Up to 70% of people in developed countries 'have seen incomes stagnate' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/14/up-to-70-per-cent-people-developed-countries-seen-income-stagnate <comment><USER2> Economist Branko Milanovic ( [https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan](https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan) ) wrote about this in a World Bank working paper in 2012. Here is a recent article which refers to his now famous "Elephant Curve."

[http://www.voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle- individual-i...](http://www.voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle-individual- incomes-industrial-revolution#.V4eDRJepTrE.twitter)

His book published in April: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/067473713X/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/067473713X/)

<comment><USER3> Not to diminish the suffering of the western middleclass (as I'm part of it) but what about the people in emerging markets?

If I understand his thesis correctly our 1% raked in the profits of letting us compete against emerging market workers. To put it in startup lingo: we are the cab drivers, they are the uber drivers.

It's not 'perfect' for us. But I have a hard time seeing only immorality at work here, while emerging markets getting a shot at having a middle class at all.

<comment><USER4> Maybe it's a hint the this model of capitalism is only good for increasing the wealth of societies within a certain range of development. What happens when emerging markets become developed middleclass markets - do they too stagnate, or does the whole economy decline except for the top 0.1% at that point? Is that an acceptable system?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting theory. Even more interesting if we consider the same top 0.1% to be present in every emerging market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think if we want to understand the recent surge of populist movements in western countries, this study gives one good reason for it. Regardless of wether statements/positions of those groups are correct or outrageous.

 _"In Sweden, for example, where the government intervened to preserve jobs, market incomes fell or were flat for only 20%, while disposable income advanced for almost everyone. In the United States, government taxes and transfers turned a decline in market incomes for 81% of income segments into an increase in disposable income for nearly all households."_

So, protectionism works? At least it seems consequential to me, that for western workers came with globalization an increase in wage-competition from workers in emerging markets.

That most western workers can afford much more from their flattened or fallen income than they could 10 years ago is the other part of the story that neither this data-point tells nor the populist movements.

<comment><USER5> That they can afford more, I would assume, is because things are cheaper. _clarified below_

To me it feels like quality of living per dollar has risen tremendously over the past generation, but income per household hasn't. So while quality of living overall has improved, it doesn't 'feel' like it with regards to individual wealth. That is to say, an upper-middle class person 15 years ago might feel lower-middle class today even with a better QoL overall.

I would definitely agree that this kind of stagnating income in the middle class is a large part of what is pushing these nationalist/populist movements.

It's definitely not a popular sentiment on HN at the moment(nationalism), but I can definitely see the allure; especially for the lower-middle class who have lived through the past ~15 years and aren't seeing the same increase in wages/authority that the previous generation did.

Personally I have yet to see a real cogent argument for why globalism would help here at all with regards to the growing income inequality in developing nations. From my perspective a single centralized government(e.g.: the EU) can only really benefit the multinational corporation and almost by definition be of detriment to the individual nation-states.

It's hard to really grok the reality of the situation from unemployment/income statistics because they don't really tell the whole tale and of course because I'm neither an economist nor a statistician.

Lastly, I don't think it can really be ignored that this is the fastest changing world our species has ever had to adapt to.

I love technology, of course, but I don't think it's impact has been _only_ good. Looking at pictures of previous generations you can't help but notice the upright postures and healthy bodies that are so often missing from today's populace. Not trying to be a luddite here, and you can of course so,

Edit: to clarify 'because things are cheaper', I'm speaking of disposable items and food, as was stated by another commenter "stuff you can buy in a store"

In fact, I think an important aspect of this discontent is the increasing cost of housing/healthcare relative to income.

<comment><USER6> One thing the EU does is prevent a "race to the bottom" with regards to foreign trade agreements and tariffs. For example, if Poland wants to trade with China, they cannot negotiate directly. They must go through the EU. This prevents China from playing EU countries against each other to get better and better trade deals.

The EU also has labor and human rights protections built into it, so factories that move from Germany to Romania see far less benefit than a factory moving from the US to Mexico.

<comment><USER7> Really? What about Ireland? They call it the Celtic tiger, but it is really the Celtic leech upon the rest of Europe.

<comment><USER8> It works with trade deals, taxes are not harmonized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since there is a smaller consumer spending pool to pull from, prices have risen faster on key products to make up for the lack of growth in wages.

Housing/rent, healthcare, tuition, food and many other things have risen dramatically. Some products have come down in price but that is typical with technology/entertainment products over time.

If you make products to sell to everyone, not just the wealthy, you have also probably noticed consumers having less money to spend. This is not good for the engine of the US that creates jobs, small to medium business. This is bad for both classes in the US: wealthy upper and lower plebs, the middle is just about gone.

If we want growth across the board, wages also have to grow, else stagnation for all from lower to upper, when did we forget this?

<comment><USER10> Has individual productivity gone up? Income needs to be justified by productivity, doesn't it?

<comment><USER9> What comes first, the productivity gains or a raise? If there is never a raise, or wages essentially do not grow, why would productivity rise?

However, productivity has gone up and been helped by technology, wages have not followed.

<comment><USER10> assuming a Technology/Capital/Labor split (simplistic), if productivity has gone up due to technology, and the technology is primarily a function of capital (i.e. technology doesn't make me smarter, it makes my computer faster) then doesn't it follow that my wage doesn't go up, but the money spent on my computer does?

