Why China Needs U.S. Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/02/why_china_needs_us_debt.html

<comment><USER2> China produces more than it consumes and ships the excess to the US. This keeps its economy roaring, but we don't send them back other goods or services. Instead we send them US debt. The Chinese value this sufficiently that they stay in a productive mood and keep on producing, and their economy keeps growing. It's sort of like inflation except that instead of everyone in China having more and more printed Chinese money, everyone has more and more US debt.

Am I the only one who thinks something is deeply, fundamentally _deranged_ over here? If the global economy were a computer program, it would be time to throw out the old code and redesign everything from scratch.

<comment><USER3> I have always wondered about this. They essentially improve their country by financing our buying. Why don't they simply buy directly? Could they not instead put that excess money into building things they desperately need, like roads and schools?

Investing in a first world infrastructure would stimulate growth at home and lessen their reliance on our consumers (whose buying habits have recently become rather fickle) and our Treasury. The second part may be more important too, with our country hurling toward a Social Security meltdown. Our debt as a percentage of GDP might be low now (relative to Japan) but check back in 20 years.

I'm not an economist, but I'd love to hear from some why I'm wrong (which I'll assume I am).

<comment><USER4> The simple answer is, they don't have a choice.

Some number of dollars flow into their country every year. Some number of dollars flow out. The difference effectively ends up in the hands of the government. They have to do something with it... because if they do nothing with it, they are effectively exchanging Chinese goods for nothing more than cheaply printed pieces of paper.

They government can't spend US dollars inside of China. The only thing they could do is buy American exports, and American assets.

If China were somehow to launch a stimulus plan that was fueled by American production, than that would have the effect you are suggesting. They could have Americans come over and build their roads and schools for them, with American materials. They would improve their infrastructure and we would get our money back. But this is impractical, and China gets the long-term benefits, not us. In fact, we get screwed in the long-term, because the return of all those dollars to America would cause inflation.

<comment><USER3> That's silly. They could certainly spend them in China. Many people there would happily accept US dollars. That's why they have so many of them in the first place, business selling products to Americans. And there are always ways to exchange.

All investing them does is get them even more US dollars. If the problem is that they can't spend US dollars in China, how does using those US dollars to collect more US dollars help at all?

<comment><USER4> The reason any government would want to build a foreign currency reserve, as I've stated in another post, is to help mitigate a currency crisis. In the case the Renminbi has a large drop in value, they would start pumping dollars in and pumping Renminbi out. By decreasing the supply of Renminbi, and giving folks a supposedly more stable currency to hold onto, they can fix a currency problem.

If the Bank of China were to spend US dollars domestically, it would be exactly equivalent to printing Renminbi and spending it. It would be just like a stimulus plan. There's nothing different. Remember, Bank of China must print all the Renminbi necessary to keep the exchange rate at the peg. So watch this:

1\. Chinese government spends 100 million USD for public works project 2\. Businesses receive 100 million USD, want to convert it to CNY, bring it to USD-CNY exchange market 3\. Government prints CNY to soak up 100 million USD

We are right back to where we started, except now there is more CNY in circulation.

Now if we relax the assumption in step 2 that businesses want to convert to USD upfront, we still have the same problem, because it just delays the conversion. While USD is in circulation, there will be some converted to CNY at every transaction (for wages and taxes and things like that).

If the government wanted to enact a stimulus plan, and I think they already did, then they should just do it in CNY.

Note: China does not maintain a strict CNY-USD peg. CNY is pegged to a basket of currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> China has been keeping the value of its own currency down in order to support its exports to the US, and in the process it has been accumulating dollars (which then are invested in US debt). There is a big question if they will continue to do that.

The US debt accumulation process runs like this.

A Chinese exporter of electric goods (for example) has its revenues in US dollars but his costs are mostly in Yuan. As he receives money from his American customers, he sells dollars to buy local currency to pay his workers, to pay taxes etc. Without Chinese central bank intervention the collective activity of exporters would drive Yuan rate up vs dollar very quickly and that would make their exports less competitive.

