FDA promised a 'lower-cost option' to EpiPen, but the price isn't any lower - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2018/11/27/epipen-teva-pricing-fda/ <comment><USER2> This article hints at it, but this is the _list price_ that nobody actually pays. Manufacturers offer discounts to pharmacies that lower the net price.

So in fact, this drug could be cheaper than the Mylan version, but it looks like they never dug in deeper to find out if it's true.

Second of all, the first generic approved gets 180 days of market exclusivity whereby the FDA will not approve any other generic versions. This is such that the generic manufacturer can recoup the investment prior to widespread competition that drives down prices.

For example, Lipitor went generic and the price dropped only ~10-20%. After the 180 days, multiple generic companies got approval and now the price is 80-90% lower.

<comment><USER3> Uh, sure?

The Mylan version will also probably cost less than list for most people (though Mylan will get their money, just like the generic maker).

Also, you're correct that the price will come down over time. If the FDA had said, "this approval is part of a process that will eventually lower the cost within the next couple of years," then the article would make no sense. That's not what they said when this generic version was released.

The article is not claiming that generic drugs don't reduce prices. It is claiming that the narrative from the FDA, that this approval will reduce costs, is largely false.

<comment><USER2> Yes, the article states that the Mylan product can be purchased for under $150 with a discount.

 _In fact, several large retailers sell EpiPen for $150 when including a coupon, according to GoodRx._

As for the FDA narrative not being true, how do you know that? The article doesn't actually state the true cost of the Teva product anywhere, which was my original point.

<comment><USER4> $150 with discount or coupon is still way too expensive. Where I live in Europe (Belgium) pharmacies sell the EpiPen for just $50. No need for a coupon, that's the regular price. It's even cheaper for some patients.

<comment><USER5> In belgium the government sets the maximum price of drugs. The drug company has to submit a dossier explaining objectively why a particular price that they propose is reasonable.

<comment><USER6> I think that is what we need in the U.S. When I was in college I survived on a food budget of $100/week during my first year. I have diabetes, and I am supposed to (though not required) test my blood three times a day, 21 times per week, at $1 per strip. My Metformin costs me another $22 per week, and a two other drugs costs me about the same. The result is that a single well- controlled condition costs me $88 per week, $352 per month.

Put another way, if I was working minimum wage without insurance and no other income (12% tax bracket), I'd need to work 13.6 hours to cover the drugs for that one condition, 34% of my take home (roughly, I didn't include state tax, social security, etc.). Where as one person I would have been above the poverty threshold of $12.14k in 2018, now I would effectively be below it.

This is why so many people who don't have steady jobs (e.g., the gig economy) have to choose between drugs and food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A rule of thumb from the European Union is that it takes four competitors before prices come down. Two form a duopoly, and it's to the advantage of both parties not to lower prices. Four have trouble holding prices up. Whoever's losing market share tends to cut prices.

Antitrust law needs to reflect the rule of four.

<comment><USER8> Or, a government could just say:

If you want to operate as a pharmaceutical producer / seller in this country, you have to supply this list of emergency medicines at 10% above the price we can import from China / India."

And be done with it.

Edit: fixed a typo

<comment><USER9> That's a good way to get _nobody_ operating as a pharmaceutical producer / seller in this country.

<comment><USER8> I mean, I'm talking about _maybe a few_ life saving emergency medicines. Capping the price and allowing / encouraging / requiring other manufacturers to sell in the market.

<comment><USER9> What availability would those producers need to provide? Some quota of supplies? Low prices don't matter for much if there's a shortage, and there _will_ be a shortage of cheap emergency medicine if the companies that produce it can get away without spending too much on the unprofitable requirement. (and if it were profitable they'd do it anyway, without need for government requirement)

I worry that requiring a pharma company to provide supplies hurts anyone who wants to start up a new pharma company. It's easier to comply with government regulations once you're a big company and have many plants, but new companies have to be lean or else they'll never make it off the ground.

<comment><USER8> I don't have a wholly formed drop-in solution for the current problem, though it certainly does seem there _is_ a problem.

No amount of _well-that-isn 't-going-to-work thinking_ is going to _help_.

Try _something_ , if that doesn't work _try something else_.

I believe the fashionable word is _iterate_.

<comment><USER10> Society isn't some laboratory where you can run experiments to your heart's delight. Decisions have consequences. Harming the market for medical research is particularly insidious, as its costs are very real but hard to see: all of the people who will be worse off because the treatments they need are not invented.

<comment><USER8> > Decisions have consequences.

Like, for example, the decision to increase the price of an Epipen to US$300 in the USA, whereas the same product in Australia costs AU$100

> Society isn't some laboratory where you can run experiments to your heart's > delight.

In a way that's what _policy_ and _regulation_ are. Since we can't know the full consequences of policy and regulation until they're implemented and time passes. Sure, most policy and regulation aren't willy-nilly.

Trade-offs I guess. Regulate the sale of _some_ emergency medicines so that those who need them now can afford them at the expense of, what exactly? It's not like regulating the sale of _one_ medicine is going to break a pharmaceutical company?

Why do I feel like I'm trying to defend sensible pricing here? Are people really that allergic to the word _regulation_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The price will probably be lower, as the article suggests, but there are currently epipen shortages so teva can charge more until the shortages are resolved.

Typically the second generic product brings the largest price reduction [0]. However epipen is a unique scenario. I'm not sure how hard it is to develop a generic epipen, but it is definitely not a straightforward small molecule generic, so presumably there will be fewer generic versions than you see with drugs like lipitor. So it is possible that the market resolves to an oligopoly with 3-5 players that all make decent profits; there is precedent for this (i think the pancreatic enzymes market is an example)

[0] [https://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/centersoffices/officeofmedicalp...](https://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/centersoffices/officeofmedicalproductsandtobacco/cder/ucm129385.htm)

<comment><USER12> A generic epipen is not only not hard to develop, but you can find youtube videos explaining how to build one yourself.

See [https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human- os/biomedical/devices/ha...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human- os/biomedical/devices/hackers-offer-a-diy-alternative-to-the-600-epipen).

<comment><USER13> It's not even 'building' one, it is literally just buying a commercially available FDA approved autoinjector and a vial of epinephrine to load into it.

It is really strange that the FDA is totally fine with diabetics buying vials of insulin and loading their own autoinjectors, but doing the same thing with epinephrine is apparently extremely dangerous and the FDA doesn't want you to do it[1].

[1] [https://www.in- pharmatechnologist.com/Article/2016/09/22/US-...](https://www.in- pharmatechnologist.com/Article/2016/09/22/US-FDA-warns-against-30-alternative- to-Mylan-s-EpiPen)

<comment><USER14> Insulin isn't as dangerous for minor mess ups.

Epi is a drug that is a vascodialator in large muscles and a vascoconstrictor in small muscles.

If you inject the right amount of insulin in the wrong place, not much happens. If you inject the right amount of epi in the wrong place like a finger, you could lose that finger.

You could argue a diabetic's ability to administer during an event is just as bad someone in anaphylaxis all day long... one is passed out and the other is panicking because they are dying...

But epipen's unique injector is primarily to get the right amount in the right place. Two part problem it solves over the vial.

<comment><USER12> I bet more people have died because there was no pen present (too expensive) than would have died from incorrect administration of a cheaper pen. So the design of the epipen solves a problem, but are we making the right tradeoff in insisting on using that solution at a high price point?

This is like the fact that TSA searches make another 9/11 less likely, however people driving instead of flying to avoid the hassle is estimated to have killed more people than 9/11 itself did. Risk is a funny thing, and isn't always straightforward to figure out.

Making it personal, in theory my daughter should have 2 epipens close at all times because if she gets stung on the neck, she could need one. Anywhere else is OK, the concern is swelling from her allergy cutting off airflow. That explains one, and the second is in case the first fails to work properly, which sometimes happens.

In practice there is an epipen for her at school, and at her mother's house, but not at my house. We shelled out once. But we're not shelling out over and over again to prevent such an unlikely disaster. (Twice more so that there are the recommended number of pens at school and both places she lives, then more as we lose them since they are supposed to always be on us..soon we're talking about real money!)

<comment><USER14> So... you can can get checked out on and get a script for the vile of epi. Adjusts typically get .3mg and kids .15mg iirc. For the normal 1mg/mL stuff... and that's for anaphylaxis of course, not a heart attack.

That's cheap and pretty easy to do. The problem is while maybe I'm a superstar with a vile on someone else, I wouldn't trust I could do it while my throat was literally closing, in all scenarios. The pen makes sense a lot of time, but the vile is good if you know you won't be the target.

Something you wrote also, 2 pens. If you need one, there is a good chance you'll need two. Depends on how fast you can get to a hospital and the circumstances with the victim.

So in that case, the vile makes even more sense for you to have at home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The pricing appears to undercut a notion promoted by FDA officials that > approving more generics can help relieve the pocketbook pressure many > Americans feel over the cost of their medicines.

I'm surprised the author is making the arugment that more competitiion doesn't drive down prices - despite the large body of evidence to the contrary.

It's accepted belief that when competition fails to drive down pricing among pharmaceuticals, it's usually due to regulatory decisions. There are several studies that have been done on this exact topic, one even finds that price regulation actually leads to higher prices by discouraging market forces [1].

