it's _not_ another party, or more specifically, not a particular candidate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > While we find some evidence of direct employment gains from attracting a > firm, we do not find strong evidence that firm-specific tax incentives > increase broader economic growth at the state and local level. Although > these incentives are often intended to attract and retain high-spillover > firms, the evidence on spillovers and productivity effects of incentives > appears mixed.

So, would this mean that the study is analogous to a null result being spun to mean a negative result in the title? "We do not find strong evidence" is not the same as "no evidence".

I wonder if this is what would happen should more failure to reproduce papers were published to fix the reproducibility crisis- instead of encouraging more critical analysis, the abstracts will just get summed up into clickbait titles that continue to mislead.

<comment><USER10> "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence)

<comment><USER11> Yes, but saying "there is no evidence of X" is not claiming evidence of absence. That would be "There is evidence of not X", which the paper does not claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Current submission headline: ""no evidence" that tax incentives given to companies increased economic growth"

Such incentives usually aren't directly premised on "increased growth", but rather "local jobs" – and the linked study's abstract reports "we find that average employment within the 3-digit industry of the deal increases by roughly 1,500 jobs".

The abstract also reports "mixed" results "on spillovers and productivity effects of incentives", and "unclear" effects on "equity".

Now, I'm not a fan of such locality-vs-locality targeted-incentive competition – which is likely zero-sum or negative-sum across all localities. And without broader growth, the costs may be too expensive for the narrow employment gains.

But the current editorialized, excerpted headline makes it sound like the thrust of this study was to find no benefits at all for such deals, and that's not the mixed story it's actually reporting.

<comment><USER13> >Now, I'm not a fan of such locality-vs-locality targeted-incentive competition, and without broader growth, the costs may be too expensive for the narrow employment gains.

I can't even see how you can theoretically expect growth from this because by definition in a common market like the US tax incentives of localities are zero sum. It doesn't really matter if jobs or growth are created in X or Y because the US has a federal government to even out imbalances anyway.

So to allow this regulatory race to the bottom _within a country or a market_ makes no sense to me at all. Only if the firm would move abroad would there be a net loss.

<comment><USER14> _So to allow this regulatory race to the bottom within a country or a market makes no sense to me at all. Only if the firm would move abroad would there be a net loss._

I think part of the trouble is that tax rates are very different across different states. If the US were to ban all state and local tax incentives, then that would very much hurt high-tax states, as they'd then have fewer tools left to compete with low-tax states in attracting businesses.

<comment><USER15> If business was only about taxes, all of silicon valley would relocate to Cleveland yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tax incentives in the US happen (a) where an entrenched industry negotiates it using its existing jobs as leverage; and (b) where a depressed region hopes to attract new investment. In the latter case offsetting problems conspire to prevent economic growth. That tends to be labor pool mismatch, poor regulatory environment as compared to other states, and overseas competition that offers supply chain and labor advantages. In other words, tax incentives aren't enough, period.

<comment><USER17> Labor advantages are the biggest deal. The US spends a mind boggling amount of money on education and still gets out-competed by struggling poor countries.

My company just hired two H1B's to do Sharepoint work because there was literally no one in my part of the state qualified who didn't already have a job doing something more fun, and no one else wanted to move to the middle of nowhere. And we already pay 10% above market for the state to attract people to our little backwater locale.

<comment><USER18> 10% above the rest of the state to move to the middle of nowhere obviously wasn't enough. When a company says they can't find anyone to hire, what they really mean most of the time is "we can't find anyone to hire for the mostly arbitrary price we want to hire them at."

My guess is the company is making far more off of those employees than the labor cost, so if you didn't have access to H-1B employees you would have kept increasing the salary 20%, 30%, 50% until you found someone.