<comment><USER11> You know, that would make a lot of sense, but it seems to be awfully hard to get management to sign off on time-saving tools, equipment, and software sometimes.

It seems like it's pretty simple math: You're paying me X/day, tool which costs Y would save me Z days of time, over the course of the year. Is Y/Z >= X? Then get out the company Amex already.

<comment><USER12> Unless the worker writes their own software with their own computer, in which case they can pocket the productivity gain. This is basically what has allowed programmer salaries to go up. IT frequently gives long estimates and then does the work in a tenth of the time, pocketing the surplus. Happens all the time at multiple levels. Until the end users learn to solve their own problems, they will keep losing to people who learn to automate themselves.

So if the simple math checks out, don't ask the company, break out your own Amex, and pocket the difference.

<comment><USER13> Where do you work? I've never worked at a company where I pocketed the extra money by coming in under schedule. On the other hand, I often pay out of my own pocket for licenses, books, etc that benefit the company. In return, I get more work and less time to do it.

<comment><USER12> i meant pocket the difference in time saved. Nice added benefit is irs doesn't tax time off, energy saved, or happiness.

you can use that time and energy to make money elsewhere or invest in learning, networking, understanding your bureucracy.

but i am sure there are companies where your bonus depends on your performance vs. your proposed budget. If you are not being rewarded for improved productivity and being treated as a commodity, why should you pass on your internal productivity gains.

sometimes you want more work (responsibility). that's how you get experience and a bigger budget. Even if you can only spend the budget for work things, you still gain autonomy and power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is neoliberalism at work. Bernie Sanders challenges this, while Obama and Hillary seek to preserve it.

Any chance at changing this in the 2016 election is dead. 4 or 8 more years of this and it's only going to get worse.

My only hope is that a strong progressive movement can take off before the right wing Nationalists make it into power.

<comment><USER14> The past few decades of globalization have resulted in the greatest destruction of poverty in history. For every person experiencing stagnation in the developed world, ten people in the developing world have experienced double digit growth. Poverty destruction has massive benefits, and not only for those in poverty. Even from a purely self-interested point of view, developing nations are already seeing exports to developing markets rise, and that will only continue.

<comment><USER15> Rising a country out of poverty is close to zero sum. When they rise out, those incomes are coming from people in developed countries.

<comment><USER16> When many millions of people go from being subsistence farmers to producing a massive amount of manufactured goods on the planet, how could you possibly come to the conclusion that it is a zero sum game?

<comment><USER17> Because many of the people in the developed world who used to be doing that manufacturing are now out of work. Unfortunately, at least here in the US, we've been pretty bad at retraining and helping those who get laid off because factories moved overseas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the cost of lifting more than a billion people out of abject poverty and is an exaggeration of the negative impact (for example, ignores transfer payments & quality of life improvements). It is part of what is overall a very good thing.

<comment><USER19> Do you have numbers to back that up?

<comment><USER18> Here are some but you should try to find numbers you trust.

[http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview](http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview)

<comment><USER19> Those are only half of the numbers. Yes, poverty has been reduced, but the global wealthy have seen their ownership over the collective wealth of humanity increase much more drastically. Where are the numbers that demonstrate that the only way to raise people out of poverty was to sell their countries' resources to the highest bidder and turn them into markets for international capital?

This question investigates a counterfactual claim. Could poverty be eliminated in a world without neoliberal politics determining the structure of the global economy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py These 'zero growth for bottom X%' headlines, even when mathematically valid, are deceiving because growth isn't randomly distributed across the income space, it's concentrated at the top.

'Zero for bottom 50' is usually code for 'positive for 40-50', 'neutral for 20-40', 'negative for 0-20'.

<comment><USER20> This is a great point. I also think that some people, especially in the media, feel more pinched than they did decades ago because we've systematically made housing dramatically more expensive through parochial zoning: [http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a- futu...](http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-future-in- seattle-do-millennials-have-a-future-in-any-superstar-cities/) or [http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/re...](http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2002/10/v25n3-7.pdf).

Household consumption costs are dominated by housing, first of all, and transport, secondarily; in many coastal cities, strangling supply has led to higher prices that consume way more income, making people feel artificially poorer than they would in a freer market.

<comment><USER21> > we've systematically made housing dramatically more expensive through > parochial zoning

Surely this is a side effect of something else.

This effect cannot be caused by population increases because most of the 20th century had large increases without this zoning pattern emerging.

Additionally many European countries have declining populations and high rent/house prices.

So what is it? Low interest rates?

But then low interest rates are supposed to spur business development and new enterprise. More people should have more savings to spend on things, like houses.

Why isn't this happening?

And finally we're back to Peter Thiel's position = ex-computation technological progress has stalled and many people in the intelligentsia haven't noticed it due to their cocoon.

Do you agree with this train of thought?

<comment><USER22> > Surely this is a side effect of something else.

I recommend the writings of Prof. William Fischel (author of Zoning Rules![0]) to answer this question-- he uses a Coasian approach to identify that restrictive/exclusionary zoning policy is a rational response by homeowners when they are given undue entitlements.

One entitlement that's especially relevant is low property taxes (Prop 13 in California/Measure 5 in Oregon)-- this drives up housing prices and incentivizes homeowners to hold on to housing stock and resist the increase of housing stock elsewhere in their community.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land- Regulatio...](https://www.amazon.com/Zoning-Rules-Economics-Land- Regulation/dp/155844288X)

<comment><USER21> > I recommend the writings of Prof. William Fischel (author of Zoning > Rules![0]) to answer this question-- he uses a Coasian approach to identify > that restrictive/exclusionary zoning policy is a rational response by > homeowners when they are given undue entitlements.