Chinese central bank wants to keep exports competitive, so it buys US dollars from the exporters at artificially high rates. Its 'foreign currency reserves' keep growing as long as there are exporters bringing in piles of export revenues in dollars. All these dollars needs to be bought up in order to keep Chinese exports competitive. And then all these bought dollars need to be invested, the US Treasuries being the natural place for it.

This all works as long as US consumer is buying. But the US consumers have stopped buying like they used to for many years and some say forever. No major revenues are expected from exports to the US. No need to buy dollars for the Central Bank.

In fact, the opposite is likely to happen. Chinese domestic consumption is growing fast. Very soon domestic Chinese market will become the biggest target for the world's exporters, just as US post-war consumer was. Chinese central bank may want to stimulate local consumption and capital inflows by switching to 'strong Yuan' policy, just like US did with its dollar. There will be no point of spporting the USD and holding dollar-denominated securities (US treasuries) for them.

To summarize, Chinese investment in US treasuries is not a result of desire to find a 'safe heaven' for extra money. It is because they need to park all that greenbacks the accumulated during years of keeping the Yuan down. Today they do not need to support USD anymore. They have no reason to buy US debt either. Prepare for a nasty surprise.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, of course, let us in the U.S. keep telling ourselves that China (and Japan) have _no other option_ but to keep extending us ever increasing amounts of debt. Our credit is _safe_ , it is rated AAA, there are no other outlets, a U.S. debt crisis would be a seventeen sigma event, blah blah blah.

It all sounds familiar, somehow.

<comment><USER4> The AAA credit rating is in terms of US dollars. It would make no sense for the Fed to not have an AAA credit rating.

<comment><USER7> _The AAA credit rating is in terms of US dollars._

Sometimes. Sometimes not. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation_fallacy>

<comment><USER8> _Sometimes. Sometimes not._

The Credit Rating wikipedia page does not show him to be wrong. Also, the fallacy linked to is not applicable. Would you care to elaborate?

<comment><USER7> _The Credit Rating wikipedia page does not show him to be wrong._

Was linking to the Credit Rating wikipedia page intended to show someone to be wrong? The Credit Rating wikipedia page indicates that _credit rating_ can be defined in more than one way.

 _Would you care to elaborate?_

Do you know what _equivocation_ is?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Stop letting the Chinese buy American dollars, which would cause their currency to increase in value, by stopping deficit spending, thus stop allowing them to buy our debt and keep their currency artificially low.

Start paying off the debt that China currently holds and take American dollars off of the market, which would cause their currency to increase in value because of the peg. Continue this policy with other countries that peg their currency to the American dollar as well.

Enact the FairTax which would allow corporations to produce goods and services here with a 0% corporate tax rate instead of importing those goods into the United States.

Increase tariffs on countries who peg their currency to the American dollar, to produce and export goods cheaper, so that the United States can have the competitive advantage, with corporations, on the global market thus creating goods and services here.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill Two things you can do with US debt:

1\. Buy precious metals such as gold and silver and then take physical delivery - COMEX is required to accept US debt as an equivalent to cash. This would raise the price of silver significantly - you can just about corner the market for silver with about $5B to $6B. Buying even a fraction of the gold that China has stated they wish to acquire would send the gold price soaring.

2\. Buy other assets such as real estate, commodities like copper, aluminum, steel, wheat, chicken legs, etc. Competing with Americans and Europeans for some of these commodities would also drive the price up.

Bottom line: inflation is coming to America and possibly Europe (which may be in better shape) as well.

<comment><USER10> sooner or later, China would have to bring trade back into equilibrium. The purpose of debt is to have it repaid one day. This can only be when Chinese are willing to pay for U.S. goods. This can be either when both countries enjoy some kind of parity.

This is not as far fetched as it sounds. The savings rate of Chinese Gen X'ers are 0. They are voracious consumers. If Chinese goverment decided to fund local debt instead of foreign debt, U.S. manufacturing could conceivably come back and sell into China in the future.</comment></comment>


Gamers says no more ADs or IAP in games,developers respond in tense war of words - <AUTHOR> http://androidfreegamesapps.forumotion.com/t3093-why-don-t-developers-make-games-with-no-charge-no-ads-and-just-ask-for-donations

<comment><USER2> Holy shit I hope that the OP was posting that as satire.