<comment><USER19> I can't tell you how many times I've heard an org say that did a market analysis and the offered wage is "competitive" so clearly it's a labor supply issue and not possible that they are not offering enough compensation. Competitive does not mean "we're offering a little more than the minimum salary we saw on glassdoor," but often that's exactly how they determined it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I highly recommend this talk on corporate tax breaks and poverty in Louisiana: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38)

</comment><comment><USER21> Mississippian here, where this sort of policy is just another day. Here's more evidence that supports this paper: [https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/02/how-much-have-tax- cu...](https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/02/how-much-have-tax-cuts-cost- mississippi-577m-since-2012/)

</comment><comment><USER22> You can read the full paper here:

[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/file...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/slattery- zidar-taxincentives-2020.pdf)

Additionally, here are the slides:

[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/file...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/slides_jep_20200103.pdf)

And the non-technical summary:

[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/file...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/bizincentivessummary_20-01-03.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER23> Profit can be gamed and there are all sorts of little write-offs here, exceptions there, and loopholes besides.

What we need is a lower rate against more receipts, and incentives only on things actually likely to spur growth. Imagine if every publicly traded company paid %2 on revenue minus payroll, employee training and healthcare, and maybe depreciation. The only way to pay less tax is to pay your workers and vendors more, but you don't need to shift things to this expense or that expense to dodge a profit tax.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Trickle down" economics is a scam and doesn't work:

[https://www.nber.org/papers/w21035](https://www.nber.org/papers/w21035)

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore- we...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth- global-economy-tax-havens)

<comment><USER3> Do you think companies don't consider taxes when locating new factories and offices? I don't support tax incentives for individual companies, but I do support keeping state corporate and personal income taxes low to attract businesses.

<comment><USER25> I think you meant "companies" and not "states".

Problem is it becomes a bidding war that causes states to forego tax revenue with ZERO recourse if that company decides to pack up and move somewhere else. This is especially true of companies that are not bound by development costs (e.g., Amazon warehouse vs. a semiconductor fab). Several New England state economies are fucked because they gave away tons of money in tax breaks hoping increased sales tax and income tax (on workers for those companies!!!) would offset the tax giveaway. E.g., CT is fucked for this very reason.

Eventually the state has no recourse if the company changes its mind. Go look at what's happening with Foxconn's multibillion dollar scam in Wisconsin. Or Hillsboro oregon where intel gets 30 years without paying taxes. (Granted, Intel can't pack up and move easily because they invested 10's of billions in a big ugly fab that pollutes [see the "waivers" they "negotiated" to allow them to continue dumping fluorine emissions to avoid costly fab retrofits]).

One solution is to allow states to sue if a company breaches contracts. But many states are just piss poor and cannot afford to take on a trillion dollar company (Amazon, Facebook), or a company from another country (Foxconn).

Another solution is to actually tax corporations federally, since the government already redistributes blue-state wealth to red-state welfare.

Warren has a great idea: tax companies on their SEC revenue CLAIMS rather than their IRS filings, which tend to differ by billions.

<comment><USER26> _Eventually the state has no recourse if the company changes its mind._

Sounds like the states suck at negotiating contracts.

Why would you to give something of value, with no recourse if the other party doesn't deliver?

<comment><USER25> If you look at what happened with Wisconson and Foxconn, you basically had a web of corruption at the highest levels of government with support from the POTUS. They deliberately negotiated a shitty deal because they are all corrupt. It's not that hard to see, unless you happen to be a Trump supporter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maybe we can look for a relationship between tax incentives and campaign donations?

</comment><comment><USER28> This is probably highly variant depending on the jurisdiction, the company, the specific terms of a deal, and so on. The Wisconsin Foxconn deal was terribly structured, and it left taxpayers holding the bag with little protection. However, the NY Amazon deal was a good one, with the city's own projections showing a 27:1 ROI. That deal was comprised mostly of existing programs like Excelsior, ICAP, and REAP. These programs only provide a subsidy for prior results, rather than up-front lumpsums. IIRC only $500M of the total subsidy package for Amazon was in the form of a grant, and it was itself tied to investments Amazon would be obligated to make contractually. The aforementioned NY/NYC programs have been used for numerous companies, and presumably the city and state agencies operating these programs view them as successful, since they continue to offer them.