Very interesting, thank you.

> It's important to remember that the rise of the automobile happened over > this same period, which raised the level of marginal land (and delayed > conflict over overpopulation, for at least a few generations).

A good point. I expect self driving to extend such an effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The article says that the causes of this stagnation were:

1\. the deep slump and the weak recovery after the 2008 financial crisis

2\. a decline in the number of people available for work

3\. more part-time and temporary working

4\. a decline in the influence of trade unions

</comment><comment><USER24> "Our research finds that carefully targeted policy measures to boost productivity, GDP growth, and employment can make a significant difference."

I don't buy. What their research found is that one country has fared better than the other 5. Everything else are assumptions of causality.

</comment><comment><USER25> It wouldn't be so bad if education, housing, health care, and energy hadn't inflated so much over the same time period.

</comment><comment><USER26> Original report available at: [http://www.mckinsey.com/global- themes/employment-and-growth/...](http://www.mckinsey.com/global- themes/employment-and-growth/poorer-than-their-parents-a-new-perspective-on- income-inequality)

</comment><comment><USER27> That's not surprising. Infinite growth is physically impossible and we are just seeing the end of it. We have to shift our economy and planning from a growth driven mindset to a sustainability driven one.

<comment><USER28> How is infinite growth physically impossible? Human demand for goods, services, experiences, etc is insatiable. And production will meet demand.

<comment><USER29> Even if your every desire was fulfilled for 24 hours a day, you can't create a 25th hour.

<comment><USER30> I desire a time machine.

Checkmate.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.blake.html <comment><USER2> When people complain about entrepreneurs building social networks instead of curing cancer, they need to understand that this is a big part of the reason. The internet attracts so much innovation in large part because it's very open to innovation. In more regulated/corrupt (the two are closely related) fields, such as health care, there are many barriers to competition that kill innovative new companies. Mobile was actually very similar to this in the pre- iPhone era (because you needed to make deals with carriers). This in turn leads to less investment, since it's kind of dumb to invest in a doomed company.

We're at a point in history where most of our problems are social/political. Our technology is good enough to make the world into a nice place for everyone, but we don't do it because our social "software" is broken. It's easy to make fun of Facebook or Reddit as being all about sharing cat picture, but the reality is that they also are changing the flow of information and influence to be much more peer-to-peer instead of top down (e.g. three television networks). Many will disagree, but I believe that in the long term society will evolve to match this more egalitarian structure. The most effective way to cure cancer may be to first cure the social disfunctions that lead to the types of situations described in this article.

<comment><USER3> So is regulation the answer or the cause?

<comment><USER2> Both.

I think it's a little bit like asking whether programmers are the cause of bugs, or the solution. The problem is that the regulations are being created by people who are either incompetent, corrupt, or possibly both. Unfortunately people in government don't really have the right set of incentives, and so it's not surprising that the results are awful. Imagine if software were written in the same way that laws are written :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting bit from the end of the article:

 _"This isn't just bad news for Shaw. Because his company is in the red, he has been unable to pull together the financing he needs to expand his factory in Little Elm. So he has partnered with Chinese companies, which put up money to build assembly lines in China in return for permission to produce his syringes for the Chinese market. When his patents do run out, the Chinese manufacturers will be the ones poised to bring his technology to the world market, meaning all the jobs and economic benefits that could have gone to the local residents will instead go to the people of Gansu Province. "_

Goddamnit.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised these companies didn't give up and start selling in other countries, like Canada or the UK, to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought:

Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though.

Here's the kicker: While we live within and with our reality other parts of the world are watching. And in some parts (China?) they are surely having thoughts akin to "these people are too stupid to get out of their own way". And so, we'll keep arguing and "enjoying" the ineptitude, complexities and realities of our reality while others will watch, learn, study and take measures to ensure that they don't fall into the same traps.

Yes, there will probably be better syringes in China than in the US. And, with time, that will be true about a lot more things and a number of other countries.

Enjoy.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, robomartin, for your thoughtful commentary. You are right 100%, through and through. Unfortunately, as I learned long time ago, it seems to me that much of the people on HN believe that gov't is never at fault. That regulation, taxation, and other forms of gov't oppression are good things. Ever. Especially, when reassured by a politician.

Today's progressives are just sheeple. They will believe blindly any politician that says "for the children's future" or "for teachers and fire fighters," so let's raise taxes or strangle pharmaceutical companies.

A "progressive" used to mean "believe in individual" or "believe in freedom." Today it means "believe in gov't" or "believe in regulation" or "believe in politically correct speech", etc etc (the list is long).

Progressives, in other words, are just statists.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback. People create a view of the world based on where they came from, what they have experienced, what they've been taught and many other factors (for example, religious indoctrination). This is a fact.

Regrettably the governing class in a country like the US knows this very well and has learned how to pander and manipulate the masses in their favor. This is also a fact.

Then you have the media. Most people will subscribe to one ideology and set forth to consume media that aligns with this ideology as closely as possible. This is comfortable and easy to chew on. No gag reflex involved. This is another fact.