1\. [https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kilde/hod/hdk...](https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kilde/hod/hdk/2006/0016/ddd/pdfv/291420-vedlegg.pdf)

<comment><USER16> Normally competition means companies can make as many of a product as they want in order to gain market share from each other. FDA regulated drugs often operate on a production quota system where a given company is only allowed to manufacture a pre-approved amount. If the FDA decreased the EpiPen quota by the same amount that the generic was allowed to be produced in then you might not expect to see any reduction in price. Of course they might have just left EpiPen's quota the same, the article doesn't have that sort of information and it might not be publicly available.

<comment><USER17> > FDA regulated drugs often operate on a production quota system where a given > company is only allowed to manufacture a pre-approved amount.

My understanding is that this only applies to Schedule I and II drugs.

The Epipen, along with most other pharmaceutical drugs, do not fall under those categories.

<comment><USER18> Are schedule I drugs allowed to be manufactured at all? I thought schedule I meant the FDA has determined that no medical use exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The former pharma exec working for HHS to negotiate lower drug prices committed suicide about a month ago.

[https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/11/death_of_h...](https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/11/death_of_hhs_official_daniel_b.html)

<comment><USER20> > _suicide_

> _multiple blunt force injuries_

Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist but I'm curious to learn more

<comment><USER21> >Police say Best was found "unresponsive" near the garage door exit of an apartment building

A non-conspiracy possibility is he used the garage door to commit suicide, and the bouncing door is what caused the blunt force injuries

<comment><USER22> Unlikely. Garage doors have safety mechanisms that will reverse or at least stop a closing door if there's an obstruction.

My guess was that he jumped from the roof, and was found by the garage door. That would explain the blunt force trauma.

<comment><USER14> They also don't have anywhere near the amount of torque required to smash a person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I recently found out I have an allergy but do not know what it is. I tried to buy an EpiPen in NYC and I was told

1\. 2 pens cost > $400 usd

2\. They have not had any in NYC for over 2 months because of shortages

<comment><USER24> Hmm...odd. We previously would buy my son's EpiPens in Canada (when in Canada for other reasons), but recently CVS has had an equivalent product that we've bought. I forget the price but the fact I forget it tells me it was reasonable.

...<digs pen out>...ok, it is made by "Impax" and labeled "epinephrine injection, USP"

<comment><USER25> The product you got at CVS [1] is made by Impax and is an FDA 'Authorized Generic' [2] for Adrenaclick, also made my Impax. It's effectively Adrenaclick with the branding intentionally omitted, and the CVS out-of-pocket price is 109.99 USD for pack of two.

[1] [https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen- alternative](https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen-alternative) [2] [https://www.fda.gov/drugs/developmentapprovalprocess/howdrug...](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/developmentapprovalprocess/howdrugsaredevelopedandapproved/approvalapplications/abbreviatednewdrugapplicationandagenerics/ucm126389.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This hopefully surprises no-one. Teva and Mylan are very similar companies with very similar profit strategies:

[https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/11/mylan-deals-a- blow...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/11/mylan-deals-a-blow-to-teva- pharmaceutical.aspx)

<comment><USER26> This also comes as Teva, Mylan (and others) are facing a price fixing lawsuit:

[https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/20-generic- dr...](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/20-generic-drugmakers- must-answer-price-fixing-lawsuit.html)

And also a criminal probe (not sure what the status of these are):

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-24/generic-d...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-24/generic- drug-companies-said-to-face-first-charges-in-u-s-probe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What happened to the lower cost generic offering that CVS was touting all over last year? Is it not pushing down prices across the board? [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/cvs-just- announced-a...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/cvs-just-announced-a- super-cheap-generic-alternative-to-epipen/)

<comment><USER28> They have been offering it for more than a year in stores...

[https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen- alternative](https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen-alternative)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Do you suppose it could be feasible to create a nonprofit organization which produced low price EpiPens that made just enough to cover expenses?

<comment><USER30> Four Thieves Vinegar Collective: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to- mak...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-make-your- own-medicine-four-thieves-vinegar-collective)

Discussion on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436)

<comment><USER31> part of what you're paying for with your drugs is quality control to ensure that you 1) made what you wanted to make 2) didn't contaminate it with something you didn't want.

<comment><USER32> You should take a look at the documents I FOIAd from FDA (the parts they didn't redact that is--apparently my appeal will take 3 years to be processed). Median Medical Technologies, Inc. (a Pfizer company that produces and owns patents for the EpiPen) violated numerous safety rules and breached aseptic manufacturing multiple times, and did not appropriately investigate failures.

Here's one of their violation letters, I was told that sanctions were still being considered for the latest inspection.

[https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/...](https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2017/ucm574981.htm)

[https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJ...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJXp08q9kJJGa7?usp=sharing)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So, why not just import these pens from UK or Canadian producers who make them at scale and for much cheaper? Or better yet, create a joint venture to manufacture them cheaply in places like India?

<comment><USER16> That would be quite illegal, those UK and Canadian epiphendrine injectors haven't been subject to FDA regulation. It would be a really good idea, granted, but there are plenty of less radical ways to solve the problem. It doesn't seem to have a positive effect on health outcomes (due to effects on availability) but US drug regulations are pretty much the tightest in the world and allowing foreign imports would be a relaxation of that.

<comment><USER34> Unless the drug in question is a controlled substance, it's only illegal to sell Rx-only medications, not to buy them. On the extremely rare chance customs confiscates your shipment (which in practice only happens one week a year, during Operation Pangea), all that will happen to you is that your package will be empty.

I'm not linking them here (just because I don't want to get YC/HN in trouble), but there are a number of highly-reputable online pharmacies in India and Vanuatu that sell non-controlled medications and ship to the US. I haven't checked whether or not they sell EpiPens, but I wouldn't be surprised. I'm aware of them because they are very popular in the transgender community due to high barriers to accessing medical care by legitimate means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why would the price be any lower?

If it costs $12.53 to manufacture an EpiPen equivalent, and the market price of the EpiPen is $300, it would make no sense to sell it for any price other then $300.

<comment><USER36> Can you really say the "market price is X" when there's only been one company making it?

Either way, I think there are some hidden forces here that keep these prices so high. Like if the FDA would open the _market_ to competitors from Europe, or even countries like India, I think that "market price" you say would dramatically lower.

I think the U.S. pharmaceuticals market both lacks competition from generics, as well as has some weird laws like "Medicare can't negotiate prices with pharma companies," which only encourages pharma companies to raise their prices as much as possible.

The law I mention is almost solely responsible for all the "drug X increased price by 5,000%" headlines you've seen lately. Pharma companies have figured out they can shamelessly rob taxpayers and nobody will do a thing about it, as long as they donate to the right politicians (from both parties).

<comment><USER25> It's worth noting that the Teva device that's the subject of the article is what the FDA considers an 'Authorized Generic'. From the press release [1]:

> _" An authorized generic is made under the brand name's existing new drug > application using the same formulation, process and manufacturing facilities > that are used by the brand name manufacturer. The labeling or packaging is, > however, changed to remove the brand name or other trade dress. In some > cases, a company may choose to sell an authorized generic at a lower cost > than the brand-name drug product."_

While this is different from what common language calls a 'generic drug' [2], in some cases either kind of "generic" could, may, or must be substituted by pharmacists, depending on various circumstances and the particular state's regulatory regime [3].

This interacts with the epinephrine autoinjector market in two ways. First, there is little upside for the manufacturer of the authorized generic to make the list price significantly lower, as the list price is rarely paid by the end-user out of pocket, and frequent mandatory substitution laws cause makers of Authorized Generics to gain marketshare as long as they're slightly cheaper than the brand

Second, Authorized Generics of combination devices are only subsitutable for a corresponding brand, so different devices like Auvi-Q and Adrenaclick are technically a different market entirely: the doctor's prescription will note the exact sort of device. Therefore, while there are other epinephrine autoinjectors, the marketshare among them is decided in doctor's offices and insurance plans, rather than by direct consumer choice through the end-user's own spending.

[1] [https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/u...](https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm617173.htm) [2] [https://www.fda.gov/drugs/developmentapprovalprocess/howdrug...](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/developmentapprovalprocess/howdrugsaredevelopedandapproved/approvalapplications/abbreviatednewdrugapplicationandagenerics/ucm126389.htm) [3] (2008) (for illustration only) [https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/generic-substitution- la...](https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/generic-substitution-laws)

<comment><USER37> You can tell your doctor to prescribe a cheaper alternative. If the doctor has no reason to not do so, time to get a new doctor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Limit patent licensing for medical patents for prescribed medications to $15 each, or $1/day which ever is less. Limit patent licensing to $50 for prescribed devices.

Reduce extension patents on medications or medical devices to no more than 5 years (same for software).

Make it take an act of congress to change/raise those amounts in the future with a super majority.

</comment><comment><USER39> Obligatory: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining- dr...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs- chairs/)

It all goes back to the original problem. Even when the FDA gets their act together and let a single competitor compete it still has a ripple effect.