</comment><comment><USER29> TFA does not say "No evidence"

<comment><USER30> I see that the abstract doesn't say "no evidence". Did anyone download the full paper to see if "no evidence" was quoted there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> >In 2014, states spent between $5 and $216 per capita... Collectively, these incentives amounted to nearly 40% of state corporate tax revenues for the typical state, but some states' incentive spending exceeded their corporate tax revenues

studies that need a painfully clear understanding of statistics that start off making muddy, unclear statements like this are really hard to take seriously. What is a typical state? are you comparing california and vermont? is typical a median or mean? the tax incentive data involving faang and walmart is going to be preposterously different than single-location small businesses.

This abstract strongly incentivizes me to not read the article.

<comment><USER32> The odds of a random HN reader eventually writing an economic paper are fairly low, while the odds of the original authors writing another paper are high. Perhaps you should tell them what you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a reminder: every business, everywhere, already gets a 100% tax exemption on every cent spent on hiring employees, buying new equipment, etc. ANY money invested into ANY business equipment, hiring more staff, or whatever you might do to expand the business is completely tax-free and always has been.

Tax incentives or corporate tax breaks apply only to money retained by the owners as profits. Therefore, any tax incentives you give are encouraging the owners to keep more of the business's money as profits and to invest less in the growth of the business.

<comment><USER34> Right but the problem with business is that it is risky. If there are no profits, why risk your capital in the first place? Might as well just buy gold bars or art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> _" There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth."_

However:

 _" However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution."_

[https://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandecon...](https://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER36> The tax money given to companies through tax incentives means that there is not schools being built. There is not roads being paved since those taxes where never collected. If there was no tax incentives the same amount of people would be employees. States are competing with the best tax bids. Public hospitals and universities are not being funded. All that lost revenue may lead to worse development of society as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER37> Someone actually did a report on this? Its obvious what needs to be said to gain consensus vs actual benefits.

The actual benefit was reducing the tax burden on various entities, because thats what they wanted to happen.

Gaining consensus on that means saying whatever is necessary.

Who is this report for? The governments revenues or budget constraints aren't really affected by anything as long as it is willing to spend it all on military and obligations.

Lower taxes just for fun!

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting conclusion from the "National Bureau of Economic Research", which is not a government agency as its name suggests, but rather a private think- tank like thing. Krugman calls it "the old-boy network of economics made flesh". That is, it's conservative in the sense of favoring the status quo, it's old and stodgy, etc etc.

<comment><USER34> This happens on both sides. Most of these "think tanks" just craft up bogus research to push some agenda. It happens on both sides of the debate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Just finished reading Dictator Handbook.

So, the catch is - it doesn't matter for the politicians. They want to give those tax incentives to get re-elected. Whether it is proven or not is irrelevant as they will find another reason to do it.

<comment><USER40> It's almost like big money in politics is a bad thing. Citizens United will finish this country as we know it, and soon. "Money equals free speech" is just such a cynical and intellectually dishonest argument. "If you want MORE free speech, maybe you should be more rich".

<comment><USER41> It seems unfair that those who have more money may have more influence--and in a sense, it is.

But as it is, you have the freedom to speak, to collaborate with others to speak, and to gather more resources to speak more effectively--and the government may not restrict you from doing so.

And what is the alternative? Allow the government to decide how much speech you may have? How much speech is worth? Catalog and index everyone's speech to ensure they aren't exceeding their quota? Disallow citizens from freely collaborating and associating for the purpose of speech? That's not freedom. We know where censorship leads.

One can recognize the drawbacks of big PACs and corporate political spending, while at the same time recognizing that those are natural consequences of liberty.

As they say, freedom of speech is the worst--except for the alternatives.

