My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.xml <comment> nick-dap I'm in the same boat. It's been difficult. I cannot express how grateful I am to Jose Vargas for writing this story.

I was brought here as a kid 13 years ago. I'm 24 now. I also graduated from a "top" university -- like that matters. I guess my parents weren't smart enough to get a fake social security card for me back then, I wish they were. I've also been fighting for the Dream Act for what feels like an eternity. I made a site and still maintain it, have met with Senators, protested in front of the White House, several times, other things. I'm loosing hope. I lost hope in Congress long ago. I lost hope in this President in December, when he failed to stand by us and the vote. I don't have anything left to wait for.

I'm still "hiding," most of my friends have no idea, but I see less and less reason to do so every day. I just can't take it anymore. I'm worth _something_. I'm competent coder, and fuck it all, at least I got that, my mind, and my family.

Anybody who wants to debate the pros and cons of immigration reform can go to hell. I'm done reading the hate mail. I'm done debating. I am done listening to those masked bigots. I know what it is like to live like this having done nothing wrong. I know that I don't deserve the punishment. If we can't agree on the fact that I am American and should have basic rights, then we have nothing to talk about. I'm not asking for anything except recognition.

Btw, people who were brought here on fake documents, as me and Jose, can't get married for papers. So even if Jose wasn't gay, he wouldn't be able to adjust based on marriage. It's unfortunate that people who come here on student visas get married -- assuming they have enough money -- and have a green card in six months. People like me and Jose, homebred Americans if ya will, are forever tarnished with this inherited title. Hello, my name is "illegal immigrant." That's what I feel like every single day. Every morning in the shower, I utter the words "I am so fucking tired." And I am.

<comment><USER3> The story was a moving one and I hope Vargas gets to stay.

With that said, I think illegal immigration creates all kinds of societal problems and is unfair to legal immigrants.

The problem it creates is that there's enormous stress on those that are illegal. They live in the shadows and can be taken advantage of. My own personal experience was driving in LA and being rear-ended by someone who then fled the scene (most likely illegal). They work for less than minimum wage and don't cooperate with law enforcement for fear of deportation.

I'm a child of legal immigrants so I'm naturally biased. There is a legal system and many people every year try to go through that system like my parents did. I see illegal immigrants as "cutting in line" and I see nothing fair about it.

But I'm also human. People like Vargas had no choice (sent here as a kid) and has made a life here. I also sympathize those that flee poverty, crime and even wanting a brighter future. I also grew up in LA and know that many illegal immigrants live decent lives.. heck some of my friends are probably undocumented.

But completely opening the borders is not feasible. Creating systems that encourage illegal immigration only make the problem worse (and exacerbate the problems mentioned above).

<comment><USER4>
        There is a legal system and many people every year try
        to go through that system like my parents did. I see
        illegal immigrants as "cutting in line" and I see
        nothing fair about it.

The problem is that if you are not a student there is basically no way to legally immigrate except:

1\. Marrying an american

2\. Indentured servitude via H1-B (hard to get, and if you leave your job/get fired you have to find a new job in two weeks or leave)

It used to be a lot easier in the past.

<comment><USER3> If you think the privilege of an H1B is "indentured servitude", it seems that immigration is not for you. I don't expect to enter a foreign country and immediately have all the same worker rights as a citizen of that country.

<comment><USER4>
        If you think the privilege of an H1B is
        "indentured servitude", it seems that
        immigration is not for you.

Funny that you say that, I have been an immigrant for almost 7 years now in the European Union (where it's significantly easier than in the US).

I am educated, healthy, young, have no criminal record and as a programmer I earn a significantly higher than average salary (and therefor pay significantly higher than average taxes).

I can say with a straight face that probably any country I choose to live in will benefit from me being there, so why would you want to keep skilled people like me out?

<comment><USER3> Do they? Just the other day I met an entrepreneur who was not American (either Canadian or European) who's able to work here on a "extraordinary ability" visa. He wasn't under an H1B and he's starting his own company.

My original point is that H1B is not a right, it's a privilege. Even though you're awesome (by your own account), I fail to see why you're owed anything.

<comment><USER4> I'm not owed anything, I'm arguing that it's in the country's interest to attract skilled labor (which many other western countries like Australia, Canada & New Zealand do with their vastly easier immigration policies).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have no beef with this guy who was basically forced into breaking the law before he could have responsibility for his actions.

But overall I just feel that the compassion about immigration is misplaced. I don't understand why all the pro-immigration people say "look at these poor undocumented immigrants -- we should make life better for them." I think the people we should have compassion for are the people who are trying to do things the right way but running into headaches. _Those_ are the people we should make things easier for, not the people who are willing to break the law to get what they want.

I really don't think we want a situation where breaking the law is the best way to get ahead. If I was waiting to get into the US, I would be pretty upset to see all the benefits going to the people who cut in line.

I don't understand why it's so controversial among the pro-immigration crowd to say that people shouldn't come here illegally. Naturally more leniency should be extended to children.

EDIT: It is stories like this that I feel we should be solving with immigration reform: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685261>

<comment><USER6> Spouse of first-generation immigrant to the United States here. And back in the 1990s I used to be an immigration lawyer for a small law firm on the west coast. Yes, the personal story of Jose Antonio Vargas is rough on him personally, but a better basis for setting the policy of immigration in the United States would be the stories of the many people who patiently wait in line to be admitted to the United States through legal channels. Look at their stories, and figure out what change of rules and incentives would bring in what subset of those people to become new Americans.

Every country on the planet appears to have restrictions on immigration. Most of the time we don't discuss the policies of countries other than the United States in new submissions to HN, even though HN is an international forum, because most countries are lousy enough to be entrepreneurs in and lousy enough to live in that no one on HN wants to immigrate to those countries. (Instead, most people on HN discuss how to get OUT of dozens of other countries around the world, and in many cases how to immigrate to the United States.) When we consider that the actual number of legally authorized immigrants to the United States each year is one of the highest such numbers in the world (does ANY country have more legal immigrants each year?), it's hard to make a case that the United States is missing out on immigrants by its current policies. Perhaps there are some policy changes to be made on the margins, and on my own part my policy preference would be to make immigration to the United States legally easier and much more commonplace, but the way to make the case for policy reform is to show law-abiding Americans that the policy changes help their lives. The Americans I know, including many law- abiding first-generation immigrants, want policy reform that makes like better in general for all people already in America, as well as for people intending to immigrate here.

<comment><USER7> In Europe it's a lot easier to immigrate in general. Especially as an EU citizen. And if your country is also a member of the Schengen space, you can just move around using only your ID.

My uncle immigrated in Spain for instance; entered and worked illegally at first (since a Schengen visa was required of him, and he could find illegal work more easilly anyway), but forward 15 years later, and now he has full citizenship and a perfectly legal driver's license. And he has had a legal job for 10 years already.

For me I have the following difficulty - you can't obtain a visa for work in the US if you don't have a college degree in the domain you want to work in. And then it's extremely difficult to be a startup founder that way, since with that kind of visa you can only work as an employee and have a sponsor. Unless you can obtain a Visa at the lottery or for extraordinary merits.

This is absolutely insane - since I just got out and bought a college degree in CS, waited 3 years to get it of course, but I got it, and now I can get an US Visa.

But then again, why should I? Why wouldn't I go work in Zurich or in London or in Berlin, or just stay where I am, since obviously the US doesn't want me?

<comment><USER8> "In Europe it's a lot easier to immigrate in general."

 _Within Europe_ , yes. It's _hard_ to immigrate into Europe coming from outside.

"Especially as an EU citizen."

 _Only_ as an EU citizen. If you're not, it's _hard_ to travel around Europe - you need a lot of papers, for each country you go to, and it's not a matter of filling in a form online and they'll send you the papers; it involves certified translations, several appointments with embassies and the like, etc.

As to the last sentence, there is a reason people flock to the US - <USER2> it's simply a better climate there to start a business. Good luck in Zurich (of all places! the Swiss are as close-minded and protective of their nationality and 'independence' as it comes!) or anywhere else in Europe. Of course it _can be done_ , many companies are founded and are successful; but nowhere near the same level as in the US.

(European here)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _She understood. So the choir toured Hawaii instead, with me in tow. (Mrs. Denny and I spoke a couple of months ago, and she told me she hadn't wanted to leave any student behind.)_

Sometimes teachers seem to me like the downright best humanity has to offer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even if I weren't open to letting educated members of society earn a legal green card, I think this would've changed my mind.

The inability to obtain US citizenship even though I was attending a consecutively #1 rated program on the continent, at one of the best schools in the country really dimmed my own hopes. I remember wanting to apply for an internship at MIT Lincoln labs for anti-ballistic missile defense, and being crushed when I realized I couldn't.

<comment><USER11> Have you tried Canada? We're kind of like the US, but better.