The media know this, and feed that need. They report with overblown outrage about mostly unimportant stories. They go on and on all day long beating the same dumb story to death until they can't flatten it any more. They cater to the audience that, due to ideology, will stay with them. It's SEO, TV style. This is also a fact.

All of this leads to great levels of polarization. How else would you have huge chunks of the population self-identify with one party or another? They buy into a "tribe" and stick with it, no matter what. Tribal behavior is a most fundamental human trait. This, also, is fact.

Those in the middle of all of this, a group of which I consider myself a member, are willing to stop and think for a moment and not rattle off what others are saying without some thought and consideration. This is hard. This requires work. This requires rejecting years of unintentional indoctrination and trying to see the world for what it is. This is about the Allegory of the Cave in more ways than one (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave>). It requires consciously refraining from the most fundamental human impulse to be tribal and believe what has been pounded into your brain. This is hard (I repeat) and this is why most people don't do it.

At home we make it a point to learn about multiple points of view. We watch CNN and FOX. We also watch Al Jazeera and LinkTV. We are also fortunate enough to speak more than a couple of languages, so we consume international news from more than one perspective as well. It's amazing what you can learn this way.

I don't know where I am going with this except to say that there are a lot of voting groups that, just like Plato's cave, have been living and looking at the shadows in their own caves. And virtually nothing more than that. Government workers, Politicians and Unionized workers (to be brutal in my generalization) are examples of such groups. Individually none of them are bad people. As a voting and acting block they can be absolute morons, but only because all they've been willing to consider are the shadows.

I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it's even possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I experienced this somewhat when consulting for a medical device startup. They'd developed a modular system supporting Laparoscopic procedures, reducing hands during surgery, which equated to significant safety increases as well as cost reductions. However, their big issue continues to be navigating the procurement process at hospitals, which is akin to requiring a full time lobbyist per hospital for the duration of that hospital's adoption of their system: 2-3 years, after getting them to actually try the system, which often requires 18 months of demos, trials, and negotiations.

Our technologies we, geeks, develop are going to have a very hard time revolutionizing the medical industry. The big players have closed the door behind them in a major way.

<comment><USER9> You're selling to the wrong party. Don't sell it to the hospitals, sell it to the insurance companies.

Hospitals will be thinking

1\. "will insurance claims be rejected for non-standard treatment?"

2\. "If something goes wrong with my malpractice insurance cover it?"

Even if everything goes correctly, and procedures are better/faster/cheaper the insurance companies will just lower the amount they pay. The hospital doesn't have a lot to gain here.

Conversely if an insurance company hears about a new better/faster/cheaper treatment suddenly that's they _only_ thing they will pay for and the company selling that treament makes a mint, with hospitals knocking down their door.

<comment><USER10> I'm not so sure about the insurance companies. I am a pharmacist and I see insurance companies insist on paying for expensive things and declining to pay for cheap things all the time. For example, they won't pay for cheap Relion brand syringes, but they will pay for BD syringes (BD is the bad guy in the linked article), which cost much more. I'm not sure about the reasoning behind this, but I'll bet it's sordid and corrupt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> God I hate the healthcare industry.

This was on my mind this morning because my girlfriend isn't rich and relies on Lunesta to sleep (I'll leave the fact that her doctor is advising her to take this indefinitely for another day). It's extortionately priced - something like $6 a pill - enough to gouge insurance companies thoroughly and enough to wreck havoc on the finances of someone that's not rich and lacks insurance.

It turns out, this is actually the most profitable drug in the world. Yet _they can't even sell it in the EU_ because it's a modest derivative of a (generic) drug that's been around since 1989.

It's disturbing that this is where the patent game ends - with power-brokering and lawyering determining who gets the wealth and power.

<comment><USER12> Why can't she take the generic drug?

Also, $180/month is not really what people mean by "high healthcare costs". They mean something like a $50,000/day hospital stay. $180 is a lot if you don't have a lot of money, but it's hardly backbreaking.

<comment><USER10> The generic drug he's talking about was never approved in the US. It's not available here. You can get it in other countries.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, and there's been much discussion that the chemistry that makes Lunesta patentable is trivial, basically a patent for its own sake.

"a single isomer drug rarely offers a therapeutic advantage over the mixture of isomers from which it is derived. However, the single isomer is patentable distinct from its multiple-isomer origin. Thus, the drug company can get a monopoly."

<http://insomnia-relief.com/information/?p=49>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I think of the federal government 'fixing' health care, this is the sort of thing I think they can fix. Not single payer, not mandatory coverage, just good enforcement of anti-competitive practices, ways to enable innovation with patient consent Etc.

<comment><USER14> Are you so sure about that? excuse-me's comment, right above yours in my view, talks about how the government has anti-competitive arrangements with big military contractors. How would the situation be different with healthcare?

<comment><USER15> I think the fix in this case would be removing the laws that encourage anti- competitive arrangements.

<comment><USER14> How is the government incentivized in any way to do that? Politicians in the US receive substantial campaign contributions from established military suppliers who would stand to lose a lot from said laws. I don't see any rallying cries from the public about the competitiveness of supply arrangements government entities currently have.

<comment><USER15> Basically this is one of those areas where we can expect positive change iff there's a lot of public outcry. Sometimes the political stars align and we get actual reforms, but its not anything that we should expect that politicians would ever get up to on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Or he sold his wares to systems so small and poor that they weren't on the GPOs' radar—prisons, nursing homes, Indian reservations, and the like."