<comment><USER42> but freedom of speech is really incidental to the core issue of the disproportionate influence of money in politics. yes, no one should be deprived of the fundamental right of speech (against the government). but that's the important bit--it's a freedom from the _tyranny of a government_.

the same foundational principle applies to money in politics. a money-driven influence campaign is an exercise of power, not simply of speech (against the government), and that has tyrannical implications because the moneyed interests behind the campaigns seek political power over the rest of us.

to counter that, we insist on transparency in the exercise of any kind of power, including the people ultimately behind the money (no matter how removed). the danger of citizens united, as i understand it, is not that it sanctioned money in power, but that it did not required full and absolute transparency all the way down the line.

<comment><USER41> If I understand you correctly, you would seem to advocate for a positive right of a citizen to know how another citizen has freely spent his own money.

And not only citizens, but the government would know as well, for "full and absolute transparency" would not prevent the government from seeing and using such information. As we have already seen, the Executive can misuse federal agencies to impede the financial efforts of his political opponents, so granting that right would not seem wise.

For the same reason that we vote by secret ballot, not allowing citizens to spend their money secretly for political advocacy would also lead to a form of social tyranny. Consider Brendan Eich.

<comment><USER42> it's a bedrock principle of our constitutional framework that we know who is exercising political power, to avoid corruption and tyranny. it's why we have 3 co-equal branches of government that must make their deliberations and decisions known to the public.

and scale matters. PACs with millions of dollars can exercise political power in a way that regular individuals cannot. the public needs to know who is exercising power (that it's in the form of spending money is incidental).

no one can (or should) protect you from all repercussions, and social pressure is better than (destabilizing) violence.

<comment><USER41> > it's a bedrock principle of our constitutional framework that we know who is > exercising political power, to avoid corruption and tyranny.

A statement so vague could justify anything.

> it's why we have 3 co-equal branches of government that must make their > deliberations and decisions known to the public.

In fact, they aren't so required.

> and scale matters. PACs with millions of dollars can exercise political > power in a way that regular individuals cannot. the public needs to know who > is exercising power (that it's in the form of spending money is incidental).

You've ignored every point I've made and have repeated yourself.

> no one can (or should) protect you from all repercussions

An argument I did not make.

> and social pressure is better than (destabilizing) violence.

The former tends to cause the latter.

If you just want to speak without listening, you could write a blog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Since when are political decisions evidence-based? Serious question. Tax incentives aren't there because they work, but rather because lots of people believe they work. Politics works on beliefs, not facts.

<comment><USER44> How can you even begin to counter a mistaken belief without evidence that the belief is indeed mistaken?

<comment><USER43> You substitute one belief system for another. No evidence needed. It's not hard to find people who have done just that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Imagine you run a company that makes a million dollars a year in profit and that there is a flat 10% tax on that profit.

Run the thought experiment of what you'd do if that taxes doubled or halved.

I don't know about you, but in the case of taxes doubling I'd reduce my profit margin by investing in the business to increase top-line revenue and profit in the future rather than pay more taxes now.

If taxes halved, well, then I just take home more money now! Simple.

Granted, this is a massive over-simplification, but the basic principle holds: taxes on profit literally force businesses to decide between reinvestment and cashing out.

<comment><USER46> i think this oversimplification may obfuscate the issue in a way that's a little misleading. in reality, the two choices are not only taking a tax hit or reinvesting in the business. there are a pretty wide array of tax avoidance schemes that are utilized in the united states.

if my corporate tax rate is low, but personal tax rate is high, as in your example. i may choose to invest in a SEP, or a deferred compensation plan, kicking the taxes down the road. potentially, because of the estate tax laws, my heirs may inherit these investments with no tax penalty due to step up basis rules.

if you were making a million dollars a year in profit, you probably wouldn't need ordinary income anyway. there are so many different types of credit vehicles you could leverage at a lower interest rate than the tax rate. though i suppose, arguably this is a type of economic growth. it grows profit in the financial services industry.

<comment><USER45> My example is intentionally simplified, and doesn't consider either a high or low personal tax rate. It also doesn't consider tax avoidance because, frankly, legislation that enables tax avoidance is equivalent to lowering effective taxes.

Statutory vs Effective tax rates are what actually count in terms of the long term choices companies make and the outcomes for the rest of us. In my example, imagine that there are absolutely no tax dodges whatsoever. The statutory rate is the effective rate.