<comment><USER12> To expand on the point: skilled immigrants in Canada gain permanent residency (aka the equivalent of the green card) _immediately_ upon entry. You can work for anyone, in any field, without restriction. You have health care, education, and all of the benefits of anyone else except the vote.

And that only takes three years of continuous residency.

Compare with the US: must make the H-1B quota, wait years, apply for Green card, wait even more years (EB-3 is what, 6-7 years at this point?), _then_ get your green card. The entire time you're an indentured slave to your employer who can take advantage of you every which way knowing you're locked in. Barbaric.

<comment><USER13> Sounds faster to go to canada and become a canadian citizen and then enter the U.S. on TN status :P

<comment><USER12> You just discovered why Microsoft Vancouver exists. It's a giant waiting room for a Canadian passport/TN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Properly formatted link [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life- as-an-und...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an- undocumented-immigrant.html)

The guy came out as gay but wouldn't let people know he wasn't a citizen ... that's deep.

<comment><USER3> I'd keep in mind that this is the bay area which tends to be pretty gay friendly.

<comment><USER15> The Bay Area has gay friendly "adults". High school and below is a completely different can of worms. Being unPC is unfortunately a trait. And I don't mean to rag on all high school students but the most popular, and vocal, ones can be downright shits. And they are the ones that set the tone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Many people who commented here have never attended an interview in a US consulate. It is a 3 step process and it is not an easy one.Some times the process can last more than 5 hours .it was one of the nervous moments of my life. To get a visa extension every 2 years I need to provide a letter from my employer ,tax documents and the last 3 pay stubs. Although, I have every document my visa could be rejected for no reason or sent for an audit or RFI(Request for more Info).This process can take around 2-3 months with re- submissions and RFIs.The Visa extension process became more rigorous in Obama's administration. The bar has been set really high which is good.some of my friends did not get an extension and so they had to leave the country .The petition fee has been hiked to $5000 from $1800 with an extra $1500 for the attorney's fee.Very few employers are willing to sponsor a work permit ,Hardly any one is willing sponsor a GC in this economy.Even if they are willing ,the backlog is almost 6 years.so if I apply now there is a chance I might get a GC in 2017.The bottom line is, I don't support illegal immigration of any kind.Immigration should be based on qualification .Although,what kind qualification is debatable .Thats a different story.If you guys are empathetic to illegal immigrants go look at the US consulates across the world where thousands of people stand every day to get an "Approved" stamp on their passports.

</comment><comment><USER17> Good to hear this issue raised. In The Netherlands where I live this has been an issue several times: the immigration process is so long (can take 8-10 years) that kids grow up here, and for instance girls would be rejected by everyone if returned to their native Afghanistan. Several high profile cases were handled and several have been allowed to stay, or atleast finish high school / college.

The issue is just getting bigger however: I find it scary that policies have gone so far that a Dutch citizen has to go live in Belgium or Spain once married so that their spouse can get a work permit and eventually gain EU citizenship...

</comment><comment><USER18> He's the main story on Huffpo right now: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/jose-antonio- vargas...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/jose-antonio-vargas- undocumented-immigrant_n_882012.html)

I doubt this will change many people's minds about immigration though. The "what part of illegal don't you understand" crowd is also the "fuck you, i've got mine" crowd, and they've already got theirs.

</comment><comment><USER19> _I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship. I felt I could earn it._

Has that ever happened? Reading this gives me a sense of cognitive dissonance between the US as a place 'where anyone can make it' and the US as a legalistic bureaucracy.

[Edit to clarify]

<comment><USER20> The "anyone can make it" part is true: lots of _LEGAL_ immigrants and their children have done far better than their peers in their home countries (facetious example: Obama, but there are many many unknown people like that).

For all it faults, America remains the most meritocratic country in the world. Discouraging _ILLEGAL_ immigration should not lower America's standing in that respect.

<comment><USER21> _America remains the most meritocratic country in the world_

This needs a citation. America-is-great chest pounding aside, the only reputable reference I remember seeing about this was from the Economist, who claimed that the correlation between your wealth and that of your parents is stronger in the US than in many European countries. So it seems that, at least measured in that way, the US is not a particularly good meritocracy but rather a class society.

<comment><USER22> That would not be strong refuting evidence. Given both genetics and environment factors (smart successful parents have more to teach, perhaps), I would expect successful children from successful parents. On the other hand, in a society where success were arbitrary, I would expect high incoherence between parent and child success.

I suppose by "anyone can make it" we could literally mean, "irrespective of your abilities anyone can make it", but I don't think that's the sense most people mean and that's not the meaning of meritocracy. Talent and/or a hard working mien are not bestowed randomly at birth.

<comment><USER21> _Given both genetics and environment factors ... I would expect successful children from successful parents._

This is an assertion which, conveniently enough for those on the top, is entirely indistinguishable from a class society. It _could be_ that you are right and that all the low-wage workers in the U.S. are low-wage because they are just plain dumb and not at all because they never had any of the opportunities growing up that children of well-off parents do. Personally, I don't put nearly so much power in genetic determinism.

<comment><USER23> Here's the relevant OECD article <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/7/45002641.pdf>

tl;dr: there are big differences between countries in the impact of parental education and earnings on the education and earnings of their kids. Parental success is a very strong determiner of both in the U.S., but much less so in, say, Canada and Finland (both of which are among the top four best-scoring countries on the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The unmentioned flipside is that other countries love to export people to the USA in order to get foreign remittances back to the home country up.

The elite , about the top 2-10% in those countries own most of the businesses, and like things the way they are - no need for political change, as the remittances take some of the pressure for change off, while they eventually end up pocketing a large portion of the remittances due to those monies being spent for products and services (at the businesses they own).

</comment><comment><USER25> Single page link: [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as- an-...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an- undocumented-immigrant.xml?single=1)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm an employer in Florida. Employers are legally required to verify eligibility via form I-9. However, I see no real enforcement of this other than occasional roundups by INS at farms. The reason these roundups occur is that the farms are not complying with the law.

We need immigration reform. It is unconscionable that people who grew up here are put in this situation.

I've been thinking the best way to get reform is to force the government to strictly enforce the I-9 requirement. If every business owner was forced to adhere to the law and only hire those legally eligible, they would be in favor of reform as well.

We have a situation where people complain about "illegal immigrants" while silently profiting from them. If the reality of the situation were exposed, I think Republicans would suddenly find themselves in agreement with Democrats about reform.

</comment><comment><USER27> Simple question, why is it not possible to have unrestricted immigration between nations period? Please do not give an answer that requires respecting privilege of native born inhabitants; by doing this you are implicitly stating that these people are more deserving than someone coming from some other place by right of birth. You may as well agitate for the divine right of kings and the reinstatement of the monarchy if you view this as an acceptable path to tread.

Also, it seems to me that actually making immigration from and to anywhere on the planet would pretty much _force_ governments to actually compete with each other, a country in which nobody wants to live is not a country that will stick around for long if everyone is free to leave at their choosing. Wouldn't this be a net positive, really?

<comment><USER28> my prof of econmics used to say: there should be no borders

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Terrific story. I can't understand how even the most heartless xenophobe could possibly support the deportation of a someone who graduated from a US university. Utterly self-defeating from a social and an economic standpoint.

<comment><USER30> Crime has consequences, no matter how nice/good/smart you are. Do the paperwork, follow the process, come in legally - like my wife did.

<comment><USER31> The point at which law becomes a hinderance and not help is when it gets changed or broken.

Basically, all you are suggesting is: go find a "citizen" to trap in matrimony in order to be a legal immigrant?

The matrimony route is especially relevant, since in the US it is the one of the faster means to obtaining citizenship compared to other methods immigrate legally.

Here is the reference:

[http://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad...](http://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg)

<comment><USER29> One of the fallacies about immigration is that anybody can become a permanent resident by marrying a citizen. This path to permanent residency was basically choked off in the 1980s by requiring that the newlywed couple leave the country for a few years before they're allowed to come back to the US to live, and even then, it's not certain that the government will let it happen. This means that if I happen to fall in love and marry someone who happens to not be a citizen of the US, I'm totally at the mercy of the government.

<comment><USER21> Huh? "Anybody" (i.e. excluding terrorists, nazis, communists, HIV-positives, and other comparatively small segments of the population) _can_ become a US permanent resident by marrying a US citizen _unless_ they are present in the US illegally. Then the case is more complicated, but in many cases you are still eligible.

<comment><USER29> Please reread, I said "this path to permanent residency," not "the only path".

You can become a permanent resident by getting married, but the process isn't straightforward. The draconian requirement that the newly-married couple leave the US reduces some fraud, I'm sure, but it also causes an enormous amount of disruption for the 99% of legitimately married couples who have families and livelihoods within the US.