</comment><comment><USER40> My daughter has used the Auvi-Q as an alternative. In addition to the active injectors they provided a test one that helped her when the time came: [https://www.auvi-q.com](https://www.auvi-q.com)

I have not heard of any issues with Auvi-Q since it was reintroduced

<comment><USER41> I asked my son's allergist about those, and was surprised to learn that they cost an order of magnitude more than epi pens. He wouldn't prescribe them because he refuses to support that kind of pricing.

BTW epi pens also come with a tester.

(We have insurance so we pay a small copay for epi pens and auvi-q would be free.)

<comment><USER40> Interesting. Our allergist said almost the exact opposite in that they refused to prescribe EpiPen because it was so much higher than Auvi-Q.

And I wonder when EpiPen started issuing testers. We had them for years (me first, then my daughter) and never got one.

<comment><USER42> Cost to patient, or cost to insurance. Auvi-Q is much greater cost to insurance, less to patient. The former is still a major concern given how that leads to increased premiums and general medical pricing inflation, even if it briefly benefits the individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Well the part that matters the most is that the FDA has increased the number of generics approved and as long as that statistic keeps improving without putting anyone at risk it is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER44> There was not a chance that the price of EpiPen was going to go down. Manchin exists, and Democrats were going to have to drive change. Once Shkreli was jailed for charges completely unrelated to drug pricing, all of the gas was taken out of the media panic. Bresch was an excellent choice for a CEO, even without an MBA.

In my experience 99.9% of people I talk to think that Shkreli went to jail for drug overpricing, take some patriotic joy from that fact, and think that one of the results of his jailing is that EpiPens are cheaper. It's like how everybody thought that Saddam did 9/11.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think the article should state clearly if the price is with or without health insurance.

I bought a generic epipen this year for my daughter and the co-pay was $4.

<comment> munk-a I agree that this article is misleading but the cost to consume is super hard to get to in most cases. Most pharma companies don't know what price the end consumer ends up paying due to all the complications of the convoluted health insurance system, to find the cost and prior authorizations of a drug you may need to consult a dozen separate documents, and if you've got spousal insurance all that complication doubles or more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why is there such an increasing demand for EpiPen type products? Are more people becoming allergic to stuff?

<comment><USER47> Yes. Food allergy in children has increased 50% from 1999 to 2011 [1].

1\. [https://www.foodallergy.org/sites/default/files/2018-04/FARE...](https://www.foodallergy.org/sites/default/files/2018-04/FARE- Food-Allergy-Facts-Statistics.pdf)

<comment><USER48> When the cause of food allergies is discovered, a lot of people are going to laugh at how quite so many people could be affected before we found out which chemical causes them.

<comment><USER38> With the number of changes in farming and GMO products, production soil, other effects of industrial farming, etc, etc, it's not surprising. More diversity in marriage and resulting younger generations can also change/increase allergy profiles as well, since you may now have reactions to things that effect either parent or to a greater extent.

It's complicated, to say the least. Also, you can go most of your life with smaller reactions to something before it starts to get bad. (Discovered legume allergy at 40yo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> i think it could be much worse. the fact that there is a competitor means the former monopolist cannot raise prices of their 'lets avoid a scandal' $300 version back up to 600, which is closer to the profit maximising price for the product in a monopoly market.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why should adrenaline shot be so crazy expensive? Nothing about it sounds complicated.

<comment><USER51> Possibly my first post, so sorry if I have make faux pas. In the UK the national health service [NHS] engages nationally to negotiate price. They have the concept of the value of a medicine compared to the improved quality of life it brings. As a result generic medicines are priced against their value.

This means that an epipen is priced at £45 or about $60. Google Lloyds pharmacy epipen - UK only search.

I rather like this approach to healthcare, I am not sure about transnational ability to buy this - but to those that need it I hope you can make it work.

My observation is that the UK approach to healthcare has some advantages in its approach, it is not without faults but value for money [affordability] is embedded in delivery.</comment></comment>


TV Apps Hackathon - Hackfest - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackfest.tv/ <comment><USER2> Hack Television - Brands and Briefs - TV Hackfest 2013, San Francisco

Second Screen is all the rage... Social TV, Multiplatform Engagement. Why? Because consumers are media stacking while watching TV. Their attention is being pulled during commercials. Brands have to find ways to get the eyeballs back.

And who better to help than the Bay Area Transmedia community and Silicon Valley hackers? With Google TV, Facebook and Twitter part of the event...

<http://www.hackfest.tv/northamerica>

</comment><comment><USER2> Paul Carff - Sr Developer Advocate Google, Sylvain Carle - Platform Relations Manager at Twitter and Prashant Sridharan - Facebook Developer Advocate also on Jury!</comment>


Customer runs off with proposal and uses it as implementation spec - <AUTHOR> http://norbu09.org/2010/05/07/customer-uses-proposal-as-spec.html

<comment><USER2> Since you've already committed to not working with the company again, why not call the highest contact you have and, in as pleasant a manner as you can muster, politely request payment for services rendered? If it were me, it would go something like this:

"Hi ____, how are you?. I understand you've decided to implement the _______ project internally, based on the spec I wrote. I'm really glad it met your needs and I think it will be a great solution for you. I spent ___ hours working on it so I'd like to bill you $____ for my time. Does that sound fair to you?"

Then don't say anything else at all and just listen to his response. No justification or anything like that. He's either going to say yes or no.

If he says yes: "Great, I'll send the invoice over. Let me know if you need any clarification on the spec."

If he says no: "I'm sorry to hear that, good luck with your project and have a nice day." Then hang up and don't ever, ever take a call or answer an email from them again. Period.

<comment><USER3> If they say no to payment, I'd consider going to their competitors and offering to sell them the proposal as a spec as well. It may also be worth publishing it on your website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This can happen in all walks of life. My neighbour is a very good carpenter, made a really nice cad drawing + materials bill for a local church, they took it to a competitor to have it built.

Limiting your exposure and building up a portfolio of 'good' customers is a slow process, it can take quite a few years to get to the point where you no longer have to worry about stuff like that.

The lesson is to not give too much to a customer before you have established under what rules your relationship operates, this customer saw you do a lot of work that others would charge for for free and took advantage of that.

They felt they were not under any obligation to have you do the work, it's unethical of them but it is also partly your problem because you gave them that opportunity.

If you can avoid giving customers detailed specifications - and I really don't see how that is a requirement before getting to a contract, a global spec that you could hand to them should suffice, not something they can start building off - then that would probably be enough to safeguard from instances like this.

It's probably happened to all of us at least once though.

Also, to every story there are two sides, I'll take it on faith that this is how you see it, but chances are that they see it completely differently. They might think they guided you in drawing up the spec. Perspective can make a big difference in cases like these.

Next time be more brief, put enough time in to a proposal to make clear that you are serious, not enough to give away a serious chunk of work.

edit: on another note, I think I can glean from your writing that you are a German national working abroad. Cultural differences about stuff like this abound, not only would you probably have had a case in Germany, your customer likely would have never done that. Western Europe has a different attitude towards stuff like this than most of the rest of the world, I've found. Verbal agreements being honoured is a pretty rare thing elsewhere, it's all about the contract. I've lived in Canada for a good five years, last year I was in Germany for some business, and the company I visited gave me a roughly 7,000 Euro computer + CNC controller on my say so that I'd pay when I got back to NL, saving me a trip. I could never imagine that happening in Canada with a new business relationship.

You may have to do 'in Rome' as the Romans do, or you'll be taken advantage of!

</comment><comment><USER5> That's why sometimes spending too much time just talking to the customer, outlining and drafting some spec just isn't worth it. Get on the hourly as soon as possible and then take as long as the customer feels it's necessary to have the perfect spec.

Spending some time getting new projects is part of the cost of doing business but producing useful artifacts (be it code, designs or a specification) for free isn't good unless you have a really good relationship with the customer.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's pretty balanced. If it were a lot of money most people would go to speak to a lawyer, but when legal action starts, the only real winners are the lawyers.

I second the suggestion that you contact someone as high as you can, call them, and tell them that you're pleased they liked the work, that you spent X hours on it, so would like to bill them $Y, then shut up.

It's good advice, in another comment in this item, and here's the link.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1327131>

If you try it, will you tell us how you got on?

</comment><comment><USER7> Better than one experience I had years ago when we gave a long and very detailed proposal only to find out later that it was a guy doing research for his MBA.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good customers offer to pay for detailed proposals like this. They only ask for a few free hours of your time in order to meet you and see if they want you to make a proposal. Great customers will offer to pay you for even that time.

The situation changes a bit when you deal with huge companies or governments that send out requests for proposal and expect a lot of work up front for no pay. But that's because those contracts tend to run in the high six figures to millions of dollars realm and they want to attract bigger companies that can afford to spend a considerable time making a proposal without being paid.

Strike it up to a learning experience. The next time you want to make a proposal, outline to your client that you bill for your time (or pitch a fixed cost). If they decide to go with you after the proposal though, you'll treat that fee as the deposit so it acts like a discount.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am assuming here that you have checked that there is nothing you can do legally.

All the best.

<comment><USER10> Legal action only makes sense when there is some substantial amount of money on the line. Only punters waste their time suing someone over the theft of a proposal. If the proposal contained so much work that it could lead to lawsuit, the author should have provide a summary version with an option to receive a full version upon payment.