"So for 3-6 downloads AD companies will pay you $1,000 via epcm !!!!!!!!" \- Gotta be satire, right? Please be satire?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure that was a troll!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yep really unbelievable.. maybe it is a kid who posted this</comment>


Pushy AI Bots Nudge Humans to Change Behavior - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pushy-ai-bots-nudge-humans-to-change-behavior/ <comment><USER2> That book wasn't supposed to be a blueprint.</comment>


Oil Price Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/prices-at-gasoline-pump-are-falling-but-not-as-much-as-oil-1446460202 <comment><USER2>
        To Read the Full Story,
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Nope.

<comment><AUTHOR> try this through Google, works for me: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QqQIwAGoVChMI_fa4oaD1yAIVSESICh2h_w8J&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fprices- at-gasoline-pump-are-falling-but-not-as-much-as- oil-1446460202&usg=AFQjCNEMEV4NPDbNLfVNQMYIhavhGqWwzw&sig2=RJbLQ6xRmdCeOCG3psSJGw&bvm=bv.106674449,d.cGU)

<comment><USER2> It was a spur-of-the-moment click, and while the link you provide works (thank you) I've no longer got the time, and no longer care.

I know these people need to make money, but teasing with something like that, or putting huge banners up before being able to see the article, just makes me bounce.</comment></comment></comment>


Yet another babel CLI for the npm module creators - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tomchentw/babel-multi-env <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, author here.

Last week I spent some time hacking up a CLI tool called `babel-multi-env`. Designed for the npm module creators, it can generate most up-to-date code targeting the library consumer's node version. Of course, it's based on the babel-preset-env and some other babel counter parts to make it such an awesome work. I'd love to get some feedbacks

<comment><USER2> Great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> so good</comment>


MIT scholar fights malaria with magnets - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/04/mit-scholar-fights-malaria-with-magnets/aixXl6a5quOF340XMEgtnK/story.html
<comment><USER2> I wanna know how a mechanical engineer happens to learn enough about malaria for the thought to even cross his mind to check the iron in the blood with a magnet. What's that thought process like?

Fighting malaria is something I'm interested in pursuing, but my background is heavily in the computer science arena. How do I go about finding out enough about malaria to be able to actually contribute to the problem? (And I don't mean merely writing a check to the Anti Malaria Foundation or whatever.)

<comment><USER3> First read a couple of papers in Malaria. You can easily go through terminology using wikipedia/google. If you don't have a strong background in human pathophysiology it's going to take some time, but given the right amount of time it's not thing really hard. You'll just give the time for some concepts to sink in.

What I'd like to see is an open source version of this _machine_ which can be easily reproduced in pure countries.

HOWEVER, smart as it may seem, if I don't see some triple-checked hard-data, it's hard to tell if the _magnets_ approach actually works and here is were professional _clinical trials_ are made. Because in real life it's extremely hard to take say 5.000 blood samples from people who might be infected (e.g. Africans) right down the results, then go to a professional lab and compare the samples. Write down the results, find in which conditions concentration of 'Fe' is high in blood. Probably talking to the IDI[1] would be a nice first step and so on.

[1]: [http://www.irondisorders.org/iron- overload](http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload)

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also covered in the NYT about a year ago: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/health/new-rapid- malaria-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/health/new-rapid-malaria-test- uses-magnets-and-a-laser.html)

The Gates Foundation has been funding development of a very similar technique by another group since 2010: [http://www.malariaworld.org/sites/default/files/mwjournal/ar...](http://www.malariaworld.org/sites/default/files/mwjournal/article/MWJ2013_4_7.pdf)

It appears to be an active and promising area of research as several other groups have published work back to at least 2008: [http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130312/srep01431/full/srep01...](http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130312/srep01431/full/srep01431.html) (2013) [http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/207](http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/207) (2010) [http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(08)70272-8](http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495\(08\)70272-8) (2008)

</comment><comment><USER5> To renew my faith in humanity, every day I look for some happy news. I hope this technology is successful.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Sometimes I wonder if its only stories like this that even keep me going every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title of this article should be "Yay Science!"