<comment><USER32> Jeffrey, there is no such requirement. Someone who marries an American cannot immediately adjust to permanent resident status, but is (typically) granted conditional residence, which is in practice the same thing except that it can be easily revoked if it looks like the marriage is a sham. After 2 years the not-so-newlyweds can (in fact, must) apply to have the conditional status removed, at which point the foreign spouse becomes a permanent resident. This is almost always a formality except in cases of marriage fraud or involvement in criminal activity. There is no requirement to leave the country. In fact, for people who have been married longer than 2 years or living together a long time, USCIS will sometimes waive the conditional status (and thus the fee to have lifted later) because they have _prima facie_ evidence of a _bona fide_ relationship. It's only in cases where they have serious doubts about the honesty of the applicant that they require the couple to leave the US and wait several years to reapply.

IANAL but you are definitely misinformed about this, and should not allow it to interfere with your love life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _"My only solution, the lawyer said, was to go back to the Philippines and accept a 10-year ban before I could apply to return legally."_

I am all for letting Vargas stay, and for liberalizing this country's immigration policies.

But would going abroad for 10 years really be so bad?

Vargas has proven himself to be an accomplished professional writer and should have no problem finding work pretty much anywhere he goes.

As a writer and a reporter he would gain valuable international experience by living and writing abroad. He could see the world. reunite with his mother and brother, learn something about his country of origin.. and, who knows, he might find he prefers the Philippines (or some other country) even more than the US.

He does have a life in America and that's the country he's most used to, so leaving won't be easy; but he said he hasn't let himself get too close to anyone here, so that should make it somewhat easier to move somewhere else.

When you're young 10 years might seem like a long time, but it's really not that long in the scheme of things. If he's in his 20's now, he'll be in his 30's when he gets back -- plenty of time left to rebuild his life here, should he wish to.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee he would be allowed back in, and it would be stressful or even dangerous not to be able to come back in in the meantime, should he need to for some reason. So it's certainly not an enviable position to be in; but it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world to go abroad for 10 years -- many people do so gladly and willingly.

</comment><comment><USER32> If anyone is interested in investing in a project to _legally_ provide work opportunities for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children like this journalist, you can send me a message via gmail and I'll pass it on to a law professor I know who is working on this issue with various legal and business leaders in the Bay Area.

Serious inquiries only please, this project is likely to require a significant commitment of financial and/or political capital.

<comment><USER34> Working on this issue how? Trying to find/provide work for these people or simply trying to change the law. There's a big difference between the two and knowingly employing an undocumented worker (illegal alien) is a felony.

<comment><USER29> It's illegal, but it's not a felony. Huge difference. Hiring undocumented workers, when detected (which rarely happens, particularly for small businesses), is usually punished by a civil penalty (i.e., a cash fine).

<comment><USER35> Doing what the anigbrowl is referring to is certainly a felony...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The immigration laws in the US are completely and utterly broken. My parents immigrated here (legally) a few decades ago and eventually decide to become citizens through naturalization. As I was still a kid at the time I acquired citizenship by derivation. I have held and maintained a US passport since that date. However later in life when I enlisted in the U.S. Army my passport was not considered proof of citizenship (although Executive order 610 states it should be). Instead I was asked to apply for a Certificate of Citizenship as proof. I started the process only to find out it would take 4 years (due to backlog) before I should expect the certificate to be issues. If it takes 4 years for an existing citizen with a passport to get through the process what hope do actual immigrants have?

</comment><comment><USER37> RandyHelzerman, everything you contribute to this site is quietly being made "dead". no one can see what you're saying unless they have the "show dead" feature enabled. in any case no one can vote on your contributions any more.

RandyHelzerman 7 hours ago | link [dead]

What really has to sink in is that there are at least 11 million people in this guy's situation. I can't think of a single example in history of 11 million people being forcibly removed from a country, and any analogous parallels are quite ominous. Fact:(1) they are staying here Fact:(2) there are real, tangible costs to them, you, and society as a whole for them to remain undocumented. Conclusion: There should be a path to citizenship for them.

<comment><USER38> Thank you for pointing this out.

I find the secret ban system to be odious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> quick google on statute of limitations:

<http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2901.13>

6 or 20 years for most crimes, except murders.

Immigration violations seems to not have the statute of limitations, just like the most heinous crimes.

<comment> brown9-2 Wouldn't that be because immigration violations are ongoing events?

<comment><USER21> Well, even if you leave, if you've been present illegally in the US for more than a year, you're subject to the lifetime bar. So, no, they really don't have a statute of limitations.

<comment><USER32> That's inaccurate. Illegal presence greater than 6 months and less than a year subjects a departing alien to a 3 year bar on re-entry absent a waiver. Illegal presence for longer than a year ups that to a 10 year bar. There are also lifetime bars on re-entry but they are reserved for much narrower and more egregious violations, like election fraud, aiding terrorism and so on.

<comment><USER21> You are correct, my recollection was faulty. However, the lifetime bar is not that narrow. It applies if you are present illegally for more than a year (or are ordered deported regardless of length of stay) and then _leave and (attempt to) re-enter illegally again_. So anyone long-term present in the country illegally who has ever left and come back would in principle be subject to this. That is at least my impression, but I'm only an immigrant, not an immigration lawyer...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> How difficult is it really to have a green card wedding? The only knowledge I have of it is from TV, but surely in a country where a good chunk of the population doesn't take marriage seriously, finding someone to marry you for citizenship wouldn't be difficult.

You could even build a startup out of it... USMailOrderSpouses.com.

<comment><USER41> Might wanna have a look at the list of questions asked during a marriage fraud interview here:

[http://www.immihelp.com/greencard/familybasedimmigration/mar...](http://www.immihelp.com/greencard/familybasedimmigration/marriage- based-greencard-fraud-interview.html)

<comment><USER40> Hmm. Well I suppose you'd have to live together in order to pass that kind of exam, but you should be able to answer most of those questions after a few weeks. Odd though that a lot of those questions assume quite a bit of time has gone by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's really courageous of him to come ahead with his story. I really hope he gets to stay in the country.

<comment><USER34> I think it is great that he wrote about his story. The way the law is written he'll have to leave the country unless someone pulls some major strings for him. I'm a little more surprised about everything that is included in the article however. Specifically the following bit:

 _By this time, Peter, who still works at The Post, had become part of management as the paper's director of newsroom training and professional development. One afternoon in late October, we walked a couple of blocks to Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Over some 20 minutes, sitting on a bench, I told him everything: the Social Security card, the driver's license, Pat and Rich, my family._

This indicates that Peter Perl was a manager at the Post and knowingly continued to employee an undocumented worker opening the Post and himself to liability including possible criminal penalties.

<comment><USER29> You assume that the employer is responsible for instantly firing any employee who is found to be undocumented. This isn't actually the case. When this happens, a legal process is set in motion -- even foreigners are permitted due process under US law.

I'd also be willing to bet that his employer will continue to employ the writer even if he's deported to the Philippines, and that may have been one of the things that informed his decision to write this piece.

<comment><USER34> The employee would have three days to bring in documents showing work eligibility. If after three days the employee couldn't do so the employer would no longer be able to offer any benefits (employment, health insurance etc). You can call USCIS if you want confirmation on that process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> In this case, the minimum patch to fix his situation (and that of those very similar to him) is probably to remove the 10 year ban requirement. Let him leave, reapply immediately as an O-1, etc., without prejudice, based on having come here as a minor, and/or having graduated from a US university.

While I'd like to see comprehensive immigration reform, I am always afraid of the perfect being the enemy of the good. There should be immediate incremental fixes to solve as many things as possible, vs. blocking everything on one perfect fix (which probably doesn't exist).

I think it's fairly widely accepted that the cost/benefit ratio of bringing in educated entrepreneurs freely is far better than unrestricted immigration. There may be non-economic reasons to support family reunification, asylum, or diversity, but the economic argument for letting entrepreneurs relocate to the US freely is slam-dunk; the argument for highly skilled workers being fast tracked to green cards and citizenship is comparatively strong too.

<comment><USER15> Can't he already do this?

I've heard of quite a few speakers and musicians that were technically banned, Nelson Mandela comes to mind, but had so much overwhelming support from businesses and congress that ICE had no option but to overturn it. He's got a Pulitzer and a few bestselling books, I'm sure he can spin that into a proper visa.

<comment><USER43> Yeah, I think you can always get a waiver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> wunderfool, everything you contribute to this site is being quietly made "dead".

here's your perfectly insightful and worthwhile comment which no one else can see unless they enable "show dead":

wunderfool 7 hours ago | link [dead]

legal immigrant (now citizen) here immigration is a pain in the ass. we stood in line at the INS at 3am (back before they instituted appointments), and i'm not just talking tech people...i mean everyone, from all over the world and all walks of life. it sucked but we all did it. we stood in lines and paid the fees and waited and followed the rules. if you don't, adios. i have zero, ZERO pity for everyone who has tried to come across as a charity case when they really just wanted to jump the line or not deal at all. to even get back in line i would assess a $10k fine on all of you, regardless of income or background. \-----

</comment><comment><USER44> I am a legal immigrant and waited years to get my Greencard. The situation is so worse now for a new immigrant (h1b) from india (or china) it takes 7-10 years to get greencard and 5 more years to get citizenship.