This kind of thing happens all the time when you put your best work on the line. I've always felt that you're better of putting in the effort up front and get left at the alter from time to time than you are to withhold the effort. It's a matter of enlightened self-interest. At some point, you will find a client who is tired of all the crap vendors they've worked with in the past and will pay you for what you're worth.</comment></comment>


Hacking the planet: The only climate solution left? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126973.600-hacking-the-planet-the-only-climate-solution-left.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=tech <comment><USER2> The nature was forming for millions of years, and I don't think humans are smart enough to hack it, sometimes we are not able to hack computers that we have invented. This climate change is because of attempts to hack the planet. I am not against the progress, but when we interfere in the nature, we should think more than twice.</comment>


Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dhs-reddit-dark-web-drug-forum/ <comment><USER2> We (speaking as a netizen) need Usenet 2.0; eg: something that can fulfill the role of reddit that is decentralized/distributed. Perhaps reddit can even transition into being a reader (a la google reader) for people that don't want to set up their own node.

I'm not saying that drug discussion is the quintessential act that deserves to be protected, but I am worried that the government has such an easy avenue to get this information. What happens when it's something far more political? What happens when they serve a gag order alongside their subpoena? What happens when the people talking aren't technically inclined, and don't use Tor? (By the way, I would bet these people were using Tor and this subpoena is useless.)

<comment><USER3> Well, Usenet 1.0 was decentralised, and people need to think about the disadvantages. In the early 2000s well over 50% of the traffic was spam cancels. An forum without an "owner" who can delete posts and effectively ban spammers and "abuse" will promptly be filled with spam and abuse.

The issue of "abuse" which is harmful to people other than users of the forum should also be considered carefully.

<comment><USER4> Web of trust-based spam filtering takes some effort to use, but is a workable solution.

<comment><USER5> WoT is pointless when people can manufacture identities that trust each other and build a fake trust score for an id used to spam or whatever.

<comment><USER6> WoT can't be effectively spammed, unless those spam accounts are trusted by people _you_ trust. The spam accounts can vouch for each other all they want (a la Twitter), but you control whose trust you value.

<comment><USER7> It only takes one break in the chain to compromise the entire web of trust. With such wide-spread connections across the planet these days, the chance of someone you trust three times removed accidentally breaking that chain is quite real.

<comment><USER8> Let's say you see some spam. You could have the software tell you which part of the web has made the spam trusted, and then you could manually mark that part of the web as untrusted. If there are only a few breaks in the chain like that, it'd be a workable solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Warning: this opinion probably won't fit into the HN zeitgeist.

If you commit a crime online don't be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn't a liberty issue. This is a _you 're probably a criminal_ issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don't protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their _right to free speech and personal liberty_ so why would I protect these guys?

It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won't face the fact that they are criminals. They'll deflect, ignore, and basically try anything to escape the reality - they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them.

And just to give you a little background - I've done some time in a few bids for violence and drugs. I know what it means to be a criminal because I grew up as one. I have _no_ pity. None. You should've made better decisions. I made a choice to leave that behind a long time ago, and you should too.

<comment><USER10> > _It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won 't face the fact that > they are criminals._

"I know, right? Why don't all those damn sodomites just take their chemical castration and shut up and accept the fact they're criminals?"

<comment><USER11> My favorite legal defense, moral relativism.

 _" One day, this heinous crime I have committed might not be illegal. Knowing that, how can you possibly convict me!?"_

<comment><USER12> The general stance that "you broke the law, now you're a criminal" may be technically correct, but most people issuing such statements group "criminals" into a singular group and feel that the serial murderer and the child rapist are no different than the guy that forgot he had an orange in his car when crossing the border. "You've broken the rules of society, you are no better than a vagabond!"

In light of this, how can one not lose faith in the law when so many laws that punish people for stupid things are on the books just because a bunch of religious people want to _force_ everyone to "follow their religion" to a minor extent or how the system is setup in a way that encourages government prosecutors to view the people in the cases that are put on their desk as little more than pawns in a game to "make a name" for themselves?

[There's also the fact that judges/lawyers try to hide the idea of jury nullification from juries too...]

<comment><USER13> Welcome to life in a democracy. Stupid people voting for stupid laws. Why can't we just put the smart people in charge?

<comment><USER14> Because all the smart people are smart enough to see how much of a soul- sucking cluster-fuck politics is. That, and one could argue that if they're put on this earth to live a life of happiness, how could one ever possibly achieve this through a life in politics, knowing what they are getting themselves into?

<comment><USER15> Ehhh, that's a hand-wringing, self-serving generalization.

"We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help."

Platitudes rarely change things.

<comment><USER14> Whether you think so or not, personal incentives motivate people in their careers, salary being one of the biggest and weightiest. I'm not saying there aren't that many personal incentives to a life of politics, but at face value isn't exactly the most attractive career path.

<comment><USER15> Politics isn't just about being smart, though. It's about being 'charming' (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse), charismatic, a good communicator (notwithstanding the teams of people behind the scenes to help with this).

I get that it's not everyone's desired path (it's certainly not mine), I just think that saying "many of us are smart enough to have the answers, we just choose not to get involved in politics" is perhaps an... underestimation... of the complexity of some of society's problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow, Gwern from gwern.net is implicated in this. No idea he moderates that subreddit.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out considering Gwern has a few essays on self-experimentation with drugs and discloses they were purchased from Darknet vendors. Despite the articles pertaining to illicit substances the experiments in question were exceedingly academic (like much of Gwern's writings).

<comment><USER17> The feds don't have that good of a case against Gwern, if they even wanted to prosecute him for simple possession. He could be writing fiction, for all they know; to convict him in court, they'd have to prove that he possesses illegal substances, which he has presumably consumed by now.

I'm not a lawyer but I don't foresee much prison time in Gwern's future. There are bigger fish to fry.

<comment><USER18> I suspect they were just interested in interrogating Gwern for what he knew about some of the market operators and various schemes related to them.

It's possible they might've planned to use some of his drug purchases and position in the community as leverage to get him to talk, but I strongly doubt they're interested in prosecuting him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> More details from gwerm here [http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_5...](http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_5_reddit_accounts_subpoenaed_by_ice/)

<comment><USER20> Is that the same gwern with the blogs that showed up on HN from time to time?

<comment><USER21> Yes.

<comment><USER2> gwern, you're the man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From NSWGreat's AMA linked in the article:

> The Darknet is amazing, its changing the drug scene for the better. Its > taking away the violence and the dangers that are inherit with buying drugs.

Never thought about it this way, but as everyone is talking and writing endlessly about how taxi rides will be revolutionized by billion-dollar Silicon Valley start-ups I found this insight about the drug-market fascinating. Online selling of drugs probably means less deaths of young (mostly black) people fighting for "street corners" and also less people killed by the Mexican cartels.

<comment><USER23> >Never thought about it this way

I'm trying to be better about reading too much into a single comment, but I think this means that you either have a long-held belief on the 'war on drugs' (one way or the other) or that you've simply never given it any thought as it may be a matter which you may feel does not concern you (it actually affects almost everybody).

In either case, here are a few materials that you might find interesting.

Milton Friedman on the 'War on Drugs' (1 of 3): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyystXOfDqo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyystXOfDqo)

Noam Chomsky on the 'War on Drugs': [http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm](http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm)

To be honest, it's been a while since I've read/watched either of the above, and there might be a good amount of overlap between them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I actually predicted that this would happen [1]. That particular Evolution thread had a ton of very incriminating statements in it. This shouldn't be surprising; don't post in public forums talking about your highly illegal activities.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9229342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9229342)

<comment><USER25> I concede. :)

I'm surprised so few are being targeted, now that they actually do something about it.

<comment><USER24> I was actually surprised by the low number as well.

<comment><USER21> This is just what we know of, because I'm involved. As far as I know, none of the other 4 accounts have talked publicly about the subpoena, so that suggests most people keep quiet about such things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not sure how willing they will be to hand this over given the recent events surrounding A/Swartz' suicide.

<comment><USER21> They don't have any choice in the matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> One would assume that the users of deep web-related subreddits would take just as many precautions to protect their privacy when using Reddit as they do when on the deep web. Just because you don't actually conduct illegal activity via Reddit doesn't mean that it's impossible for someone to connect the dots to your deep web forum account(s) with enough effort.

If people turned out to truly be that foolish then I will have little, if any, sympathy for them.

<comment><USER6> >One would assume

One would be quite foolish to assume strong OpSec from drug seekers and their enablers. We've seen case after case resulting from these busts with absolutely trivial investigations necessary to locate the defendants.

<comment><USER28> Not a /r/DarkNetMarket customer, but I read it to keep the pulse on that section of the Bitcoin economy. You're very right. Every few months someone posts a "tails is overkill, here's my (misconfigured insecure) mobile TOR setup that is just as good". I'd wager many darknetmarkets customers aren't keeping tor properly up to date either.

<comment><USER6> Security is hard and not fun. Especially when you're high.

<comment><USER29> And you need only slip up once. If you were sloppy at the start and straightened up later, too bad, the feds know who you are now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Off topic, but is there a name for the fad of having side-pane elements perpetually zoom and fade in and out as I read a blog post? Is there a reason for it?