So to minimize my risk of line contamination, I'd be better off getting my medical care in a prison. (Assuming this guys product really does work).

What will change this is how hospitals etc. are reimbursed - the trend is that reimbursements will be based on outcomes, especially with changes introduced by the ACA that go into effect in 10/2012. <http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/full.html>

So what matters then, are actual outcomes. If in fact there is an increase in infections from line contamination, or poor surgical outcomes (from a towel being left behind or what have you) - this will be measured and monitored, and believe me hospitals will address them, especially the for-profits, which seem to be surging again.

There was a interesting company out of Blueprint Health that addressed hospital procurement, allowing price comparisons. I don't have the details on how the GPO's are dealt with though.

<http://www.procuredhealth.com/>

<comment><USER17> Yeah, the reimbursements look like a good measure. We're a fan of some of the outcome criteria, especially the opportunities we've found to streamline things.

dr_, are you in the health tech field?

<comment><USER16> yup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The movie EDIT "puncture" (thanks diek!) is a reasonably entertaining account off the retractable needle.

US healthcare (and thus, US patients) may miss out on improved syringes, but I hope they're able to sell many of these to the developing world where needle re-use is a serious problem. Re-using needles when 10% of the population has HIV/AIDS is awful. Not just because you risk transmitting HIV to other people, but because people with HIV are not able to resist any infection you pass onto them.

I'm surprised that the practices are legal - I'd have thought that the US would have had good law to ensure free and fair competition.

<comment><USER19> Name one regulated market in the us that have fair competition.

Btw. It's not only in the us. Regulation today is the most secure form of monopoly

<comment><USER20> Uh, regulation often prevents monopolies. See: anti-trust regulation.

<comment><USER21> Doesn't anti-trust regulation stop people ABUSING monopolies rather then forming them?

Most of the teeth I've seen in the anti-trust regulation is the ability to break up companies after they have monopolized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an entrepreneur I have dedicated most of the last 25 years to doing hardware (read: manufacturing) ventures. Manufacturing in the US is hard, if not impossible, save cases where the ecosystem or nature of the market can support it. Problems one could face include: ip (patents) mine field, government regulations, liability issues, lack of localized supply chains, high labor costs, high insurance costs, high taxes and more.

Then, to boot, if you are lucky enough to have to deal with the government or in an industry where government has decided they know better, well, this can be described with two words: Pain and Frustration.

The mechanisms described in the article kept me from even considering making an effort to do some good in the medical field. It's just too painful.

Finally, about two years ago, I had enough and decided to be done with making stuff and pivot into software-only products. This was not a huge pivot in that most of the products we manufactured during the last 20 years had significant software elements (embedded, FPGA and related workstation applications). The transition just meant making a very conscious effort to not go after hardware ideas. This was hard in that I personally like making physical products. But, no more.

My point in relating this personal story is that I have the scars to understand what this little syringe company must have been through.

The article in question highlights something that we should all understand very well at this point: Government rule-making is, more often than not, fraught with unintended consequences that, ultimately, end-up costing us in terms of money, freedom and choice. And, when it comes to the medical field, might even result in people dying.

Part of the problem is that we continue to give the keys to the shop to bureaucrats who have zero real-world, business or employed-by-a-non- government-business experience. You really can't expect much from anyone who has lived their entire life within the confines of an ecosystem where personal decisions carry almost no risk. That is vastly different from the real world, where, if you are a bad programmer or lousy barista you get fired and, no, you don't get to enjoy 80% of your salary for the rest of your life.

Programmers, for example, know and live this issue of making the wrong decision. In the course of solving a problem we choose an approach and go with it. Sometimes it works and often-times there are unintended consequences that need attention. Other times the approach is entirely wrong and has to be scrapped in favor of a different idea. The solution is evolved rapidly until the right approach surfaces. This ultimately leads to better solutions, particularly if peer reviewed.

The trouble with government decision making is that you have the equivalent of managers who don't know how to code --at all-- telling you what algorithm and database to use to solve a problem. Furthermore, it is equivalent to these non-technical managers making their decision the law for the company. And, yes, regardless of what the overwhelming reality of the matter might indicate, changing their laws is either impossible or you need 2/3 of said morons (non- technical managers) to agree to the change. In other words, you should expect the beatings to continue until the morale improves. Of course, reality in the technology world is closer to the idea that those who actually understand the subject should make the decisions. Wouldn't it be cool if every single politician had to have a real job 3/4 of the year? Work three months for government and then go back to the private sector. Now that could be interesting.

<comment><USER22> I'm not seeing how the government was an issue in this case. The article is about how private companies use kickbacks and cartel behaviour to restrict what products are available to hospitals. It seems like a lack of government action is the problem here.

<comment><USER6> No,no. Read it again. The government setup the rules that enabled exactly that behavior.

If they (government) didn't try to play entrepreneur or investor we'd be far better off. There are cases where government involvement is warranted. I'm with Ron Paul on this one: Get them off our backs, we do and did just fine when they had less hooks into us. This is particularly true with the existence of the Internet. It's pretty hard for a large company to misbehave today and not pay a serious price for it. Laws are far less powerful in this regard.

<comment><USER23> No, in 1986 the government removed rules (forbidding kickbacks) designed to prevent such behavior. In 1996 the government exempted medical supply companies from many antitrust regulations. The facts laid out in the article are diametrically opposed to the point your are trying to make.