The immigration system needs reform. We need a point based system like Canada and work permit for low skill farm jobs like that in the middle east/singapore. But this does not mean giving general amnesty to llegals. That will just encourage more to cross the border illegally.

I agree with the republicans - We need a strong border and a legal immigration reform.

</comment><comment><USER45> Like His facebook page. Show some support.

<http://www.facebook.com/JoseAJournalist?sk=wall>

</comment><comment><USER46> Go wait in line, Vargas. You ain't special. You think because we should feel sorry for you, that you deserve a greencard or legalization or whatever? Do you know the shit LEGAL immigrants have to go through to get and stay here? What makes you so damn special to skip the fucking line? I waited 7 fucking years for my greencard - all the while working and paying more taxes than you and any goddamn teabagger alive. I was stuck in h1B hell as a modern day indentured servant. I actually gave up and decided to go back home. I decided that America wasn't a place where hardworkers who followed the rules could make it. I told myself that as soon as I finished grad school, which I was putting myself through part time, I was out of here. Fuck this. Then it happened. Some fucked up debacle in 2007 at immigration where the waiting lists all became "current" for a month. I yelled at the company lawyer to get my shit done and ran around getting all my docs. 90 days later, I had a greencard. Things changed. I could do shit. I applied to techstars in Boulder in 2008 with my idea for syncing browsing sessions between desktop and mobile (I got rejected - David Cohen told me it was too easy to knock off and too hard to make money. He was right. I couldn't execute anyway, and then instapaper showed up like a month later anyway).

You think I have sympathy for you, Vargas? I married my wife, who was on H1B while I was on Greencard. She got laid off. Were we permitted to live together as a family in the USA? Nope. Even though she'd been here close to 10 years herself - doing grad school and then working. Yes, legally, and paying taxes all the long. You would think America would try to make it easy for english speaking, educated (in the US, no less), LEGAL immigrants who waited in line. Nope. Our son was even born in America. Proof to all the stupid republicans and teabaggers that there's no such thing as "anchor babies", not like we gave a fuck about that. Kids can't sponsor their parents till 21 years of age. So my wife and son had to go to Canada, to live with my parents, while I sorted shit out. I'm sponsoring her - but the waiting list is fucking what, 4 years long?!! Ya, the short wait times for sponsoring a spouse only applied to citizens. I have to wait till sept 2012 before I can apply for that. Jesus christ. America rocks. So now my wife visits on a vistor visa, with our American son, good for only 3 months at a time. Each time she's interrogated for an hour when she crosses the border because of this fucked up situation (US immigration are supposed to keep out visitors who they think are trying to live in america). She's been warned to not push it and not to come back too often. This is fucked up. I'm ready to fucking give up if it wasn't for all the shit we've been through to get here. I've always got my eye on potential opportunities back in Canada or abroad. I've got a good gig here that I actually like, but fuck, is it worth all the hurdles and bool shit of being separated from family and crossing borders every other weekend? Just to be LEGAL? My wife could have stayed here illegally. But we're not like that. We followed the fucking law and basically got fucked. So screw off vargas. No tears for you.

<comment><USER47> So you want Vargas to suffer due to unjust and unfair laws because you have been suffering from the same unjust laws. I guess misery loves company!

<comment><USER46> Did I say I wanted him to suffer? No. I told him he has to wait his turn and that he ain't special. I think he should get a greencard. But after my wife does. And after everyone who's waited years legally for one - especially if they're paying taxes like us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Easier to read / navigate print view: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an- und...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented- immigrant.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print)

</comment><comment><USER49> Much as this is a fascinating story about a hot political subject... well, it's about a hot political subject. This is not the place for politics.

</comment><comment><USER50> This is a prime illustration of how absurd our immigration policy has begun. To steal Kottke's sentiment: We need people like this on our team!

</comment><comment><USER51> Video about the story: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJH1IKqF8PA>

</comment><comment><USER52> He is not "undocumented", he is "illegal". Stop using the PC term.

<comment><USER53> people aren't illegal. They exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Organized left-wing drum beat for more in immigration. So, here we have a tear jerking story in the NYT. A few days ago we had Mayor Bloomberg touting immigration in DC. Then we had Fred Wilson giving support on his blog. Yesterday we had a finance guy in DC supporting immigration.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's really courageous of him to come ahead with his story. I really hope he gets shipped back to the Philippines.

Go ahead and call me a xenophobe now. Whatev.

I think it is in poor form for the NYT to print this manipulative article that tries to make me feel bad for the gay, minority, do-gooder author and excuse his years of criminally fraudulent behavior.

Sure, call me heartless. But, this guy is cheating you, and not in the "Oh cool hack" kind of way. He is cheating you in a Bernie-Madoff-conned-me-out- of-my-money-for-ponzi-investments-so-that-he-could-live-a-cushy-life kind of way.

<comment><USER55> He has knowingly used fraud for years to get work, educational, and lifesytle opportunities that would have otherwise gone to people legally allowed to work, study, and reside here. Paying taxes or writing keen articles does not excuse this fact.

Hence, he is cheating[1].

[1] Wikipedia defines cheating as, "... the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation." That seems to be a accurate summary of the author's activities. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating>.

<comment><USER56> Exactly. Paying taxes does not make the situation fair. All his life he has "filled a spot" of an opportunity that would have otherwise been available to someone else. His achievements ("the end") do not justify the means.

<comment><USER57> fastfinner- you are assuming there is someone else who is totally interchangeable with him? Things he did does not sound fungible to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where Computing Is Headed–Beyond Quantum. Startups Make Computer Chips in DNA - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-computing-is-headedbeyond-quantum-11580837001 <comment><AUTHOR> The two companies discussed are Lightmatter Inc. and Catalog Technologies Inc.</comment>


Catching Students (and Teachers) Who Cheat In the 21st Century - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/26/catching-students-and-teachers-who-cheat-in-the-21st-century/

<comment><USER2> The problem really isn't in figuring out who cheated. We definitely have the technology to figure that out. The issue is punishing those people who did cheat. At my Top 10 university, cheaters were more or less punished with a slap on the wrist.</comment>


A look behind the scenes at an index fund with Vanguard's Gerry O'Reilly - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-15/vanguard-s-gerry-o-reilly-offers-a-rare-look-inside-an-index-fund <comment><USER2> After some research in personal finance last week, I moved my balance from Wealthfront to Vanguard mutual funds/ETFs. I was already using them for my 401k. Their expense ratios are the lowest in the industry and they also have managed retirement funds you can use to replace Wealthfront if you are lazy. Here is a quick way to learn about the Bogleheads investment philosophy.

[0] [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_...](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy)

<comment><USER3> I like the idea of Wealthfront but I can't imagine why anyone would pay any fee for the service.

Perhaps that's why Schwab has a fee free robo advisor, and surely every other brokerage and bank is working on the same thing.

<comment><USER4> I think it probably depends on how much you stand to gain from automated tax- loss harvesting: If you don't have the time/skills to do it yourself, strategically selling depreciated stocks (then, potentially, buying them again later) can cancel out a lot of the taxes you'd pay on gains elsewhere in your portfolio. If the Wealthfront fee is less than you save, seems like it'd make sense.

<comment><USER3> OK, but don't you think the same service will be offered fee-free from robo advisors from big banks and brokerages? That's my guess, anyway.

<comment><USER5> Do you know of any places that offer this automated service?

<comment><USER3> Schwab has a free robo advisor, Vanguard has a fee robo advisor, iShares has a little robo portfolio generator. I'm sure there are others too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "450 billion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund matches the performance > of its 3,600-stock benchmark. That means owning stocks whether they're > plunging, surging, or unchanged."

They mention some reasons that human decision-makers are needed, but I'm actually not convinced. Why not just two algo indexes? One tries to get the best price, the other simply doesn't trade the difficult illiquid stocks?

I'm surprised an enterprising company hasn't come along that allows you to pick all your own stocks, and allow them to be rolled up in an index. That kind of service shouldn't be too hard to create from a technical point of view, so I'm assuming the issue is with regulation.

<comment><USER7> > I'm surprised an enterprising company hasn't come along that allows you to > pick all of our stocks, and allow them to be rolled up in an index.

Do you mean basket trading? [https://www.interactivebrokers.co.jp/jp/?f=/en/trading/order...](https://www.interactivebrokers.co.jp/jp/?f=/en/trading/orders/basket.php)

<comment><USER8> It's not entirely clear from that site, but it looks like they just let you batch up a bunch of separate orders in a single spreadsheet, and execute each one of them.