</comment><comment><USER31> Any idea on Conde Nast's response to all this? If they were looking for an excuse to shutdown DNM then this would be it.

<comment><USER32> Reddit is a part of the parent company of Conde Nast; they've been siblings for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I hope they were going though two vpn's running in a virual machine.

</comment><comment><USER34> if you don't assume that Reddit is under pervasive surveillance, you are making a huge mistake.

you should probably assume the same of HN, or most things that don't live on I2P or Freenet.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you're having problems using Reddit through Tor, use HTTPS. Better yet, force the HTTPS redirections in the Reddit settings.

This info is, of course, redundant or too late for the people talking about illegal activities on that particular subreddit, but it might come in handy for when they come searching for you.

<comment><USER36> Not sure why you are giving this advice.

HTTPS won't do anything to stop a subpoena for IP information(?)

<comment><USER37> I believe he's saying that accessing Reddit using Tor with HTTP is sometimes problematic but using HTTPS can fix the problems. (It's been a while but I think that might mirror my own experience.)

<comment><USER35> That's correct. Last time I tried it, Reddit was borking HTTP POST requests made through Tor. Now they seem to redirect everybody to HTTPS after login and the problem is solved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> ugh.</comment>


KTAP: A New Scripting Dynamic Tracing Tool For Linux - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/551253/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this is awesome.

dtrace4linux still tanks my box. systemtap is more like systemthwack. We need this, folks. You might not be familiar with dtrace, but trust me, you need it.

<comment><AUTHOR> What were you problems with SystemTap? I've only used it for some minor tracing but so far it actually worked quite nice. Except for the long compile time.

<comment><USER3> I have no personal experience with either, but this dtrace guy does not like SystemTap:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgmA48fILq8#1:13:00>

The whole presentation is a nice and impressive dtrace showcase.

<comment><AUTHOR> He's quite unspecific. He just says "it's bad" and that Red Hat is getting its ass kicked by Sun. Not to mention that the talk is from 2007.

<comment><USER3> Well, the final demo was a trace of a Python program (showing Python functions, not Python VM C functions) through the kernel (showing C Kernel functions) back (scheduling things) into Python. Can SystemTap do this (six years after this talk showcased it with dtrace)?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/wiki/PythonMarkers>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For some reason I can never load LWN stories, so: <https://github.com/ktap/ktap>

<comment><USER5> Could you explain to me (either here or firstname.lastname@example.com) what "I can never load LWN stories" means? Needless to say, we're not pleased with the idea that somebody is having trouble reading our stuff and would like to fix the problem. But to do that, we need to understand it...

<comment><USER4> I don't know. SeaMonkey and all my console tools can load it, but my firefox 20.0 install is being buggy. I have e-mailed you two tcpdump logs and more details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At first glance, this looks like it shares much in common with DTrace--so why not DTrace?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's an alternative to SystemTap or dtrace designed for use in embedded systems.</comment>


Google's top lawyer allegedly had affairs with multiple employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/29/20837232/google-david-drummond-chief-legal-officer-cheating-wife-affair-policies <comment><USER2> > According to Blakely, Drummond refused to pay child support at times and > also went long stretches without seeing his child.

How does one get away with not paying child support and not having wages garnished? I thought the courts were very aggressive in enforcing child support.

<comment><USER3> > I thought the courts were very aggressive in enforcing child support.

I imagine _Google 's top lawyer_ is rather better at that. Also, I suspect we're not hearing an equal balance of stories about unpaid child support.

<comment><USER4> >I imagine Google's top lawyer is rather better at that.

Being a Google lawyer (over even Google's "top lawyer") has little to do with being a good lawyer, rather everything to do with connections and ticking the boxes (Stanford grad and minority).

After all the guy failed to register $80M of Google Stock Options with the SEC, thats not some slight or minor oversight or error, but evidence the lawyer was not competent for the position.

You see it every day with general counsel at tech companies, Facebook is kind of notorious for FB Shareholder lawsuits against Zuckerburg as a result of poor legal work from their army of Harvard trained lawyers. Search the Director compensation lawsuits and its clear Zuck has the power to do the things he is doing (as he has majority voting rights as shareholder, is chairman of the board, and CEO) but the FB general counsel seems to regularly authorize corporate actions "wearing the wrong hat" (i.e. Zuck authorizes something as shareholder when it should have been as CEO, or as CEO when it should have been Shareholder, etc...), which is about as basic as corporate laws go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So what? I've never understood why a company should get to decide whom someone has a relationship with.

<comment><USER6> > I've never understood why a company should get to decide whom someone has a > relationship with.

The second sentence in the article says "The relationship violated Google's policies which ban relationships between managers and their subordinates."

That seems like a sensible corporate policy for a number of reasons as just one example where there's a corporate interest.

<comment><USER7> yeah, but corporate policy is not real policy: google can fire him... but this really deserve media attention?

it's their private life.

<comment><USER8> It's worth noting that he's still at Google, which means that Google knows about this behavior and accept it from one of their top executives.

In the age of #MeToo, companies are getting called out for inconsistently handling these types of situations. No doubt Google would probably quickly terminate lower-level employees who transgressed in the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> saiya-jin Hmm, cheating with guy on his wife, even having kid with such an amoral person, and she would expect that somehow magically he would be a nice shiny knight on a white horse for her... this kind of story happens way too often. People are who they are, they don't change (or do but at glacial pace apart from some traumatic events), only the situation around them does.

Its always a massive failure of all involved, on many levels. Hard to have true sympathy for anybody but that poor kid which didn't deserve this

</comment><comment><USER9> People will inevitably have relationships. There's power in relationships. Power corrupts. So its a problem.

But banning them is nonsense. It's meaningless. How about a proactive rule that defines the outcome: e.g. if you have a relationship with a superior in your department, then you are switched to a different department.

Now everybody understand the playing field, and can choose, and some of the undesirable outcomes are minimized.

<comment><USER10> In your proposed solution, why should the subordinate be punished? The power imbalance goes the other direction and is more likely to be abused by the manager.

<comment><USER9> Practical: because there's less and less room at higher levels for lateral moves. And remember, a relationship is voluntary. Is it punishment if its a well-known process?

<comment><USER10> All the more reason the person with the power should be the one who moves. It's a bigger incentive to keep their pants on.

And part of the justifications for these rules is to prevent Involuntary relationships. "Fuck me if you want a raise next year."

<comment><USER9> Sometimes its not that. Maybe usually?

Its considered a bigger risk to the company, to disrupt the executive suite than the rank-and-file.

That was an example process. Come up with one! None are perfect. But I know certainly, that a company with a pragmatic process will be in business longer than an ivory-tower non-process (Ban work relationships! Punish employees routinely!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >The relationship violated Google's policies which ban relationships between managers and their subordinates

Good luck with that.

I know a few couples with long and happy marriages that initially came out of manager-subordinate relationship.

<comment><USER12> I suspect there are far more cases of disasters ensuing -- other subordinates getting angry about perceived favoritism, difficult break-ups spilling over into the workplace, accusations of abuse of power (and actual abuses of power), _the situation mentioned in the article_ , and so forth.

<comment><USER11> Sure. And you can have sane policies to deal with this. One of which is to disclose your relationship to HR so that provisions could be made to mitigate these kinds of issues or to move the manager or subordinate to another team.

If you don't disclose a relationship with a subordinate, you should be held accountable for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Flagged. This would be a great article for Valleywag, but it's not what I come to HN for.

</comment><comment><USER14> What if they are actually doing this for Google to pay them huge payout to keep quite?

It seems big companies are more like a kingdom than a democracy where powerful men have harem consisting of their own employees.

<comment><USER15> No big company is like a democracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> None of our business.

<comment><USER15> Speak for yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> American puritanism with private affairs is really showing here. The article doesn't mention anything illegal or socially relevant. So, none of our business.

Google polices are private rules for internal arbitration, with no relevance outside of google. Why are we even talking about that?</comment>


Show HN: Julia Observer – Package Browser for the Julia Language - <AUTHOR> http://juliaobserver.com <comment><USER2> Is anyone else concerned that despite being an open-source project with permissive licensing, the formation of the Julia Computing group has made Julia's development a bit of a walled garden? I don't mean this in the sense that Apple or Matlab are "walled gardens", but the for-profit company, of which many core developers are founders/employees, develops a number of tools and services that are not open-source AFAIK.

I believe the group also implicitly controls what packages are allowed/disallowed from the packages list. At the same time, I also recognize the need to support the core developers and the business model makes a lot of sense. Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> I really wish they had implemented Julia in C++11, instead of C. The source code seems to be very difficult to comprehend for anyone who is not one of the original developers. [1]

[1] [https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/src/julia.h](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/src/julia.h)

<comment><USER4> Julia is mostly (> 65 %) written in Julia. There's some C (20 %, bootstrap etc.), some C++ (8 % llvm interface), some scheme (4 %, parser). I think it's one of the main points, that Julia should be strong enough that such things _can_ be written in itself.

Go was initially written in C. I think many consider C++ to be unnecessarily complicated and avoid it at the lowest level.