 _It's pretty hard for a large company to misbehave today and not pay a serious price for it._

for example?

<comment><USER20> People like to pretend like all government regulation is stifling to innovation, but it is pretty clear that some regulation is necessary for a properly functioning market.

The trick is, how much is too much. There needs to be a very good reason to shield any company from anti-trust regulations and I can't think of a valid one that would apply to medical supply companies.

<comment><USER15> I think that saying that regulation is necessary (as opposed to desirable) might be too strong. In most cases things can still function without regulation, because people know things aren't regulated and can take that into account by being cautious. Now, this is often inefficient and causes some number of people to get screwed over, but it still works.

I'm sure there could exist some golden system of regulation for health care and there are even countries like Singapore seem to have found something close enough, but its not clear to me that our current system in the US actually manages to be better than no regulation at all.

<comment><USER20> I disagree. Regulations are absolutely necessary for a functional market.

Corporate espionage, sabotage, outright lying about your products, financial fraud, tying, price fixing, collusion, bid rigging, geosplitting, ponzi schemes and dozens of other manifestations of bad corporate practices that regulations prevent (or try to) were put in place in the first place because they destroy markets. These aren't hypothetical problems either, there are many many instances of these practices happening over the last few centuries.

Hell, this article effectively says that medical providers are engaged in product tying and it is destroying the market!

Truly free markets are a myth. The best you get is mostly fair markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can tell you from firsthand experience (as an investor) that the gist of this article is 100% correct: there are significant barriers to bringing a new medical device to market that have nothing to do with the merits of the product or the supply chain, but are quite simply pure protectionism for the established players. If anyone wants details, contact me privately.

<comment><USER25> As a product guy who works in medical device startups, I can reinforce this statement. Even if you find a way to exit the supply game by developing something that doctors have some choice over because they believe it has an impact on patient safety/outcomes, you still run into many of the issues detailed in the article. Here's just one: if you develop something that is truly revolutionary, you'll play hell trying to get paid for it, because the payers (private insurance and Medicare for the most part) only pay out for certain codes. It takes years to get a new code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _"In the case of the towel bid, hospital administrators were shown a PowerPoint presentation (a copy of which she gave to me) indicating that going with the Medline and Medical Action bids would save them between 6 and 29 percent. But this was relative to the same companies' bids the previous year, not the bids offered by other vendors."_

I'm interested in seeing these slides and sent a request to the article's author.

Were the decision makers present aware there were other vendors? If so, how was this data not called into question? It would be interesting to see if the data was presented in a completely misleading way or if there was some level of laziness and complacency on the decision-makers' part as well.

Regardless, misleading presentations are always interesting to examine, such as Tufte's assessment of the presentation given to NASA officials before the Columbia disaster ([http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1)).

Edit: Just received a reply from the author that she's unable to share the presentation as the person that originally shared it has been "subject to legal harassment." Lame!

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm glad that our startup isn't dealing with medical devices, only with software. Still, I've been working with some medical device makers and it is a wild and crazy world they work in. The whole GPO system is clearly broken, but I've met some people - at device makers no less - that are passionate about ending it.

We're doing our part to help that along.

<comment><USER25> Can you be more specific about what you're doing? I'm in medical device and I would love to see software startups help untangle the mess that is healthcare reimbursement and purchasing.

<comment><USER17> Email me - keith [aaaat] appzorz [dooot] com

I can't really be super specific yet publicly, but we may be able to talk further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I hope Amazon casts its all-powerful crappy-legacy-vendor-destroying eye upon the medical supply market soon.

All the value-add GPOs offer (other than pricing) is stuff Amazon could easily do for free -- inventory tracking, etc. It's all IT, and basically zero marginal cost.

As long as existing GPOs can't legally prevent a hospital from also using the Amazon GPO, I don't see how anyone could stand against Amazon. Amazon would have zero incentive to lock new device vendors out of the market. Sure, purchases from the Amazon GPO wouldn't contribute to meeting your legacy GPO quotas and rebates, but Amazon has access to capital at levels which will let them destroy regional competition if required -- they could price match any subsidized prices.

<comment><USER28> "casts its all-powerful crappy-legacy-vendor-destroying eye"

The most memorable phrase I've heard all week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country_

Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?

<comment><USER29> Yeah, hospital-acquired infections are huge. In fact, they're a huge reason why we have so many aggressively resistant strains of organisms.

<comment> excuse-me More the other way around.

Widespread over-the-counter antibiotics, over prescription and agricultural use are the reason there are so many resistant organisms. Healthy people with the organisms going into hospitals full of sick people is the reason they get there.

Poor hospital cleaning, high occupancy rates and especially people using keyboards is the reason they are huge.

<comment><USER30> > _people using keyboards_

Never thought about that before, though I do know that keyboards are _filthy_. Is there any evidence that the rate of infection increased since medical professionals began to use keyboards for data entry? But I guess that kind of data would be buried under a lot of other factors that emerged over the last 2-3 decades.

Also, how would you go about fixing that? Tablets might be easier to clean, but you're still touching a surface. Speech recognition would be cool, but then you're spraying microscopic drops of saliva all over the place. Is paper just as unsanitary, or does the fact that fewer people share the same sheet of paper somehow mitigate the risk?

<comment><USER18> Some keyboards have silver in the keys.

Some keyboards have a squishy membrane cover which can be sprayed and scrubbed.