The grandparent post seems to be calling for a service that lets me say, "I'd like to start my own custom-ETF, consisting of A% Facebook, B% AT&T, C% Walmart, D% McDonalds, etc." and then let me invest money that "fund" every so often. I agree this would be a neat service. Currently, if you want a portfolio of specific diversified stocks, you have to either 1. Find a fund that is similar enough to the basket of stocks that you would like or 2. Purchase each stock individually (getting eaten up in commission fees). Both are less than ideal.

<comment><USER9> Motif investing does that exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The risk with ETF index funds is when the market truly deteriorates ETF's can simply fall apart. Particularly in illiquid or quickly falling markets.

There was a paper about this a year or two ago which I'm unable to find now. I'd caution risk for anyone planning on using ETF's to ride out a storm.

EDIT: I'll have to see if I can find the paper again. The basic summary was that in situations like 2008 ETF's failed in ways that were materially worse than holding the same basket of assets.

But this is not investment advice. Make up your own mind and plan according to your risk tolerances.

<comment><USER11> Almost every investment deteriorates when the market does. In terms of stability and long term gains, ETFs are the best bet. You have to be willing to take high risk if you want to invest in things that are not affected by market deterioration, and many people don't have the ability to take that risk. Overall, anyone reading these comments, please take all investing advice as a grain of salt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A dumb question I've always had: for their S&P 500 Fund, is Vanguard just free-riding off the work of S&P, leading to their low management fees? Or is the work that goes into selecting the 500 companies in the index pretty minimal?

<comment><USER13> The S&P 500 is just a list of the largest 500 companies by market cap.

Managing the S&P 500 fund is actually pretty tricky since everyone knows when the index changes and they know what trades you have to make so they try to take money from you. You have to employ a lot of tricks to avoid being victimized as an index fund.

Edit: I should point out that the index isn't really _just_ the largest 500 companies; they try to keep it properly weighted by sector and some other considerations as well.

<comment><USER14> Do you mind elaborating on that point? I'm interested in hearing more

<comment><USER15> When S&P announces results of the S&P 500 it is for fictional stocks: they don't have a fund of their own. They just say that if had bought these 500 stocks in 1957, and traced only on the dates that the dates/prices the index did you would have so much. This is impossible to do though (expect for the smallest investors), the very act of trading a stock changes the price. Most mutual funds have enough stock that they have to consider the effect of their trade on the price of the stock: if they want to invest in a company it is done over weeks and months to ensure the price doesn't change just as a result of their actions.

A simple example: lets say company X and Y are both on the index and they decide to merge one company X on such an such a date. In order to keep 500 stocks in the index S&P has to choose something to replacement. You don't have to be very smart to see that X and Y are in talks about merging months in advance. It isn't hard to figure that the stock S&P chooses will be one of a few: Buy a bunch of them each at today's prices. When the merge happens all those index funds now buy the replacement stock which drives the price up, you have shares at an inflated price to sell to those funds. (You have figure out when to sell the stocks that were not added - but S&P is unlikely to add a bad stock so as an investment these are likely to do okay). This is easy if the index funds try to hold exactly what the S&P 500 has in it.

Because of the above index funds promise to mirror the S&P500 results, but not the actual stocks. It is easy to say mirror results, it is much harder to pull that off, even if we ignore those above who are trying to cheat you, index funds tend to be the largest funds (because they do so well they are popular!) which means most of your trades will affect the price of the stock.

There is a lot more involved (much of it that I don't know), but the above is a simple example that will get you on the right track of thinking.

<comment><USER16> But you can trade at the closing price, which is the one used by S&P to do their numbers, can't you?

<comment><USER13> No you can't. You can only buy a stock based on the set of offers to sell that stock. The closing price is the just the price that marked the last trade of the day, and isn't otherwise special.

<comment><USER17> Of course you can buy at the closing price. There are MOC and LOC orders for doing just that (Market On Close and Limit On Close).

The former indicates that you must get your order filled at the closing price, the latter allows you to specify a limit at which you'll go to, in order to trade at the closing price.

How else would funds that need to trade at the closing price, actually trade at the closing price?

Now you may not like the closing price, but that's another story.

> The closing price is the just the price that marked the last trade of the > day, and isn't otherwise special.

I guess i should also point out that many ETF's mark their value based on the closing prices of the NYSE or Nasdaq making their closing prices very important.

<comment><USER13> Those are still just ordinary trades that happen at the end of the day. You're still just pulling orders off of the queue of sell orders if you're buying. The final close price will of course be the price after these trades are executed, and you aren't guaranteed to even get the close price.

<comment><USER17> > Those are still just ordinary trades that happen at the end of the day. > You're still just pulling orders off of the queue of sell orders if you're > buying. The final close price will of course be the price after these trades > are executed, and you aren't guaranteed to even get the close price.

I'm pretty sure at this point I'm being trolled but just in case you are being serious and don't know how to google......

[https://www.nyse.com/markets/nyse- arca/auctions](https://www.nyse.com/markets/nyse-arca/auctions)

<comment><USER13> Are you disputing that if you issue such a trade that you are not guaranteed to be able to execute it? Because, I assure you, there is no such guarantee. I'm not even sure why this requires some special explanation. There have to be enough people willing to trade at that price. The exchange isn't going to force people to trade with you.

<comment><USER17> hold on, let me have some time to adjust for all the goal post moves you've done here.

> No you can't. You can only buy a stock based on the set of offers to sell > that stock

First you said that you can't buy/sell at the closing price and I showed you that this is wrong. Infact there are a whole lot of people who are obligated to trade at the closing price

Then you said the closing price wasn't special. This as well was shown to be false as many ETF's are marked by the closing prices of certain markets, notably the NYSE.

Then you said you aren't guaranteed to get the closing price. This was an even stranger error as the message before I showed you the MOC order which indicates that you will trade at the closing price.

Finally you tripled down on this mistake by changing your argument that technically there might not be any trading partner at the close.

This is technically true that in theory it might happen, but in practice I'll sit and wait for you to find me a case where this happened.

I mean think about it. You put out an MOC order that indicates you need to get a buy order filled. Unless you are trying to buy some crazy amount of shares, you will get filled. depending on the price the closing price can move up to 10% or 20%. This means that an arbitrager can pick up shares on the cheap or sell them for an artificially high price.

The system just works.

I get that you don't work in finance but you continue to keep making the same false statements over and over again:(

<comment><USER18> You're being intentionally obtuse, for what, internet points?

> kgwgk: But you can trade at the closing price, which is the one used by S&P > to do their numbers, can't you?

> readams: No you can't. You can only buy a stock based on the set of offers > to sell that stock

readams is unequivocally correct here. You can _attempt_ to trade at the closing price, but doing so is entirely at the mercy of whether or not enough open offers exist to sell that stock.

> chollida1: Then you said the closing price wasn't special. This as well was > shown to be false as many ETF's are marked by the closing prices of certain > markets, notably the NYSE.

This point by readams is also true. The closing price of a stock _isn 't_ special — it's, as (s)he said, simply the price of the last trade of the day. The fact that some ETFs are marked by the price of market close makes _their_ trading price "special", but that doesn't imply anything particular about the closing price of the asset(s) they're based on.

> chollida1: Then you said you aren't guaranteed to get the closing price. > This was an even stranger error as the message before I showed you the MOC > order which indicates that you will trade at the closing price.

Again, readams is correct. You're guaranteed to get the closing price _if and only if_ there are open orders at that price. Which is a big if and only if, and not actually a guarantee.

> chollida1: Finally you tripled down on this mistake by changing your > argument that technically there might not be any trading partner at the > close. This is technically true that in theory it might happen, but in > practice I'll sit and wait for you to find me a case where this happened.

Consider the context of this entire conversation: index funds that manage billions in assets. If you don't think they can utterly exhaust open buy/sell orders at market close for any trade they need to execute to track their index, you've lost your mind. This whole thread was about how these funds have to strategically place their orders to track the underlying index as faithfully as possible, without losing their shirts to vultures who know that large funds have to execute certain orders to stay on track.

<comment><USER19> > This point by readams is also true. The closing price of a stock isn't > special — it's, as (s)he said, simply the price of the last trade of the > day. The fact that some ETFs are marked by the price of market close makes > their trading price "special", but that doesn't imply anything particular > about the closing price of the asset(s) they're based on

The closing price is special -- there's a special procedure to set the price and determine which orders execute (quite similar to the opening procedure), NYSE has a closing auction, NASDAQ has a closing cross, I'm sure most other exchanges have similar.

If there's no market/limit on close orders for a given stock, then the closing price would be the last trade; presumably the same for a stock which had its trading halted earlier in the day.