During the time when I lived in Africa I was treated for "presumed" malaria on several occasions despite taking preventative medication. The key is "presumed" because my fever cycled at night (the best time to draw blood for the existing test) they could never actually show that I had the disease because at night the lab was closed.

Malaria is an awful disease and the ability to treat earlier and possibly prevent the spread is fantastic news.

</comment><comment><USER8> Question, the article states that the device should be able to determine whether the malaria parasite has infected the subject while they are asymptomatic. From my limited knowledge of malaria, I was under the impression that during the asymptomatic stage, malaria is multiplying in the liver and does not infect any red blood cells. How will this detect malaria if they are not excreting the iron crystals into the blood stream?

</comment><comment><USER9> Great. Guess the next step is to launch genetically modified mosquitoes that do not carry the disease and can replace the other ones.

</comment><comment><USER10> A certain Jesse Pinkman quote comes to mind [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVDDxoKBk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVDDxoKBk4)

<comment><USER11> This isn't Reddit.

<comment><USER12> "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

<comment><USER13> My account is rather older than a year and I share the same sentiment. This isn't reddit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Billionaire King of Techtopia - <AUTHOR> http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201109/peter-thiel-billionaire-paypal-facebook-internet-success#ixzz1VCNep352

<comment><USER2> It is interesting to see the Friedman families multi-generation effort to create freedom. First there is the well known work of Milton Friedman, and as this article points out, his grandson Patri, is heading up the seasteading effort. Patri's father and Milton's son is David Friedman, a professor of economics, who wrote one of the great practical books about stateless societies: The Machinery of Freedom.

Whenever seasteading comes up in mainstream media, the comments are often filled with standard issue statist worries like "who will provide protection?" or "bioshock!" or "watch out for pirates!" The Machinery of Freedom covers many of the issues that a government free society would need to deal with, and offers practical solutions to dealing with them, along with historical examples of those solutions being employed.

Well worth reading for any libertarians who might read this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seasteading won't work, in my opinion.

Basically, ask yourself: who will turn up first?

Two groups.

Group A will be purer-than-thou libertarians, who will immediately fall into bickering over whether they should pay for the diesel or not.

Group B will be criminals who Group A will not, due to their purity, be able to evict.

Eventually Group C, a nearby superpower with the world's largest navy, will grow tired of having a lawless nest of criminals nearby and will go flush it out. Because conveniently, that nest will have no sovereignty that it cares to recognise.

<comment><USER4> Group D, divers or cruise people who would enjoy spending a week or two in a timeshare near a dive site or reef without being in a small, expensive boat cabin.</comment></comment>


The rich are different from you and me - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16690659

<comment><USER2> Counterpoints:

* Correlation is not causation.

* Poor people may often remain poor because they are not rational. Charity may not be a rational activity. So perhaps what they were measuring was not selfishness, but rationality.

* Being born in a rich family is correlated with a better education, so the point made in the article's last paragraph may be incorrect.

* I'm (currently) poor, but I don't think much of most organised charitable activities, or to giving money to homeless people. I think most charities are an utter waste, and giving money to homeless people only gets them buying alcohol and cigarettes. I'll happily give my sandwich to a homeless person on the street though. My suggested figure for "% of salary to donate to charity" is 0%, and will remain 0% for the rest of my life. However, once rich (assuming I get there), I'd be quite happy to devote years of my life to helping people directly (which may involve leveraging financial resources, but not donating money to charities).

* Average figures tell us little. What was the distribution? Did 90% of rich people suggest 0% and 10% of them suggested 50%? How did they get to the 2.1% figure?

* What kind of social pressure was there when asking people how much they would donate (of their credits, or of their salary)? Social pressure is a huge influence. Here on HN, an open-minded, thoughtful environment, I explain my views on charities above (even though I know I'll get some passionate replies). Sitting in a circle of people I don't know, I might still express these views (because I'm like that..) but most people probably would be wiser and keep those views quiet.

* What kind of social pressure was there before? What kind of social pressure did they expect after? Did people give an answer to please the examiner?