If it were impossible to pay accountants to dodge taxes, i.e. the middle class income tax bracket, then my example holds.

Note for the casual reader: please be aware that there is a HUGE difference between statutory and effective tax rates. Politicians and Corporations hope you don't catch on.

[https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does- the...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the-u-s-have- the-highest-corporate-tax-rate-in-the-world)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The same appears to be true for individual income taxes too.

I've looked at the income taxes versus growth in the US... and I've been unable to find any obvious relationship. As one of many possible examples, below is a table showing the highest marginal federal income tax rate and year-over-year real GDP growth in the US since 1950.

My conclusion, so far: There's a tremendous amount of theory, and rhetoric, and posturing, and straw-man arguments... but very little or ZERO actual evidence that national economic growth is impacted one way or another. If anything, the data seems to show _higher economic growth during periods of higher taxation_!

             Highest   US Real
      Year  Tax Rate   GDP Chg
      1950:    84.4%      8.7%
      1951:    91.0%      8.0%
      1952:    92.0%      4.1%
      1953:    92.0%      4.7%
      1954:    91.0%     -0.6%
      1955:    91.0%      7.1%
      1956:    91.0%      2.1%
      1957:    91.0%      2.1%
      1958:    91.0%     -0.7%
      1959:    91.0%      6.9%
      1960:    91.0%      2.6%
      1961:    91.0%      2.6%
      1962:    91.0%      6.1%
      1963:    91.0%      4.4%
      1964:    77.0%      5.8%
      1965:    70.0%      6.5%
      1966:    70.0%      6.6%
      1967:    70.0%      2.7%
      1968:    75.3%      4.9%
      1969:    77.0%      3.1%
      1970:    71.8%      0.2%
      1971:    70.0%      3.3%
      1972:    70.0%      5.3%
      1973:    70.0%      5.6%
      1974:    70.0%     -0.5%
      1975:    70.0%     -0.2%
      1976:    70.0%      5.4%
      1977:    70.0%      4.6%
      1978:    70.0%      5.5%
      1979:    70.0%      3.2%
      1980:    70.0%     -0.3%
      1981:    69.1%      2.5%
      1982:    50.0%     -1.8%
      1983:    50.0%      4.6%
      1984:    50.0%      7.2%
      1985:    50.0%      4.2%
      1986:    50.0%      3.5%
      1987:    38.5%      3.5%
      1988:    28.0%      4.2%
      1989:    28.0%      3.7%
      1990:    28.0%      1.9%
      1991:    31.0%     -0.1%
      1992:    31.0%      3.5%
      1993:    39.6%      2.8%
      1994:    39.6%      4.0%
      1995:    39.6%      2.7%
      1996:    39.6%      3.8%
      1997:    39.6%      4.4%
      1998:    39.6%      4.5%
      1999:    39.6%      4.8%
      2000:    39.6%      4.1%
      2001:    39.1%      1.0%
      2002:    38.6%      1.7%
      2003:    35.0%      2.9%
      2004:    35.0%      3.8%
      2005:    35.0%      3.5%
      2006:    35.0%      2.9%
      2007:    35.0%      1.9%
      2008:    35.0%     -0.1%
      2009:    35.0%     -2.5%
      2010:    35.0%      2.6%
      2011:    35.0%      1.6%
      2012:    35.0%      2.2%
      2013:    39.6%      1.8%
      2014:    39.6%      2.5%
      2015:    39.6%      2.9%
      2016:    39.6%      1.6%
      2017:    39.6%      2.4%
      2018:    37.0%      2.9%

Sources:

Year-over-year real GDP growth: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=pssP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=pssP)

Tax rates: [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical- highes...](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest- marginal-income-tax-rates)

<comment><USER48> That's a great idea, but the simplified data is grossly misleading.

I don't know all of the details specifically, but I know that the tax reform act of 1986 did two things: 1) closed a lot of tax loopholes/deductions, and 2) lowered the tax rates.