<comment><USER16> I think this paper is interesting: [https://mrtopstep.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/ITG-Trading...](https://mrtopstep.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/ITG-Trading-Around-The-Close-11-7-2012-1.pdf)

<comment><USER20> Indeed it is, thanks for posting. It always surprises me how when you get down to the nitty gritty of how financial markets work there is a lot of hidden complexity to the mechanics that could have a significant affect on how you should trade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fun fact: Save 70% of your income and use it to buy ticker VOO (Vanguard's S&P 500 fund) and you can retire in under 10 years

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

<comment><USER9> And if the S&P drops like it did in 1987, 2000, 2008, then what...?

<comment><USER22> Then just wait for a few years and it will recover again. [https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXSP:.INX](https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXSP:.INX)

<comment><USER23> Who will pay the bills in the meantime?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is what happens when some companies project investing as a quick and slick process. Answer these 5 questions and here you go: this is your risk tolerance and you are saving away in taxes and doing rebalancing. The truth is that investing is just another application to data science and machine learning and a lot of hard work. Little things matter and even simple rebalancing is not as simple given that periodic rebalancing can have huge market timing effects. We recently did a webinar on how to approach investing as a data science problem instead of a 'finance' problem: [https://www.qplum.co/webinars/past/07072016/skill-vs- luck](https://www.qplum.co/webinars/past/07072016/skill-vs-luck)

<comment><USER25> A friend of mine invested in two roboadvisors (wealthfront and betterment) at end of April and since then they have done nothing, not a single trade. Not a single trade. In the mean while, markets have scaled new heights. Ten year rate dropped to 1.37%!. Brexit happened. The FED unlike happened. There were huge gyrations in the unemployment rate. Vanguard systematic fund VMNVX did much better. I have worked in trading all my work life and I know how hard it is, how humbling it is, and how meaningful it is. I hate it when people sell crap as smart. As Dean Kansky in Serendipity said "They should make pills for this."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I really look forward to the day when it's easy (and safe) to have API's at places like Vanguard so developers skilled in areas such as UX can layer technology solutions on top of the fantastic investment products provided by outfits like Vanguard.

<comment><USER27> I don't see much benefit. The investment philosophy that goes along with Vanguard is buy-and-hold for the long term, there's little trading that goes on these accounts. And that's a good thing. It's not like it's difficult to trade stocks as it is, no real need to make it easier.

<comment><USER26> I'm thinking more about harnessing insight into the returns on the products themselves (and of course not using an API to trade, that wouldn't make much sense with an index fund).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Several of the comments seem confused about why the process isn't entirely straightforward. Here's an example:

Say I have $100 mn under management at an index fund.

When the markets close on Thursday, I have a 5 mn weighting in Apple and its market capitalisation is equal to 5% of the S & P 500 index.

On Friday morning, Tim Cooke makes an inspiring speech about the iCar and Apple's market cap rises to 8% of of the S & P index.

I want to sell some of my other positions and buy Apple so that I still have a balanced weighting of S & P 500 shares. However, I face a tradeoff.

If I do this in small bursts over the course of the day, I have a higher administrative burden. I also risk running up bigger transaction fees if Elon Musk makes another speech in the afternoon unveiling the Tesla-phone, forcing me to sell again after Apple falls back down to 5%.

If I wait until 3.59 to place a massive sell order for all my other stocks and buy order for Apple, (a) market participants might think I know something about Apple, causing the price to rise yet further as I struggle to complete my order (b) sneaky traders could buy up Apple Stock at 3.55 and then sell to me at 3.59 for a higher price.

This is the balancing act a passive fund manager faces.

Edit:

As comments point out, this example is incorrect. First example should say something like Apple splitting into Apple and iPhone and then the relative prices changing after the split. The second half still makes sense.

<comment><USER29> This example does not work. If Apple raises from 5% to 8% of the SP500, it also raises from 5% to 8% of your portfolio. No rebalancing is needed when weighting stocks by market cap.

<comment><USER30> That's correct. A passive index manager is passive - they don't have to worry about some balancing act. It differs from active management because the manager isn't making decisions about which stocks are in the fund. Where the passive fund manager has to do work is on index rebalances and on any constituent corporate action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31>
      O'Reilly [..] came to the U.S. in 1983 to attend Villanova University
      on a track scholarship. As a junior, he ran the mile in less than four minutes
      —a feat he repeated six times. He led Villanova to a conference championship
      and represented Ireland at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

      A few years later, O'Reilly joined Vanguard.

That's the story I would have rather read.

</comment><comment><USER3> And what happens when nearly everyone indexes?

And when indexing with a bond fund, do you really want to be buying negative yield bonds?

<comment><USER32> With interest rates on the floor, why would you want any bond index fund?

You're better off putting your bond allocation in high yield savings accounts.

That's the thing about index/robo people that I don't get. The magic formula can do dumb things.

<comment><USER33> Because bond prices move in the opposite direction of equities (generally)? Also, you're not just collecting interest off those bonds since prices move based on the market's interpretation as to where future interest rates are going. I'm sure my explanation sucks, but if the economy starts to improve, the expectation is that rate will go up, so bond prices fall. And the inverse.

Take a look at Vanguard's bond fund (BND). It went from $80.5 to $84 since January 2016. That's a 4.3% return over 8 months and it wasn't because of the interest the bonds pay. It was also at ~$84 back in 2013. As the economy improved the price dropped then went back up again.

Basically, bonds provide a way to diversify to an asset that is not correlated with equities. Investing in bonds reduces your overall return (vs. just equities), but it also reduces the risk level. If you find that sweet spot you can optimize for slightly reduced returns at a much lower risk. This is standard Boglehead theory.

Folks who know more than me can correct my explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> a single company managing that big a share of the available float worries me -- not from some paranoid, political angle, but from an error and risk standpoint.

<comment><USER35> there is a lot of market infrastructure and jurisprudence that exists specifically for this problem. Trades can and are canceled as the situation demands[0].

[0] [https://www.theice.com/publicdocs/endex/ICE_Endex_Trade_Canc...](https://www.theice.com/publicdocs/endex/ICE_Endex_Trade_Cancellations_Price_Adjustment.pdf)

<comment><USER34> tell that to knight ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> when the corner shoe boy gives you stock advice, its time to get the hell outta there!

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm probably being persnickety, but I think the title here on HN is mildly misleading, as he is actually named and the actual title of the Bloomberg article calls him "Basically Anonymous" ... not actually anonymous

<comment><USER38> I'd probably change Anonymous to 'Little-known'. Anonymous would suggest that nobody has any idea who is managing the money...

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> There isn't much to manage since they are index funds.

(Edit: Ok, I'll accept the downvotes. I mean not _as_ _much_ work as other fund managers. eg don't have to select companies to invest in.)

<comment><USER40> This was covered in the article:

 _Vanguard has invested heavily in technology. Algorithms help managers figure out where to buy and sell while minimizing market impact. Risk software makes sure the portfolio stays close to the index. Because of these technologies, Brennan says, "we probably have the most assets per head of any asset manager in the world." (The key determinant of staffing, he says, is the number of portfolios, not the assets in them.)

But you can automate only so much, and the tough decisions still fall to the portfolio managers. When is the best time to buy an illiquid stock that trades only once or twice a day? How do you handle a corporate deal structured in an unusual way or the issuing of a new class of stock?

"People think a computer could run index funds—and they're so wrong," says Brian Bruce, a former index fund manager who's now chief executive officer of Hillcrest Asset Management in Plano, Texas, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Index Investing._</comment></comment>


Dynamodb-lambda-autoscale - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/channl/dynamodb-lambda-autoscale <comment><USER2> Set the Memory to the highest value to give the best performance?

That doesn't seem like good advice on Lambda. A 128MB container should work fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. A 128MB works absolutely fine, it actually only consumes about 50MB peak. However, in lambda the memory is linked to the processing power and the speed increase offsets the additional charges by being that much quicker. I was surprised myself and really I should put some quick stats in there to backup my recommendation.

<comment><USER2> Really? I run a lambda dynamo scaler that I wrote on a 128MB container and it rarely runs more than 300ms. Anything less that 100ms is a wash with the way they bill so a 2GB container would be 5x more expensive if it managed to stay under 100ms.</comment></comment></comment>


How can we punish African governments for shutting down the Internet? - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/01/01/ethiopia-africa-internet-shutdowns-africa-telecommunications-policy/ <comment><USER2> the sentence "Perhaps governments should be punished at an ICANN level, where allocation of IP addresses are restricted?" is totally unreadable

I did not make any research, this is just my MHO (I have in mind Ethiopia, and I exclude electoral days):

* governments of poor countries do not have $$$ to control the internet (society), so in case of a threat they just close it down: it is a total mess, the gov. knows it (and their PM is a young tetchy guy), but they cannot afford alternatives.