A lot of holes in this article, I think. Surprising, coming from a quality publication like the Economist.

<comment><USER3> "Charity may not be a rational activity. So perhaps what they were measuring was not selfishness, but rationality."

What grounds do you have for thinking that charity (and presumably altruism in general) is irrational? Are you assuming that only self-interested actions can be rational?

<comment><USER4> > Are you assuming that only self-interested actions can be rational?

That's pretty much the definition of "rational" as it is applied in Economics. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory>

<comment><USER3> Indeed but "economic rationality" is a narrow subset of rationality as a whole. And the lines I quoted above seemed to imply that charity is irrational, not just "economically irrational."

<comment><USER5> Agreed - "economic rationality" is an extremely narrow concept. As an example, it's "rational" to buy yourself a car or an ice cream cone, because you get utility or enjoyment out of it. It's "irrational" to give money to others, because... you don't get enjoyment out of it? Wait, what if you do? A giant problem with the definition, methinks.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, then there's the fact that approximately 0 people on earth conform to the expectation of economic rationality.

"Hey, it looked like it'd work on the chart!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A caveat: the findings of Piff's research are applicable only to his research subjects, who are likely Berkeley undergraduates at the Social Interaction Lab. Findings in psychological experiments don't carry across cultures. See 'The Weirdest People in the World?' for more:

<http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/WeirdPeople.pdf>

That said, other researchers conducting Ultimatum Game and Dictator Game experiments have found that higher-status individuals offer less to their counterparts, even when the 'status' is entirely make-believe (for instance, being told that they scored higher than their counterpart on a previously- conducted test of skill - even though they were in fact randomly assigned to their roles.) Researchers have also found that in Ultimatum Game experiments, lower-status individuals were willing to accept less, even when the low status was similarly make-believe.

In other words, Piff is making a somewhat politicized argument about wealth and 'the rich', when he should be talking about status. I'd argue that all this experiment shows is that American college undergraduates have internalized that high status is deserved, and therefore it's fair for high status people to retain a greater proportion of the benefits of status.

</comment><comment><USER8> My own pet theory is that people simply have a harder time justifying the giving of help/charity to people they do not know and/or understand.

e.g. It's easy to hate "the other" because you don't know them, you don't live next door to them, you've never lived through what they've lived through, etc. And this is amplified by those who benefit from the hate, and who slander with strawmen and push for rules that maintain the separations and distinctions. (DADT, segregation, most suburban zoning laws in the US, Arizona's new immigration laws, etc)

Similarly, it's harder for rich people in the suburbs to support social programs than even similarly rich people who simply live where they have more contact with people of more economic classes. Even if neither set of rich people had been personally poor.

Likewise, poor people --while more likely to give charity to other people who are in situations they understand-- are still very skeptical of charity given to "the other" (e.g. TARP)

Truly, some people have a strong philosophical belief and act accordingly. But mostly, people are just skeptical of "the other" and act accordingly.

<comment><USER9> Humans find it very easy to hate people who they know.

See the middle east for an example.

<comment><USER8> _know_ ?

Last I checked Israelis and Palestinians weren't generally living in the same neighborhoods, subject to equal treatment under the same laws, shopping at the same markets, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Growing up relatively poor (at least for Western standards), it feels that I can empathize with the poor a lot more than those who did not grow up similarly.

You can read about poverty, imagine it, and have knowledge about it. But unless you've experienced it first hand, you cannot truly understand what it's like.

I think that understanding can lead people to be more altruistic.

<comment><USER11> I agree completely. A poster above was saying how giving to charities is a waste and giving to the poor just means them getting drunk. I can assure you the homeless drunk needs to eat at some point if he doesn't want to be dead in a ditch. And the easiest way to do it is spare change.

I've met far too many people trying to do the noble thing by buying a sandwich or milk. Completely oblivious to that persons dietary requirements. It would have been far easier to give a dollar, let the poor guy figure out what he wants to eat. If he buys alcohol he'll only get thirstier and hungrier.

<comment><USER12> It's quite normal to be asked for money to something to eat, but in 20 years of saying, I'll buy you whatever you want to eat from this store, I've never been taken up on the offer.