But, really, people need to wash their hands (soap and hot water) before they touch a patient.

<comment> excuse-me The problem is the number of patients and the amount of data that has to be entered into different systems means you would spend 90% of your time washing your hands or taking gloves on and off.

Imagine programming where everytime your hand went between the keyboard and mouse you had to go and wash your hands!

The problem is that adding more computers is always a 'good thing' - how can more info about a patient be bad?

<comment><USER30> Hand sanitizer?

It takes all of 2 seconds to squeeze it onto your hands, and you can apply it on your way to the next patient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This article definitely took its sweet time to get to the point. Sure it's interesting, but the first thing I want to know is, "what did they do this time?", so I can decide whether maybe I already know about it or not.

Certainly the story about developing new products for a failing healthcare industry is interesting, and I would love to have read about it, if I hadn't been skimming through "yeah yeah yeah and how did they prevent him from bringing it to market? skip skip skip, aha."--IMO, it's just wasting my time, though I would have gladly read the stories about the entrepeneurs if only they'd have gotten to the point _first_.

Even though I thankfully don't have anything to do with the US healthcare system, I'd love to pass this story on to some of my friends that unfortunately do. Except I don't want to waste their time either.

And that really is a missed opportunity to bring to light something rotten in the system, because of a badly written article.

</comment><comment><USER32> "Then, in 1986 Congress passed a bill exempting GPOs from the anti-kickback provisions embedded in Medicare law. This meant that instead of collecting membership dues, GPOs could collect "fees"—in other industries they might be called kickbacks or bribes—from suppliers in the form of a share of sales revenue."

No one in their right mind could imagine that anyone could be genuinely stupid enough to think that allowing organisation that was supposed to work for buyers, take money from sellers is a good idea.

That law was 100% surely bought. You don't need any other proof that USA has best Congress money can buy.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra But why doesn't they try to sell to other hospitals? In Europe, e.g., Switz hospitals are very well known for their quality. They might be interested.

</comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of something: "Hacking Human Waste" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3456484>

Two guys found (and patented) a way to get rid of very expensive human (hospital) waste. Working product in a few hospitals and everything, but they're looking for a way to scale up (they are great hackers but suck at finding an investor). Any tips?

</comment><comment><USER34> So he's a great innovator. So stop complaining and sell it outside of USA.

</comment><comment><USER35> While the main point about the medical supply monopoly seems solid, I'm suspicious about this Shaw guy, his character, and his product. I'd like to see an objective counter-point.

</comment><comment><USER36> This sounds like what the movie puncture was about. It doesn't end well.

Still worth seeing. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582248/>

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm wondering if the best option for them isn't to create a partnership with a existing manufactures. It will be easier for them to get in the market.

</comment><comment><USER38> He needs to sell his product in a different country. If the system is broken here, he should go elsewhere and see if he can make a change.

</comment><comment><USER39> Is there anything significant, important market out there that is not a cesspool of corruption?

</comment><comment><USER40> There's a movie based on this guy's struggle, but it's pretty terrible.

</comment><comment><USER41> reminds me of the 400 dollars the hospital charged me the other day for part of a splint (the wrapping cloth) which was probably manufactured in China for $.50

</comment><comment><USER42> Someone needs to bring BYOD to the medical industry ;)

<comment> excuse-me The simple solution is to make all the drugs that a hospital uses illegal.

Then overnight pure capitalism would create an efficient market to import and distribute them. When it's cheaper to buy heroin on the street than an aspirin in a hospital you know that the market is screwed up somewhere

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This caught my eye:

 _Kaiser spokesman Jim Anderson argues that if Shaw's products didn't make their way to hospitals it was because of "significant supply issues" on Retractable's end. He also says they were prone to malfunction and that, in several cases, needles detached and were left "stuck in the arms of patients."_

I'm doubtful that a Kaiser spokesman would fabricate these problems, which leads me to believe that perhaps this reporting isn't as balanced as it could be. Maybe these needles are great, but perhaps there are two problems here, one being a competitor with a lot of control over the customers, and a second being problems with supply chain and quality control.

<comment><USER44> On the other hand, here's another quote from the article:

"Without a GPO contract, it doesn't matter how good your product is. Even if I could wave this wand over your body and cure you from cancer, chances are I couldn't sell it to hospitals"

The core problem is, big manufacturers offer discounts (or bigger kickbacks) for bundling. A niche product is unlikely to succeed, even if it's obviously better. A product that has pros and cons is not going to have a chance.

Also, I'd imagine that a detached needle could be a greater legal liability than an infection. It's easy to prove that a needle detached in a patients arm. It's a lot harder to prove that an infection was caused by a needle without safeguards. "First, do absolutely no harm for which you can be sued for" is not a great creed, but it's one some hospitals will follow.

If you're a supplier, perhaps you're best shot is to license to a big manufacturer, to break in, even if you're capable of producing and marketing your product; because you'll be locked out of the supply stream if you go it alone. That's a pretty sad state of affairs.

<comment><USER45> "The core problem is, big manufacturers offer discounts (or bigger kickbacks) for bundling. "

Yeah someone can correct me, but to add to the point: hospitals have razor thin margins. If I remember correctly, it's 10% or less.

<comment><USER46> 10% is hardly "razor thin", it's quite respectable in a lot of industries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> excuse-me Almost exactly the same with military equipment.

Design a product that saves the lives of front line troops, demo it to the troops and they love it.