* gov. of rich countries do have cash to use the internet to control people, and the last think they want is not having the internet

the issue is very serious

A fake video, published in specific moment, can be a catastrophe</comment>


Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45664640 <comment><AUTHOR> I do think it has become unfortunate that the choices in a lot of online communities is either "PC police" or "White nationalism". I know people will be quick to proclaim that this is a false choice, but I think Linus correctly identifies that the nuance is lost in most of these online communities and that defending language without any CoC has largely come to be defined with the anti-PC people who seem to see a liberal agenda around every corner.

All sense of moderation has left our discourse (not just in tech), but I do think the right choice is to identify with the PC police types (as Linus seems to be indicating) and to try to be kind and corrective whenever the more ardent members of that group start to lose all sense of proportion.

Here's hoping we can all come back to some sense of moderation one day. Linus definitely crossed the line a few times, but overall it never seemed personal, at least to me, but always about the tech.

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18083859)</comment>


The mortgage crisis, in cartoon form (has cursing, maybe NSFW?) - <AUTHOR> http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true&pli=1

<comment><USER2> A pretty good explanation (according to my limited understanding anyway). Can anyone who knows more about this confirm that it is as accurate as an amusing stick figure cartoon can be?

<comment><USER3> It is very accurate. The problem occurred with the "division of labor" that is clearly outlined in the presentation.

Many people took out loans that they couldn't pay for. They failed to understand the terms of their mortgage. It didn't help that the mortgage brokers had lowered their lending standards so low that almost anyone could walk in and get a mortgage.

It is true that most mortgage companies were simply in the business of brokering as many deals as possible. They didn't care because they just brokered the deal.

So the next logical group to place the blame on would be the banks. The banks, and their legions of loan officers, should not have allowed the loans to take place. Unfortunately, banks do take their mortgages and sell them on the open market to investment banks who end up wrapping them up in some derivative product.

A good reference work concerning the creation of the mortgage derivatives is a book by Michael Lewis titled Liars Poker. In the book Lewis describes how the mortgage derivatives industry came to be and how they founders of the industry went about valuing these products. It's not a rigorous review at all. That's why many people didn't even know what types of mortgages were in these products.

Like my other comment. The article is very accurate. I would like to see legislation to fix the industry as well as some civil and criminal cases because crimes were indeed committed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finance is tough job market. You don't have much job security and the risks go up as your position does. Most financial officers are one major fuckup away from a ruined career. All types of engineers are in the best position right now because everyone is desperate for more good engineers. Not just from the explosion of software engineering but also from all the baby boomer mechanical, chemical, and civil engineers on the verge of retirement.

</comment><comment><USER5> What the hell is going on with comments on this topic?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no idea. If it was my submission that caused it, I apologize to all YC readers out there.

PG, a feature suggestion: create a "Hide this user from me" button. By default, the list of hidden users could contain all users matching .* reddit.* (but without a space after the first * , that's only there due to YC markup rules).

<comment><USER6> I don't think you submission has anything to do with them. I suppose it's a simple case of being in the wrong side in the wrong moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> maybe i'm just reading more comment threads than usual, but doesn't it look like we're under troll attack here?

i see an account that got to -40 karma an hour after being created. after you get a certain amount in the hole, shouldn't your ability to comment be disabled?

<comment><USER8> I figured the software did it, I guess PG is just normally quick with the dead button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Incredibly cool and effectively told :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Bingo!

<comment><USER3> I included the comment because I thought the presentation was dead on. It certainly did capture the essence of the how the mortgage system works in this country.

It is because of the mortgage crisis and its spread to the general credit markets that I can't find a job in finance at this time. That's why I have made the decision to pursue a second undergraduate degree. I'm done with finance after supporting for three years the house of cards Wall Street built.

<comment><USER10> What are you going to get a degree in? I might suggest just jumping into a master's program to skip a lot of the cruft that comes with undergraduate programs. They might make you take some undergraduate courses, but only the really important ones - And the graduate courses you take will be hard, but you'll learn a lot from them. I'm doing something similar but in applied math. (i have a degree in engineering). I have a friend who studied physics as an undergrad and is now getting a masters in CS. They made him take a few undergraduate courses, putting him back a semester, but he doesn't have to wade through the full undergraduate curriculum.

Oh. And only take 3 courses/semester as a grad. student. You actually have a chance to learn it all thoroughly.

<comment><USER3> The degree is going to be in CS. I chose to do a second undergraduate degree because I didn't want to do a PhD in finance or economics. I found myself more and more wanting to write code. I can get lost in a good problem for hours and not even realize it. I've always been fascinated with computers, but I have only started to see what is truly possible when one is able to create a service rather than just consume one.

<comment><AUTHOR> So get a masters in CS. It's not a Ph.D. in finance/economics, and also avoids the BS required to get a BS.

<comment><USER3> Based on my location and cost constraints BGSU was the only option I have available, and I did not meet the requirements for the masters program.

<comment><USER11> brent, why not an MBA? With your finance background and (I presume) a bunch of undergraduate business courses under your belt it should be quick and easy. There's no degree requirement for hackers--"MBA coder with financial sector experience" sounds pretty good, and you can keep working on your HNd here among like-minded comrades. You could also try to use the program as a platform to launch your startup: business plan competitions, networking, possible co-founders or employees among your fellow students, etc.

I'm sure you've considered this--I'm just surprised you (or anybody else) didn't mention it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would label this with the "Not NSWF" marker.</comment>


Technical co-founder wanted- Geo-location guru - <AUTHOR>

Are you interested in using all the latest geo-location tools- Twitter, SimpleGeo, Facebook (soon??) etc to build a travel-related application/game (mobile + web): have started the project (see www.mytripbook.com) but now looking for a php + geo expert to take the site to the next level: please email james at mytripbook.com <comment><USER2> James - I assume you would be the other co-founder. What expertise do you bring to the table? Business, marketing, technical, ideas, etc?</comment>


Ten Most Wanted Design Bugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.asktog.com/Bughouse/10MostWantedDesignBugs.html <comment><USER2> I think Tog wanders away from the "design bugs" topic but here's his list:

\- Identical controls used for asymmetrical weapons systems, with insufficient mode feedback.

\- If the computer loses power for more than a few thousandths of a second, it throws everything away.

\- Nine separate and distinct design bugs in the OSX Dock.

\- Designers offer no way for users to discover why a given menu or option has been dimmed (grayed out), nor how to turn it back on.

\- 15 Dec 2008 sorts as being before 2 Jan 1900.

\- Many browsers disallow entry of spaces & other normal human-language characters into web addresses. The rest do inappropriate things with them.

\- Weird formats for standardized data.

\- ecommerce sites are making it as difficult to buy products as humanly possible.

\- "Smart" functions often make the wrong decisions.

\- Focus stealing.

<comment><USER3> "ecommerce sites are making it as difficult to buy products as humanly possible."

If my credit card has a number as four blocks of four digits then I expect to type four blocks of four digits. A webpage with <input limit=16> is _wrong_. This was easy to fix in 1998 and it is trivial to fix, client side and server side, in 2008. This isn't academic. This increases support and it costs sales.

If I encounter this case then I take business elsewhere. If they cannot get this issue right then how I trust that they'll fulfil my order? I'm not being petty but if this issue is apparent then testing isn't sufficient and they're not acting on feedback. In either case, this is evidence that they're less likely to send the correct products first time, less likely to fix mistakes and less likely to give a refund.</comment></comment>


Racket v6.3: With a new macro expander, GTK3 support, and more - <AUTHOR> http://blog.racket-lang.org/2015/11/racket-v63.html <comment><USER2> Matthew Flatt's talk on the new macro expander at (fifth RacketCon) can be seen at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWLveMNdzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWLveMNdzg)

While the content of the talk is about the new macro expander, the presentation makes great use of Racket's pict module and the pict3d package. Really impressive!

Since first discovering Racket as a result of a Coursera course, it has become my go-to language for my side projects. While I haven't gone into very deep macrology, I'm more enthusiastic and a bit less apprehensive about it thanks to this simpler macro expander.</comment>


anam.io: Free unlimited GitHub backup - <AUTHOR> http://www.anam.io/

<comment><USER2> GitHub isn't a 'single point of failure' due to the distributed nature of Git. I.e. it's pretty easy to push your codebase to another server anytime you want.

If this service backs up submodules for 3rd party dependancies this might be useful but as it stands the landing page doesn't give any further information. I don't feel incentivised to login with GitHub OAuth.

<comment><AUTHOR> After popcorn time and the trouble finding the most up to date copy of the code (that wasn't modified), I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER3> Ultimately, didn't popcorn time get removed by its own maintainers?</comment></comment></comment>


Romney and G.O.P. Make Inroads in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/us/politics/romney-and-gop-make-inroads-in-silicon-valley.html

<comment><USER2> > Mr. Andreessen's office declined to comment for this article, but he, like > other tech industry executives, have said they find Mr. Romney's business > background appealing.