Another thing (in London anyway) is to be asked for money to stay in a shelter overnight. Well the shelters are free, paid for by the local councils, and always have spare beds.

I think if anyone did ever say, I need the money to get high, I'd probably give it them, just because they'd be the first honest one...

<comment><USER13> I once saw a couple of beggars in Barcelona sitting with three pieces of card propped up next to a wall. The cards each had a title: whiskey, wine, and rum. It raised a chuckle out of me and I did give them so money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Old Japanese aphorism: "It's through suffering that we learn the true value of kindness."

<comment><USER15> "Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little."

(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If I may venture into armchair evolutionary psychology territory, this seems to verifiy that humans evolved and use altruism as a survival strategy. A person of lower status would have more to gain by investing in relationships through altruism than a person who is already of high status or wealthy.

<comment><USER17> I don't understand (or I am scared to understand?;). Do you mean we all evolved towards altruism? then this is contradictory, if we evolved (over 1000s of years) towards altruism then one can not modify instantaneously his evolved behavior depending contingently on if one belongs to the high or the low class. Or do you mean that the altruism "gene"(or whatever) is expressed _only_ when one is in lower class? and that Altruism behavior is only expressed when survival is necessary, and is not a standard/general human behavior.

<comment><USER16> I don't see where the problem is with evolving context-specific altruism. We have numerous strategies that we evolved and use in specific contexts. Screaming, or crying or laughing for instance. Altruism could be another.

<comment><USER17> ok and that answers my question. Altruism as one item in our evolutionary library toolkit vs more deeply ingrained in our behaviors or even genes. My hope is that it is selfishness which is more an item in our library... that we evolved more towards being cooperators while still being able to defect (free- riders) some times...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yeah they are... They give away much more money through taxation (which the article/study doesn't seem to consider. For instance, asking 'If you earned $500 000 a year and lost 40% of it through tax, how much additional wealth should you give away voluntarily,' is different from asking 'what percentage of your income should you keep/lose?' Perhaps one believes all people should keep the same portion of their income, and answered that lower income people should give more to charity in order to compensate for their lower taxation. The study misses this and the article concludes 'rich people think poor people should give more.' It's also an easy explanation for why even when hypothetically adopting a different income bracket, their attitudes 'changed').

</comment><comment><USER19> _This revealed that whether high status was inherited or earned made no difference--so the idea that it is the self-made who are especially selfish does not work._

It's likely that their parents or grandparents were "self-made" and also passed on their selfishness.

</comment><comment><USER20> I noticed this very strongly when I lived in SF re beggers.

I always assumed it was empathetic based, poor being relatively close to and could easily be knocked down a rung to homeless/destitute. Were as rich fairly far removed from homeless/destitute experience and could not relate.

Also to the rich money is status, valuable, something you work hard and sacrifice for. To the poor money is something they just don't have.

Also poor receive (and need) more charity than the rich and may feel obliged to "give back" when they can. They at the very least are more likely to know how much a little charity can help.

</comment><comment><USER21> The article defines "charity" in an incomplete way; simply _giving your money away_ is only half of the equation. The other half of donating money is finding the organization that will leverage it to the most good.

You could simply give away your money by dropping dollar bills out of a hot air balloon, but most people wouldn't consider that as charitable as donating the same money to cancer research.

Perhaps the article truly is pointing out that the rich see charity as an investment where poor people see it simply as "giving extra money away."

</comment><comment><USER22> >Upper-class participants said 2.1% of incomes should be donated. Lower-class individuals felt that 5.6% was the appropriate slice. Upper-class participants who were induced to believe they were lower class suggested 3.1%. And lower- class individuals who had been "psychologically promoted" thought 3.3% was about right.

What's with the assumption that charity should scale linearly with income? With the numbers they give, people making 250k wanted to give $5250 and people making 25k wanted to give $1400.