Btw.: Do you know the developer documentation? Just in case: [http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/#Developer- Documentation...](http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/#Developer- Documentation-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand why Gadfly is the top repo. I always found it to be very slow and having too many dependencies. Last I remember it installs more than 20 packages as dependencies. Its also not a supported backend in Plots.jl

<comment><USER6> Gadfly was one of the first Julia packages, and the first plotting package. That is probably why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really like the user interface for this — very smooth and modern design. As someone who has a lot of Julia packages installed, this looks great for searching and finding new ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Here's a couple features you might like:

\+ You can view all Julia developers sorted by commit count at [https://juliaobserver.com/users](https://juliaobserver.com/users)

\+ You can include unregistered packages by checking a box in settings (accessible through the navbar dropdown)

Happy hunting

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool site, thanks. As part of learning julia I created a similar resource for the browsing the built-in functions. e.g.: [http://www.jlhub.com/julia/manual/en/function/rand](http://www.jlhub.com/julia/manual/en/function/rand) It allows browsing the functions that exist by function group and I added examples for the functions that I was playing with. Lately I added the ability for users to submit their own examples, as this is something I found very useful from the php documentation. Submissions welcome!

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm really anxious for Julia to start taking packaging more seriously. Pkg2 situation is pretty terrible imo, and the pkg3 whispers just sort of strike me as offputting, since there's basically no timeline of when they'll make it to a stable 0.x release and the 1.0 is just a "when it's ready" situation.

Julia is one the most pleasant programming experiences I've had otherwise. It's the Lua I've always wanted, with just the right mix of Scheme, but not too much that it tastes Haskell-y.

But yeah, current packaging situation is awful.

Oh, that reminds me though, Julia has a lot of really incredible packages already. It's mindblowing how quick Julia went from "new technical computing language" to "general purpose, performant language with a ton of useful packages readily available and they actually work"

Leveraging the technical computing open source community turns out to work really well!

<comment><USER10> the metaprogramming resources in Julia are very slick. I wrote a DSL that lets you write functions in that are then turned into synthesizable verilog modules. Implementing combinatorial logic (I haven't gotten to sequential yet) took about three days.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, meta is something I always struggled with in Lua, as you're completely constrained to the table structures, but just that little extra power of being able to metaprogram over whatever data I want, is absolutely incredible, and it's a bit easier to think about imo than Scheme macros just in the sense of trying to macroexpand in your head.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get back a stolen car - apa-sl Don't know how many of you lost your car due to theft. Unfortunately my girlfriend's car (her 1st one bought just 12 days ago) got stolen on Friday in Gdynia, Poland (white Ford Fiesta 2009 with all options & with visual ST package VIN WF0GXXGAJG9R08406). Any clues? Ideas? ;) We've already posted on car ads  in Poland, ran a paid FB/Instangram campaign and talked with the police... <comment><AUTHOR> At least in the US, unfortunately there is not much you can do. Report to the police and hope you get it back. In the US you hope that someone just took it for a joy ride and it will turn up within 25-50 miles of where it was stolen. Checking apartment building parking lots and shopping centers within that radius may prove successful. This is not usually the case though.

Most often though within 24-48 hours of being stolen one of two things are happening. The thieves are most likely part of a bigger operation and your car is being dismantled for parts or is in a shipping container for export. Either way, by this time you the VIN will have been altered and the car changed enough to make it look slightly different (i.e. painting). Yes, what you see in movies does actually occur to some extent.

If by some remote chance your car is found by you, do not touch it or move it without first contacting the police. If there is any hope of catching the individual(s) responsible it will be before you touch or drive it away.

</comment><comment><USER2> I've had this happen to me too and fortunately the insurance paid out, any attempts at recovery failed.

If the car got stolen that close to the date of sale you have to wonder if you really had all the keys that were made for that car.

Chances of recovery are very small.</comment>


Hydroxychloroquine: Then(1658) and Now - <AUTHOR> Pope Urban VIII sought a cure for malaria b/c in 1623, while being selected as Pope, he was stricken by it. For months he was too weak to work. Eight cardinals who selected him as Pope died from the dreaded disease. He sent Jesuit missionaries to learn all they could of  medicines in the new Americas. A Jesuit apothecary in Lima (Peru) noted that the Quecha natives of the Andes used cinchona bark for chills. Doctors in Rome discovered that the bark was a cure for malaria. The active ingredient was quinine, still used today to fight the disease.
The powdered bark was sometimes called "Jesuits' Powder". Association of the remedy with the Jesuits made it controversial. Considerable anti-Catholic sentiment existed in Northern Europe and England and many suspected anything associated with the Church. Oliver Cromwell hated all things Catholic and was an example of this. When he fell ill to malaria in 1658, he refused to take the 'popish powder' and died as a result.
https://www.scientus.org/Jesuits-Bark.html
Fast forward to today:
Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine are derivatives of quinine. The mere mention of hydroxychloroquine by a Republican president put the medicine on a "hate list" for Democratic party opponents of Donald Trump. From President Trump's first mention of the drug there was a major effort to portray hydroxychloroquine as dangerous quackery.
http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/hydroxychloroquine
Note how the two situations parallel each other:
Cromwell <-is like--> liberal press and media

    |                      |

   hated                 hates

    |                      |
 Jesuit's Bark <comment></comment><comment>-----hydroxychloroquine

    |                      |
 associated with</comment><comment></comment><comment>----      associated with

    |                      |
 Roman Church <--is like-> President Trump
Can we say that we are any better at making judgments as a society today than we were in 1658?
It appears not. </comment><comment><USER2> Agreed.</comment>


Sweep.js, smoother color transitions through the HSL and HUSL color spaces - <AUTHOR> http://rileyjshaw.com/sweep/

<comment><USER2> Cool :) author here, thanks for posting this!</comment>


Useberry plugin for Figma is out! - <AUTHOR> https://blog.useberry.com/useberry-plugin-for-figma-is-out/ <comment><USER2> You spelled you name wrong in the title

s/v/b/

<comment><AUTHOR> ;)</comment></comment>


Trulia CEO Pete Flint on Zillow - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/trulia-ceo-zillow

<comment><USER2> These guys are in a tough spot, sort of adding icing on top of what the real data is: the listings themselves. However, that information is tightly guarded by Realtor brokerages often, and it is curious how that isn't seen as an unfair trust or monopoly situation.</comment>


How did you choose the name for your web company? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> One of the founders of a startup I once worked for, took great pride in naming his startup using a euphemism for his todger (Monty Python, meaning of life, Part VI: The Autumn Years, _'not the Noel Coward Song'_ <http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/isntitaw.htm> )

Now as a private company this was fine. But I imagine there was lots of chuckling going on explaining this question to the VC's and companies who eventually invested. The biggest laugh came as the company eventually went public and was sold out to a rather conservative consulting company. Took a while till the name was dropped.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just write down a bunch, A BUNCH, of words that relate to the purpose of your site, the effects you want it to have on society, etc. and just sift through them. Try and combine them, but keep it short.

</comment><comment><USER4> :: I made up the name.

:: It's one word

:: People here it and wonder what it is - drives them a bit crazy and they just have to find out (or so we always hope)

:: It's easy to say, sounds friendly

:: Easy to spell

:: Timeless/trend-less

Those are the basic tools we used. From there it was a lot of laughter and fun. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I like nonsensical names because descriptive names tend to sound extremely boring and can limit you. With time anything you choose will come to feel familiar.

One method I like to start with is using foreign words written in latin alphabet. Japanese works great.

Here's a good site with vocabulary lists: <http://www.learn- japanese.info/indexv.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm in the midst of working on a couple of different ideas for a web app and am having a hard time coming up with good names. Any advice?

<comment><USER6> <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17449>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I pretty much based the name of my company based on what domain names were available. I wanted it to be short, catchy, and easy to remember. I'm not the most creative person, so I asked some friends for suggestions. In the end, it was my friend who came up with the name (mygrub.net)

</comment><comment><USER8> searching GoDaddy for a good domain, we stumbled on wamily.com and it was available and so perfect. Wamily = "Web Family". The choice of the name actually helped us shape the product.

</comment><comment><USER9> Try <http://grabagooddomain.com.></comment>


Migra – A schema diff tool for PostgreSQL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/djrobstep/migra <comment><USER2> This fills a gap for me.

I tend to think of a database schema in declarative terms ("table T has these fields"), whereas the SQL DDL statements are more akin to commands (ALTER table T, adding a column). This always felt bad to me, because in order to define the final state of your schema, you need to define the initial state plus the commands necessary to get to the new one.

A diff tool frees you from this pain.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, although you can take it a step further than just diff'ing. Following the philosophy of infrastructure-as-code, a fully declarative approach would be a repository of schema files, and tooling that can convert changes to the repo to actual DDL, which it then knows how to execute safely (even taking into account multiple dev/stage/prod environments, sharding, etc).