I've never understood this. Running a country is significantly different from running a business. For instance, businesses can fire underperforming employees. A President, on the other hand, can't say "Louisiana, we spend $1.78 on you for every $1.00 we get back in taxes. It's just not working out. We need states to be more like New Jersey, where we only spend $0.61 per $1.00 we get back. Please pack you things, and the TSA will escort you to the Mexican or Canadian exit. We wish you the best of luck in finding citizenship in some other country, and we will be happy to write you a letter of recommendation".

The background I think would be most appealing for a President would be someone who in college double majored in history and something quantitative (a hard science, engineering, or economics at a school with a very mathematical economics program), went to law school, and worked in some field with international exposure.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know why any Silicon Valley entrepreneurs would put their faith Mitt Romney -- the guy who thinks Tesla Motors is a "loser" company, doesn't support net neutrality, demanded mandatory porn filters on computers ([http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/could-romney-really-ban- por...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/could-romney-really-ban-porn/)), and is from a party that rabidly opposes immigration, science research, and science education. If the GOP candidate were a libertarian, I would understand, but what I don't get from this article is what Romney could possibly offer Silicon Valley other than the hand-wavy "business background".

</comment><comment><USER4> Please leave politics to other web sites, thank you.

<comment><USER5> This article involves issues that directly involve silicon valley and other internet startup centers. Why would it not be appropriate for this site?

<comment><USER4> Because it's fundamentally about politics, which is a poisonous topic for communities like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SOPA / PIPA was mostly supported by democracts (35 vs 19 republicans).

<https://projects.propublica.org/sopa/>

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_Congresspersons_who...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_Congresspersons_who_support_or_oppose_SOPA/PIPA)

I'm extremely liberal, and hate GOP, but democrats really aren't that great when it comes to understanding the internet.</comment>


Calculating Space by Konrad Zuse (1969) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://philpapers.org/archive/ZUSRR.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is a book written by Konrad Zuse, the inventor of the first programmable computer.

Re-posting since I just realized that my previous submission was broken.</comment>


Ask HN: What will you do when WFH ends? - <AUTHOR> For all the people here who are willing and able to WFH effectively during this period, what will you do when you're asked to return to work?
When company-wide WFH ends in your area, are you going to return to the office without question?  Try to extend your personal WFH period and hope the second wave causes longer WFH?  Quit your job?
I would love to see some discussion about how people are planning to handle it. <comment><USER2> I prefer working in an office, but there are a good number of reasons for be to try to continue working from home. This summer for example - like last summer and next summer - there will be work going on on the railway tracks between me and Oslo.

While the situation has improved with the years so it isn't as chaotic as it used to be this always end up with walking of the train halfway to work, get crammed into a bus where you cannot work, run to get a place on the next train, and then take a short train trip to get to work.

So, I'm trying to work from home at least until school starts, even if it open up before.

In the long run I hope companies see that remote works reasonably well and start paying for inexpensive offices out were people live instead of demanding everyone to jam into expensive offices in the middle of the capital.</comment>


Deep Learning-Based Face Pose Recovery - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.13102 <comment><USER2> Nice. Their key insight: "Inspired by the observation that the faces under close poses look similar, we reformulate the facial pose estimation as a label distribution learning problem, considering each face image as an example associated with a Gaussian label distribution rather than a single label"</comment>


Infinite Blowup in Newtonian Gravity: Struggles with the Continuum (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/struggles-with-the-continuum-part-1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just ran across this series of blogs by John Baez and they kind of blew my mind. I had no idea classical physics was plagued by these pathologies.

This has been posted here before, but not in a while, and they didn't get much attention. I took the liberty of elaborating the title a bit with the surprising bit which hooked me.

On a meta-level, the whole series gives a really nice view of General Relativity, Quantum Electrodynamics and the Standard model as attemts to fix pure math issues with previous models.

Anyway, hope you find this stuff as fascinating as I do!

</comment><comment><USER2> Infinite rocket mass maybe but you have infinite fuel mass...</comment>


Ask HN: Thinking of moving to The Bay Area, what should I do during a visit? - <AUTHOR> I'm somewhat idly considering moving to the bay from NYC. I spent two weeks in Mountain View when I was at Google and a weekend in SF, but that's it. Flying out to SF for a week -- suggestions for things to do that are less touristy and give more of a sense of what it's like actually living in SF/The Bay? Broad strokes, I'm interested in:<p>* Seeing if I'm okay with the ways The Bay is different than NYC * Experiencing some more of the "tech culture" that's less prominent in NYC<p>Obviously I know there's only so much you can really expose yourself to in just a week, but any suggestions would be appreciated! :) <comment><USER2> The biggest difference between NYC and San Francisco is transportation.

Pick three tech companies at random: one large, one medium, and one small. Make sure that at least two of them are on the Peninsula (say, San Mateo or Mountain View.)

First, try to get to them by public transportation.

Then, another day, rent a car and try to get to them by car.

Good luck as you decide whether to come to the Bay Area!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah from what I've heard living outside of SF without a car is pretty hard. Does pretty much everyone drive? Is biking common?

<comment><USER3> Yes, and yes.

Some people figure out how to make do with only public transportation and a bike, but that severely limits where you can live.

Most people drive, and those who bike or use public transportation either have a car, or live in a household where they can use a car. (1-car couples, or borrow a roommate's car.)

Case in point: I took a job in San Francisco, where they told me that they were moving to Menlo Park, but a few blocks from the Caltrain station. At the time, I lived a few blocks from the Palo Alto train station. For my first month, I took the train into the city and biked to the office, which worked about 95% of the time. (I drove when it rained, or when I had to go somewhere after work.)

Later, when they moved to Menlo Park, it was a short 10-minute bikeride, so I continued to ride my bike, except when it rained, or I needed to go somewhere after work, or when I was recovering from surgery. When I met my wife, I started biking through Stanford to sleep at her place after work.

BUT: My wife and I had to move further away, and then my job moved further away, and I was no longer able to bike.

I should note that, when we were in San Francisco, we had a lot of people who were very committed to living in the city and only working where they could bike / walk / train to. We lost all of these people when we moved to Menlo Park. The only bike/train people who we kept were the company founders, who sucked it up and started driving once we could no longer fit in the offices near the train stations.

<comment><USER2> @gwbas1c is missing the OTHER half of the equation...

Though everyone in the Bay Area needs (access to) a car, driving in the Bay Area is No Fun.

There's stop and stop traffic on every major highway. Parking in San Francisco is very expensive and hard to find.

You need to be flexible to get around the Bay Area, willing to try different solutions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How difficult is it to shift a database? - <AUTHOR> We are planning to move from Neo4j in the future to a more cheaper option like OrientDb or IBMGraph. Can some one help us to know how difficult this process is going to be. <comment><USER2> Most of the Neo4j users don't use the TinkerPop, otherwise, it would be a drop-in replacement. If you're using Neo4j Cypher, you should use the SQL MATCH in OrientDB (very similar). Take a look at this page for the migration: [https://dzone.com/articles/introducing-the-neo4j-to- orientdb...](https://dzone.com/articles/introducing-the-neo4j-to-orientdb- importer).

For IBM Graph (that is Titan under the hood) you should install the TinkerPop plugin in Neo4j, export it as GraphML and then import it into IBM Graph. The query must be completely rewritten. In Gremlin 3 there is a minimal pattern matching, maybe you could try using that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think it is going to be easy. If you had a SQL db, moving to a different one would be hard enough. GraphDBs are quite unstandardized last time I looked. Migrating the data is one thing, changing a lot of application logic is going to be a challenge. Unless you used an ORM or some other layer? Also, how big is the data and how much of downtown can you take?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are working for enterprise companies with a large dataset. If we are using a middle layer like gremlin, wouldn't it be much easier to migrate data from one graph db to another. We are expecting a downtime of around a week.

<comment><USER4> > enterprise companies with a large dataset

If you want to do it properly it will most likely take around 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would consider again moving to OrientDB. I've tried it before and was dissatisfied. Indexing a small 3GB dataset of CSVs crashed badly...

Test well before you move forward.

EDIT: Also Neo4j Community is pretty good. What are your requirements?</comment>


Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work That Matters - <AUTHOR> https://basecamp.com/shapeup <comment><USER2> Would love this as a PDF

<comment><USER3> Or any format at all that can be easily downloaded to my phone for offline reading.</comment></comment>


Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Says He's Taking the Uber CEO Position - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/29/expedia-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-says-hes-taking-the-uber-ceo-position/ <comment><USER2> Pretty interesting deep dive on what he did at Expedia: [https://skift.com/history-of-online-travel/](https://skift.com/history-of- online-travel/)</comment>