<comment><USER23> Theoretically at least, people making 250k are far less likely to notice the missing $5250 or even the missing $14k if they scale linearly: they'll consume a much smaller proportion of income in the present and are much less likely to encounter problems resulting from lack of savings in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> One counterpoint for super rich:

<http://givingpledge.org/>

</comment><comment><USER25> I read some time ago about tribe which members are extremely generous, friendly and selfless. In research turned out that this tribe had in the past many violent neighbors so close cooperation of tribe members was absolutely necessary for survival. Tough environmental factors probably lead to increased cooperation as well.

<comment><USER12> That tribe is called the Swedish :-)

Well, not so much neighbours but harsh weather conditions. That is why socialism works in Sweden; people do their bit rather than trying to game the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Am I understanding this correctly? The study gave each participant 10 credits and then said they could keep them or give them away and at the end, those credits would be converted into real money.

Uh, why would anyone give away credits? It's a totally zero-sum game. The _only_ way you can 'win' if is someone else is foolish enough to give you their credits.

<comment><USER27> There's definitely something missing from the description of the experiment. It sounds like the first half of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game>. The second half—informing the player that their hypothetical "anonymous partner" would get to decide whether both, or neither, of them got the money—provides the incentive for the player to cooperate. Selfishness could then be gauged by how often players still choose "unfair" splits despite the chance of rejection.

If this is what the experiment was, though, I would question their methodology a bit; an important part of the Ultimatum game is that both partners have to _think_ of one another as human—and therefore capable of irrationality. The partner anonymity in their experimental set-up creates (mental) distance between the partners, which encourages a more rational cost-benefit analysis, vs. the immediate "I should punish you for giving me such a bad deal" reaction you have to a real person. If the players realize this, they will benefit by acting more selfishly, because they can rely on their partner to not see them as "human enough" to be worth punishing.

<comment><USER7> This is a related but different experiment called the Dictator Game.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_game>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Counterpoints:

* Correlation is not causation. Tell that to al gore!</comment>


10 Web design trends you can expect to see in 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/12/29/10-web-design-trends-can-expect-see-2014/2/ <comment><USER2> Mostly the same predictions as her article for 2013. Also, don't hover your mouse over an image while taking a screenshot.</comment>


Ask HN: I own stock for a company just bought by Oracle, what is my stock value? - <AUTHOR>

I used to work for BigMachines in Chicago and have nearly 2000 shares. I have no idea what this means for the value of my shares. Any who can explain this to me? I'm clueless here.<p>http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oracle-buys-bigmachines-2013-10-23 <comment><USER2> Depending on the size of the company, the best person to ask would be the CFO or CEO of BigMachines. They may be super busy at the moment though given the recent purchase. :-)

That said, to answer your question of "am I now a millionaire?", there's some info you need about your shares and the deal:

1) What class do your shares belong to? Are you shares common shares (they probably are)? Are there any preferred shares (there probably are if the firm took VC money). In any liquidity event (like a company getting bought), preferred shareholders get paid first, then common shareholders.

2) You have 2000 shares. How many shares in total are there?

2) What are the terms of the deal? Cash? Cash and stock? How much? The press release doesn't mention it.

Note that as a shareholder, you may find out the amount. Please do not share it here. If it wasn't mentioned in the press release, it's likely not meant for public consumption.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) I am certain they are common shares, and I do believe that there are preferred shares as they did take VC money. The company started pre 2000 so they've been around the block.

2) I have no idea how many shares there are, but I know it is more than a million, and probably more than 10 million.

3) I have no idea. You are right there is nothing in the press about the terms of the deal.

I am certain I am not a millionaire. But the ability to put a down payment on a house might be nice. I don't know if I just have to wait a while to figure out what all this means.

<comment><USER3> Don't count on "house" money either; if there are just 10 million (all) common shares and the company sold for $10 MM, you'll (eventually) be the proud owner of $2 000, or the equivalent in Oracle shares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see the price mentioned anywhere in the documents published but I may have missed it.

I expect that you will get a notice about the acquisition in the mail, with more details. Otherwise you can always call the CEO or CFO and ask about the acquisitions and what it means for your shares and how much they are worth.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article doesn't say. You need to ask your company about it.