I built a tool called Skeema that does this, although it only supports MySQL / MariaDB / Percona Server for now. [https://github.com/skeema/skeema/](https://github.com/skeema/skeema/)

It's currently a stateless CLI tool, using git-like semantics: you can pull from a db to the filesystem, or push from the filesystem to a db / environment, or diff to preview what DDL would be generated. But the next iteration may include integration with CI/CD workflows, Github API, etc for a more seamless workflow. e.g. if you want to add a column to a table, create a pull request modifying the file, and the tooling automatically applies the DDL to a staging environment. Then get your PR reviewed/approved, and once you merge to master the tooling automatically applies the DDL to production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is also a Javascript version of this at [https://github.com/gimenete/dbdiff](https://github.com/gimenete/dbdiff) and a Go version at [https://github.com/joncrlsn/pgdiff](https://github.com/joncrlsn/pgdiff), each with varying degrees of completeness. As well as apgdiff (Java) [https://github.com/fordfrog/apgdiff](https://github.com/fordfrog/apgdiff) ( these tools have been tried many times, and I've been keeping track of them :D ), I'm really tired of writing db migrations. Will try this out!

<comment><USER5> We used apgdiff for automated schema diff generation. 2.4 was released many years ago and lacks compatibility with PG 10. Looking for alternatives. Thanks for the mentions.

Edit - Migra does not compare pgdump outputs.

<comment><USER6> That's right, migra does not compare dump outputs.

I've found that the best parser of PostgreSQL dump files is PostgreSQL, and don't want to reimplement that.

Hence, migra works directly on database connections. If you have a dump file you want to compare, you can just create a temporary database and load the dump into that first. There's an example in the docs of how to do this easily.

<comment><USER5> this complicates the workflow where schema compare is necessary in source controls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is awesome!

A lot of people point to migrations as the best way to track changes to a database schema. But there are a lot of problems with them. For example, they involve adding version control on top of another version control system, which can cause a ton of problems. They also don't maintain themselves well. If you leave it alone, running migrations will just take longer and longer over time, even though you don't really get more utility.

I think we need more support from databases themselves to solve this problem.

In the meantime, this is a really good stopgap, because it can theoretically allow you to just have a file with your "ideal schema" for each commit. No need to maintain a separate database migration history too. You can even generate a series of migrations by looking at your git history!

<comment><USER6> This is a great summary of the advantages, as I see them. Would you mind if I add this comment as a testimonial somewhere in the docs?

<comment><USER7> Sure, go for it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks interesting.

If you're using SQLAlchemy, Alembic is a good migration management / generation / application tool: [http://alembic.zzzcomputing.com/en/latest/](http://alembic.zzzcomputing.com/en/latest/), and works with most (all?) the databases supported by SQLAlchemy. It doesn't handle every kind of database object / attribute thereof, but it's reasonably easily extensible.

<comment><USER6> Hi, migra author here. I wrote migra partly out of frustration with Alembic and similar migration tools.

Some of the problems:

\- Annoying version number management

\- Management of long "chain" of migration files

\- Unnecessary coupling between ORM and migration tool

\- Heavyweight process to generate and run each migration, which slows down local development

\- Bad testability

I talked in more depth about this topic at last year's PostgresOpen, if you're interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr498W8oMRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr498W8oMRo)

<comment><USER9> Alembic / SQLAlchemy author here.

> Annoying version number management

the GUIDs? OK.

> Management of long "chain" of migration files

Alembic does not require migration files to be linked together in any particular way, except that individual migrations have dependencies on others. Each file represents an individual series of changes to a database, which is a reasonable system for developers where a particular new feature comes with a particular new set of schema artifacts. It integrates very well with version control and accommodates for workflows like branching and merging of source trees.

That said, I would assume the Migra way is that you have the entire database schema in a versioned file so you can diff directly, and the "generate the changes" aspect is on the fly (otherwise, if you were persisting the DDL for changes, I don't see how you'd avoid having a "chain" of migration files dependent on each other). That is more lightweight if you can get by with it. When you have your tables written out in terms of SQLAlchemy metadata, that's your "schema". So it's there but just in terms of SQLAlchemy structures. Alembic could generate the migrations and just run them without you ever having to see them or commit, however I can't provide a diff tool that I can guarantee is 100% accurate and would not need its results to be checked before running. By having the individual changeset go into source control, that allows the developer who creates that migration to be the one to make sure it generates correctly, as well as being able to add other elements of the change that aren't necessarily part of a plain schema diff, where it then can be committed permanently without the chance of it mis-generating at a later time.

> Unnecessary coupling between ORM and migration tool

100% false. There is no usage of SQLAlchemy ORM within Alembic anywhere. The "sqlalchemy.orm" library is not imported. There's a single unused artifact in the test suite that was copied over from SQLAlchemy:

        $ grep -e "sqlalchemy.orm" `find alembic -name "*.py"`
        alembic/testing/plugin/plugin_base.py:  from sqlalchemy.orm.util import randomize_unitofwork

You're likely referring to the fact that Alembic builds on schema structures defined in terms of SQLAlchemy Core. It's hard to say this is "necessary" or "unnecessary", the schema has to be defined somewhere, with Migra it seems like it's typically hand-written DDL or some other generation tool, with Alembic it's SQLAlchemy Core, since it's for people using SQLAlchemy already.

> Heavyweight process to generate and run each migration, which slows down > local development

Alembic has an autogenerate feature that is in some ways similar to migra's schema diff but it does have areas where it does not accommodate for certain structures, the most prominent one is regarding Postgresql enumerated types. But this is not a design flaw, it's a missing feature I'd love someone to work on.

There is also of course the need to express your schema in terms of Python structures, which is probably what you're referring towards when you say "coupled with the ORM" as well as "heavyweight", but this assumes an application is already based on SQLAlchemy and already has this information.

If not, then Migra is a good choice, assuming database agnosticism is also not required, and if you have some totally other means of generating your schema, which I'd imagine is hand-written DDL, if I'm understanding the documentation correctly.

> Bad testability

This is an area where Alembic is lacking in guidance and pre-built features, but not in general capability. We have Alembic migration test fixtures in Openstack that might serve as a basis for something more generically part of Alembic but I don't have the resources to work on this solo. But Alembic does include schema comparison tools and the examples for testing in Migra don't look much different from what one would do with Alembic (indeed this is what we do in openstack, compare schemas using Alembic).

<comment><USER6> Hey, thanks for the response!

I've written a lot of code on top of SQLAlchemy over the years, big fan of your work.

These points are mostly philosophical differences, I appreciate that not everybody has the same perspective I do.

But to me, thinking of database changes in terms of current state/goal state and the differences between them, is more intuitive than as a sequence of versions.

By heavyweight, I mean the need to generate or modify a migration file and version each time a change is required. When I'm working on an app and playing around with table structures I find it much easier to be able to just type "sync" and have everything automatically match what's defined in my models or setup scripts or whatever, without generating a new numbered version each time I make a change.

You don't have to build your schemas through hand-written DDL. You can still build your schemas through Python structures or however you want, as long as you can generate a target with it to compare against.

<comment><USER9> yes I can definitely see Migra is more productive when switching around between schemas in development. But I'm not sure how I'd go about using this approach if i need to deploy a fixed series of schema migrations to a production server farm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea of a tool like this, but I'm not sure it's a better process than having migration scripts. And I dislike migration scripts.

To me, the perfect process would be, using an MVC web framework as an example, to generate a temp schema from models and run a schema diff tool like this, to update the destination database. That would eliminate migration scripts, but would probably slow down the db sync process, once your db start getting bigger.

Now, if you're not using an ORM, I think it's a bad idea to use a tool like this to update a production db from development. It will work for a single dev, but not for a team project, since you'd need a common dev schema that would be used as a source for the diff, and that will get clogged quickly.

It's still a nice tool to find and update small inconsistencies between different environments. Nice work!

<comment><USER11> I've been using a couple of python tools wrapped in two shell scripts to achieve what I think works well:

migration-capture.sh (using [https://github.com/mmatuson/SchemaSync](https://github.com/mmatuson/SchemaSync)) creates a temporary db using a base schema SQL file, applies previously created migrations, and then creates up/down migration scripts by comparing that to a db that's been modified manually or by an mvc model tool, etc.

migration-apply.sh (using [https://github.com/gabfl/dbschema](https://github.com/gabfl/dbschema)) applies the "up" scripts that haven't been applied previously OR runs the "down" scripts corresponding to "up" scripts that have been run previously but are not found in the deployed scripts (ie rolling back a deployment automatically runs the down script for migrations that were in the rolled back versions)

Right now my only concern/goal for improvement with the setup is to replace the python tool the apply script relies on, with a pure shell solution so it's one less dependency to need to install on production machines.

Edit: spelling typo

Edit2: Wtf is a bass schema.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't really get the part about extensions. It say it leave extension out of the diff.

However is it possible to include extension using a flag? The first use case I was thinking of being precisely to generate upgrade script in the context of an extension.

I've experimented around pure SQL extension for some project and the real pain point was generating upgrade script. So far I only used a "nuke and reinstall" approach but being able to prepare upgrade script with migra would be much smoother.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have used pgModeler([https://pgmodeler.io](https://pgmodeler.io)) some time ago for this and mysql workbench for mysql. It was still a bit unstable the last time I tried it but it's pretty nice when it works.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a very nice idea! Even if it just did schema equality that would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've used this one in the past: [https://github.com/eulerto/pgquarrel](https://github.com/eulerto/pgquarrel)

</comment><comment><USER16> What are the benefits of using this over Alembic? Both are python tools and alembic supports other vendors too.

</comment><comment><USER17> How does it compare to sqitch ?