Pre-1986, the scope of what could be done to avoid taxes was insane. No one who made money was paying the headline rate on any amount of their income — any decent accountant would pay for themselves instantly with the savings they could produce.

If you want to use this type of data, it might be more prudent to look at different numbers — maybe effective tax rates (i.e., actual tax paid divided by actual income earned). The numbers might tell a slightly different story.

<comment><USER34> Completely agree, was also going to point out the same thing. Comparing the top tax bracket next to GDP growth is just a very bad comparison to say the least. The tax reforms over the years distort it so much that the comparison is effectively useless.

If anything, the only thing it does show is that the people using that metric (top tax bracket vs GDP growth rate) don't really understand how the tax system has changed over the decades.

It also clearly shows why you need to have a full and complete understanding of tax reforms/laws over the decades to really be able to debate the issue effectively. Most people seem to only have an understanding from google searches or news articles. It is no surprise that politicians use this ignorance to their advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> If I owned a business, and suddenly paid way less in tax, I would want to just pocket that money as profit and increase my personal wealth, why would any other business do anything different? We're self-biased at the end of the day, it's survival.

<comment><USER50> Because of competition. Your competitor who lowered prices by 1% would eventually drive you out of business.

There is a lagging effect, but these taxes are just a reduction in cost which eventually get passed to consumers. Assuming the market is competitive of course.

<comment><USER51> Unless there are pressures to do otherwise, your competitor is likely to do the same as you. If customers accept the current price and there is no external pressure to lower it, lowering it is likely not a good idea, and unless the market is unusually competitive, sales are unlikely to increase without a substantial drop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> __State and local business tax incentives __

</comment><comment><USER3> You are supposed to post with the actual title, "Evaluating State and Local Business Tax Incentives", unless it is too long.

</comment><comment><USER53> They don't, they give money to boomers. Billionaires and CEOs get some too. That is the only thing going on here: redistribution of wealth away from anyone under 40.

<comment><USER34> Don't worry, once you're over 65 you'll be off to vote for social security increases in every election.

<comment><USER53> It won't matter, demographics made boomers a permanent majority. They make my generation a permanent minority. I'll vote but may as well not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So why increase spending ? Tax it.

</comment><comment><USER25> My portfolio manager told me in Dec 2018 that our 2019 strategy would depend on if companies invested their tax returns for growth or handed them out to shareholders and execs. He followed the latter path.

TL;DR: My portfolio manager adjusted my strategy because tax plan was a giveaway for the rich

EDIT: So many downvotes. Truth is truth, man. Truth is truth.

</comment><comment><USER55> Why wanting to increase economic growth ? Economic growth is polluting.

<comment><USER56> Because apparently trying to increase GDP from 2.5% to 2.6% is worth more to a party of people than providing health care to everyone and not putting young people into tremendous debt #justrepublicanthings

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> When did ever use evidence to make economic, political, or social decisions?

</comment><comment><USER58> Tell that to the contractors affected by AB-5

</comment><comment><USER59> Just to clarify, the scope of the article is state and local tax incentives. The federal government has many more tax incentives (basically anything that you can get a deduction or credit for), and these definitely shape behavior because the rate is so much higher than state/local taxes.

Perhaps the title could be updated to say "state/local tax incentives".

<comment><USER60> > The federal government has many more tax incentives (basically anything that > you can get a deduction or credit for),

Only credits are really business tax incentives, since business expenses, as such, are generally deductible.

> and these definitely shape behavior because the rate is so much higher than > state/local taxes

That doesn't follow. It would make sense that if state/local incentives did shape behavior, larger federal incentives would do more to shape behavior. But if state/local incentives have no evident effect, what amounts to more of the same could plausibly also have no effect.

<comment><USER59> > _Only credits are really business tax incentives_

Credits are definitely not the only business tax incentives. Accelerated depreciation or amortization is one easy example. Also, the decision to treat something as an immediately-deductible expense as opposed to something that has to be capitalized is itself a tax incentive.