Things to check are if they company was bought for cash or shares, which can determine which you receive. Second, check if your shares have vested, meaning whether they are actually yours yet and in that case whether Oracle decides to let you have them or discard them.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I cannot say for certain it should be known that in order to get the shares I had to write a check to get them. So I assume that since I actually handed over money that the deal is legit, or at least a lot harder for Oracle to say "you get nothing". But who knows....

<comment><USER6> That doesn't mean anything. I wrote a check for some shares back in 1999.

The company was "bought out" many years later. However, the shares were worthless, since it wasn't for enough to pay out anything to the common bag holders, only to some of the preferreds.

<comment><AUTHOR> The company is doing pretty well so I think that might be hard to pull off. But then again I'm no accountant so it would seem anything is possible. Pull enough tricks and perhaps it would look like there is nothing left for anyone. I will delay buying that solid gold yacht for the time being.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Quietly Rolls Out The Chrome Extension To Bring +1 To The Entire Web - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/31/google-plus-one-chrome-extension/

<comment><USER2> Once again, totally fucking useless if you use a google apps account as your primary account.

It's unbelievable to me how freaking useless all of google's shit is with regard to this problem. You can use multiple accounts, but none of their software, including their browser is multi-account aware.

<comment><USER3> totally fucking useless doesn't even begin to describe my experience with multiple google apps and gmail accounts. I currently have 3 browsers running _and_ a copy of google in "incognito mode" just so I can have all my email, docs and Youtube accessible without having to switch accounts constantly. Drives me damn near crazy.

<comment><USER4> No offense, but I simply don't understand the rage at Google for this issue. Are you telling me that switching between Live IDs is magically easier (it's not, it's amazingly easy to be "logged in" to a Live site without a logout button, especially when you mixed an XBL account in there).

It's just that Google is the one site large enough to have users that NEED multiple accounts and have reasons to switch between them. You're arguing against the cookie model and the fact that modern browsers are still complete shit at managing an identity and related cookies.

(edit)Rambling here, with the new Cookie API in Chrome, would it not be possible to switch between profiles quickly using an extension? I understand the frustation is that we want to have one tab/window with one account and one with another, but this solution could surely mitigate some use cases.

Also, I hope my comments aren't interpreted the wrong way. I just started a new project with a new team today with a new centralized gmail account. This means coordinating between my account and the central account and between those two accounts and other team members. I understand the frustration, I just don't know if rage at Google is the most appropriate direction of attention.

<comment><USER5> The fact is that Apps necessitates multiple accounts. If you want to receive email at both example.com and ycombinator.com, you can either pay $50 a month or use two accounts.

<comment><USER6> I don't understand the problem. There are two ways that I know to handle this.

1) on secondary account setup imap/pop3 access. Setup primary account to read that. Grant access for primary account to use secondary email address (allows to change the from email)

2) in the app settings of your second domain, setup mailing list that has your primary email as the only destination. Enable the mailing list to accept any incoming email. Grant access for primary account to use secondary email address (allows to change the from email)

There are probably more ways, I know of few people that have 5 email addresses all setup to route through one core account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Imagine if Facebook made their own browser and offered an extension to "Like" any page on the web through it — same idea..._

Wouldn't the same idea be Facebook releasing a Chrome extension for their "Like" button...?

Just sayin'.

<comment><USER8> Well I suppose the assumption is that the +1 button will eventually be baked into Chrome by default. And Android...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _In addition to the practices described in the Google +1 Button Privacy > Policy, by installing this extension, all of the pages and URLs you visit > will be sent to Google in order to retrieve +1 information._

Oh yes, how reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER9> > all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google in order to > retrieve +1 information.

This is just another part of their plan to index the web, and get more signals for their web index building, just like the Google Toolbars that tracked everything you did on the web.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't really change the current situation. They own the browser, after all. And I'm pretty sure they already get part of the page via things like integrated page language detection for translation.

This is a bit more precise, but not a radical change, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would much prefer to see it added inside of the address bar rather than as a button.</comment>


With: JavaScript's most reviled keyword - <AUTHOR> http://bolinfest.com/talks/2011/jsconf.us/

<comment><USER2> Would have liked a slide or two about why with is deprecated in the first place.</comment>