<comment><USER6> Migra is strictly a diff tool. It doesn't impose a particular migration workflow on you (but is suited to some more than others).

Sqitch is a migration workflow tool, for its particular preferred workflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks great. Yesterday only I thought of creating something like this!</comment>


Honest press release: We "turned to highly underpaid coders" - <AUTHOR> http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/155976/high-country-news-sends-out-surprisingly-truthful-press-release/

<comment><USER2> Love this quote. So, I guess iOS devs are cheaper than web devs?

"Our long-term plan is to develop a mobile website, but who has $100,000 to spend on that at a time when magazines are folding all around us?" says Maxwell.</comment>


U.S. Secretly Halted JPMorgan's Growth for Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-26/jpmorgan-s-secret-punishment-u-s-halted-its-growth-for-years?srnd=premium <comment><USER2> The Great Depression II was on the cards in 2007/2008 before governments took on gargantuan debts to brush it under the carpet. We're all paying for that with governments straining under comically heavy debt loads and interest rates held stupidly low long-term to avoid bankrupting the banks. The last thing we should be doing is allowing the same corrupt institutions which created the crisis loose to do it all over again. It will all just happen again with no room for manoeuvre left.

<comment><USER3> 1) The 700B in assets distributed via the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) have all been sold by the government, earning 15.3B in profit in the process [0].

2) The federal funds overnight rate has been raised 4 times in the last year with more raises planned [1].

3) While the federal debt load is high, the actual annual interest paid by the government in servicing the debt is in-line with historic norms [2].

[0] [https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/](https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/)

[1] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EFFR](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EFFR)

[2] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S)

<comment><USER4> I wonder how many of those TARP assets were bought either directly or indirectly via the FED via QE?

You would also wonder, why not apply this government intervention to all other industries and businesses that are in trouble? Why does Banking get bailed out and others don't?

<comment><USER5> Over 90% of the monetary supply consists of credit as opposed to money. If companies and people can't borrow money, the world economy freezes and banks control credit unfortunately.

<comment><USER4> Certainly, you would think they ought to be regulated or constructed in such a fashion where taking down the entire world economy through their own greed should be impossible?

As it stands, they reap the profit in the good times, they get bailed out in the bad (and still make a profit I expect).

Essentially the taxpayer subsidises and protects one of the richest industries in the world from their own mistakes and greed.

<comment><USER5> That's the spirit of the current system, and it mostly works. The 2008 crisis was crazy because nobody anticipated the magnitude of moral hazard between insurers <=> (banks <=> rating agencies <=> pension funds) <=> mortgage lenders <=> homebuyers. Homebuyers thought they were in great financial shape because lenders kept pushing them easier loans, lenders were writing mortgages with their eyes closed because the banks buying the mortgages were making so much money packaging them into MBSes and selling them to pension funds, the pension funds were enjoying great returns on these products rated AAA by rating agencies asleep at the wheel, and meanwhile the banks offloaded their MBS risk by purchasing CDSes from insurers who were blindly making lots of money selling them. The whole thing was a self-reinforcing feedback loop that burst violently.

I definitely blame the banks for being overly creative in coming up with perverse, complicated multi-party incentive structures that are hard to regulate while lobbying for deregulation. But at the same time, the mortgage lenders, insurers and rating agencies deserve some blame for being negligent at their jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> JP Morgan _still_ hasn't provided clean drinking water[0] to New Yorkers yet, so it's simply karma.

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

</comment><comment><USER7> The tone of this article is really weird.

It openly admits that various banks we're being constrained due to their notorious bad behavior, but casts those constraints in a passively negative light, and then tacitly celebrates that these bad actors are now less constrained to act badly.

<comment><USER8> It's pretty bad if you ask me. A governments job is to follow the law too and not use its discretion in 'unwritten law' that is secretive.

No problem if they publicly said they would do this, but this way is precisely the problem of developing countries. You wouldn't think it would happen in America.

<comment><USER9> This is a financial paper championing it's core audience.

For example it makes no mention of the harm caused 10 years ago in 2008, and the causal link between bank behavior and the final disaster.

Instead it is painted as an unrighteous limit to the banks natural path, using hidden tools to curb their growth.

Wsj, Bloomberg etc would assume that profitable growth at any cost is good (except of course at the cost of bad PR).

Regulations and limitations are bad and simply evil barriers to firms manifest destiny.

Don't put much stock in it.

<comment><USER10> No, it does not excuse the behavior of the banks. The point is that the regulatory behavior was bad, not that it wasn't punishing a real crime.

It would have been significantly better if they announced publicly that JPM was going to have it's growth restricted because of reason X. This would have acted as a deterrent to other banks, sent a message to the public that the banks were indeed being punished, and avoided the image of a secret governance process.

Everyone who reads these publications is well aware of the financial disaster so it doesn't need to be reiterated on every article because the knowledge is assumed.

<comment><USER9> Disclosure is what happens all the time. I havent really heard of a recent or distant event where it was the norm to not disclose SEC actions. (barring some privacy clause or agreement reached via settlement)

Most likely, and I say this as an opinion, several of the banks they bought in 2008 were restricted from expanding until their house was in order.

These moves were, with 100% certainty, would have been announced and published at inception.

And no, the meaning of "financial disaster" is VERY different depending on which side of Fin services you stand on.

To many banks and bankers, the debacle is a failure of market participants - the cost of living in such exalted times. More regulation would only hamper future efficiency and delicious growth to shareholders.

For main street, this was a watershed moment where they saw that banks were a force unto themselves.

Their market niche so critical, that letting them continue more necessary than justice - overturning a basic tenet of American expectations (bad firms fail, merit rises).

"too big to fail", is the shadow of "too big to care".

Main street does not read Bloomberg or WSJ, so they tailor their articles to their audience's bias.

<comment><USER9> Curious why this has been downvoted, I'd prefer understanding than assuming what the error was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why are there only spoken deals, and why is a major thing like this not public.

That has to change. Investors have a right, Americans have a right.

<comment><USER12> I assume it was private because it would hurt JP Morgan's stock price if it was made public. You could say investors have a right to know but my guess is JPMorgan wanted to keep it private.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wish it had been public but I'm still okay with this.

</comment><comment><USER14> A French economist, I think it's Charles Gave, said something like "bankruptcy is to finance what hell is to Catholics : if there was no hell they wouldn't behave well".

</comment><comment><USER15> "Severe punishment " constitutes expansion ban and fees. Great! Break the law, no jail for those people. It's clear that as long as you are a banker you can do whatever the hell you want.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. Until bad behavior actually destroys profitability or sends people to jail, the banks are free to continue their abuse of the American citizenry.

<comment><USER17> Petition Congress for more proactive financial regulation agencies, otherwise they won't be able to jail bankers much.

Everything that matters was by the book. (The risk offloading.) The DoJ managed to get DPAs worth billions for stuff that wouldn't have landed anyone in jail anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good advertisement for the banking industry

</comment><comment><USER19> "regulators under President Donald Trump, the people said, it's planning to open 400 branches"

really? "the people said"? who write like this?

<comment><USER20> It's part of Bloomberg style guide.

<comment><USER21> Please quote exactly where in Bloomberg's style guide it says to write like that. Parent isn't wrong, that's a absolutely horrendous way to write.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I scanned the article title. I thought "huh".

I saw the source (Bloomberg). I thought "oh".

Post "the big hack" effect. Is that bad?

<comment><USER23> It is bad because you are willing to believe one side (composed of multiple companies) when it's in their interest to say what they are saying and completely discount no just their article but their publication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _JPMorgan has racked up more than $30 billion in penalties, legal costs and > related obligations since the 2008 financial crisis, some of which stemmed > from its acquisitions of Bear Stearns Cos. and Washington Mutual Inc._

So they were being punished for agreeing to purchase companies that were failing and that Obama had pushed them to buy... and then he turned around and fined them for the crimes these previous companies committed.

I don't think JPM is innocent in the 2008 debacle as is outlined later on in the article, but it just rubs me wrong that they were punished for BSC and WMI.

<comment><USER25> > I don't think JPM is innocent in the 2008 debacle as is outlined later on in > the article, but it just rubs me wrong that they were punished for BSC and > WMI.

Once their crimes are public knowledge, the expected cost of the future penalties should be priced into the purchase price. Unless the penalties were larger than expected (and if anything they were smaller), they got what they paid for.

<comment><USER26> I'm not familiar with the specifics of how the negotiations actually went down, but I can't imagine negotiations work like this when regulators are telling you "You _must_ buy Company X" and you weren't interested in acquiring Company X to begin with.

Purchase prices only reflect a acquirer's view of the value of Company X under market conditions, which seems to have clearly not have been the case when the acquisition occurred.

<comment><USER25> They paid $2/share for Bear Stearns, in stock rather than cash. The closing price that Friday had been $30/share (and was $150/share the year before).

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jp-morgan-to-buy-bear- stea...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jp-morgan-to-buy-bear-stearns- for-2-a-share)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Practical Web Development with Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://itbook.store/books/9781484237380 <comment><USER2> Every submit for this site is just a daily ad for Amazon affiliate linked books (tag=itbook.store-20) New ads are submitted most days.

There is no "store". Even the descriptions are ripped from other retailers' pages.</comment>