> _But if state /local incentives have no evident effect, what amounts to more > of the same could plausibly also have no effect._

Sure, it could. But the paper doesn't even try to establish that. It's like saying that speeding doesn't cause traffic accidents, based on an article that only looked at bicycles that speed.

It's a bit odd to have attracted downvotes here, while at the same time the title was updated in the way that I suggested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> What about stock market gains for 2019? S&P was up 30% last year which was fantastic. Before y'all reply that the stock market only benefits the wealthy, that's patently false. Weather it's your parents retirement account, pensions, your company stock options, your own trading account, nearly everybody has money in the market and beneifts from gains.

<comment><USER62> It's nice that you have such a great perspective on who "everyone" is. It's self-reported and thus probably well underestimated, but only 55% of Americans say they own stock[0]. And 84% of the total stock belongs to 10% of the people[1].

[0] [https://www.financialsamurai.com/what-percent-of- americans-o...](https://www.financialsamurai.com/what-percent-of-americans- own-stocks/) [1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-e...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks- economy.html)

<comment><USER26> Looks like "owning stock" in your data doesn't include thing like pensions (public or private).

A lot of people own stock indirectly.

<comment><USER62> Agreed, that's why I said it was "probably well underestimated"; but even then if 20% of Americans don't have $500 in savings[0], it feels like "everyone" is at best something between 50-80%.

[0] [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-are- just...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-are-just-one- paycheck-away-from-financial-disaster-2019-05-16)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


6 Reasons Grooveshark's CEO Thinks Recorded Music Should Be Free - <AUTHOR> http://evolver.fm/2012/04/19/6-reasons-groovesharks-ceo-thinks-recorded-music-should-be-free/

<comment><USER2> It's too bad he's taking freedom away from other people with these views.

If he thinks music should be free, he should get artists to sign up with his label and give the music out for free.

On the other hand, I do really like Grooveshark. I wish it was a legal service.

</comment><comment><USER3> He should consider operating out to China then, they are considering limiting copyright to just 3 months.

<http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2012-04/06/content_25077760.htm>

I personally commend their collective efforts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Recorded music is already free with a bit torrent client.</comment>


A More Precise Higgs Boson Mass - <AUTHOR> http://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/45

<comment><AUTHOR> Paper is here: [http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114...](http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.191803)</comment>


Is Google Wrecking Our Memory? Nope. It's much, much weirder than that. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/are_search_engines_and_the_internet_hurting_human_memory.html

<comment><USER2> This immediately made me think of how my co-workers and I interact. If I can't remember a random bit of work related info, I start querying the relevant people I think my have the answer. I share an office with six people, so the answer can be found very quickly, as everyone hears the query (this is not an endorsement for shared work spaces, I absolutely hate sharing an office with so many people). So to think I'm using google as a seventh office mate or as a "Transactive Memory" tool is fascinating.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite SaaS app dashboard? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Google Analytics comes to mind. I find it really intuitive, but I use only the basics of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stripe, definitely Stripe</comment>


Is it possible to be productive with only a smartphone?  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amir.rachum.com/post/31326074022/is-it-possible-to-be-productive-with-only-a-smartphone

<comment><USER2> Try this : [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en) -> You can develop android apps on android itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know this is referring to programming, but I went overseas to study for two months this year with only my Galaxy Nexus, so this is my experience:

Yep, to a limited extent you CAN live with only a phone (and be quite productive!). Expect to use a physical notepad a lot too though, as flipping between apps even on Android 4.1 constantly is no fun when you need to keep referring to information.

Battery life is a KILLER. I get a whole day out of my Galaxy Nexus back home, but when using it exclusively as my only technology, it lasted me half a day max. 8am to 1pm if I'm lucky.</comment>


How the soviets invented the internet and why it didn't work - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-soviets-invented-the-internet-and-why-it-didn-t-work <comment><USER2> We definitely shouldn't take too much comfort from the fact that the global internet first evolved thanks to cooperative capitalists, not competitive socialists. Interesting article!</comment>