Then try and sell it to the government and you are told that you have to form a consortium with an established supplier - Boeing/Lockheed-Martin/General Dynamics in the US, Thales/BAe/EADS in europe.

Now imagine the sort of deal you are offered as a startup negotiating with a trillion $$ global defense company with a stranglehold on the market!

<comment><USER47> And if you try to export it the Government can block the sale of any military use equipment. I know a person who developed an external coating for submarines but the US Military didn't want to use it, so he found a (friendly) country that did but was denied the license to sell it.

<comment> excuse-me But not if you simply manufacture it abroad.

We found a nice friendly country in the middle east who were more interested in their troops have good equipment than keeping lobbyists in business. They took the idea, made it for us and buy them from us.

(don't worry - it was the one full of beard wearing, no-pork eating, religious fundamentalists that like us)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wow, I love reading a book on the web. Either cut your copy down by 1/2 (no one is going to read the whole thing) or place a disclaimer at the top on the average it will take to read the whole article.

<comment><USER49> Or ya know, as an beings who can keep track of things like how fast we read, you could simply scroll through the article like i did, go, okay that's about ten minutes. Then decide if you want to keep going. Saying no one would read the whole thing is a bit much to, considering I read every word, and I'm sure others did to.</comment></comment>


Die Threads: Python async code [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U66KuyD3T0M <comment><USER2> I missed some discussion of how this is built on top of async/await.

Edit: Here is a recording of the talk where you can both see the slides and the speaker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyJiN3yGfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyJiN3yGfU)

<comment><USER3> It's built on top of threading really (imported via curio).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like a super nice way of doing threads in Python, here's the rep: [https://github.com/dabeaz/thredo](https://github.com/dabeaz/thredo)

Sad to see that it has not received any love for last 4 months, is there another "preferred" thread lib for Python?

<comment><USER5> twisted.internet.threads is always, always my go-to personally. Twisted is an amazing project and has especially shined brightly in the past 3 years or so.

<comment><USER6> Twisted doesn't support Python 3, which is problematic for some projects. I've also always found the code it produces difficult to test.

<comment><USER5> > Twisted doesn't support Python 3

No no, it now supports Python 3 _wonderfully_. It took a very long time, because a lot of what Twisted does was more dramatically changed from 2-3 than a lot of projects. Consider, for example, the implications of PEP-3333, which required that headers be in the native str type in Python 2, but also the native str type (ie, unicode) in Python 3. This was a tough problem. [0]

However, those days are long behind us. Not only does Twisted support Python 3, but it can interchange its own flow control (ie, the reactor) with the asyncio event loop, and also convert (and ensure) that Futures and Deferreds fire in a way that is cross-compatible. You can also use the inlineCallback decorator to see all of the new coroutine syntactic sugar.

Here's a project I'm working on right now that is Python 3.6+ with Twisted: [https://github.com/nucypher/nucypher/](https://github.com/nucypher/nucypher/)

> I've also always found the code it produces difficult to test.

Yeah, I hear that a lot, and for my part, I've just never had that trouble, so I'm not sure how to respond. Have you ever read the "TDD with Twisted" document[1]? Also, the new pytest-twisted tooling helps quite a bit if you're using pytest.

0: [https://github.com/twisted/twisted/blob/6ac66416c0238f403a8d...](https://github.com/twisted/twisted/blob/6ac66416c0238f403a8dc1d42924fb3ba2a2a686/src/twisted/web/wsgi.py#L26) 1: [https://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/core/howto/trial...](https://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/core/howto/trial.html)

<comment><USER7> BTW, when writing in Twisted use @inlineCallbacks with yields for async code. The code reads as if it was synchronous then.

        @inlineCallbacks
        def get_index_status(self, index_id):
            uri = "{}/index-status?id={}".format(self.SERVER, index_id) #yes, no escaping, as this is silly test only
            r = yield self.get(uri)
            returnValue(r.text)

Using raw Deferreds is a big more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be really cool to have the sort of Erlang-style processes in python -- where each process is a green process, so don't pay the cost of OS handling stuff, but at the same time you run multiple interpreters so that you still get the benefit of multiple cores [1].

Implementation-wise, this could be made simpler than removing the GIL, if we just fully give up on the concept of shared memory. (This is above my pay- grade, anyone with CPython internals knowledge, please share your thoughts!)

I've been trying to build a shared state system over message passing that doesn't use shared memory at all [2], and I have experienced that OS level processes are a high cost to pay, when you try to do things the Erlang way, launching thousands of processes.

[1] [https://hamidreza-s.github.io/erlang/scheduling/real- time/pr...](https://hamidreza-s.github.io/erlang/scheduling/real- time/preemptive/migration/2016/02/09/erlang-scheduler-details.html)

[2] [https://github.com/pycampers/zproc](https://github.com/pycampers/zproc)

<comment><USER9> There's this: [http://www.gevent.org/](http://www.gevent.org/)

<comment><USER8> Single core only :(

<comment><USER10> If you need multicore performance, you likely will soon need multi-server performance, in which case you can either use multiprocessing or even containerization to run one gevent "hub" on each core across a cluster. Compared to threads, the memory overhead is minimal.

<comment><USER11> Going from single node to multi core doesn't introduce nearly the amount of complexity that making a distributed system does. Recommending that for someone who wants to use more than 1 core on their machine is not a reasonable recommendation. You're not wrong that you might wind up there, at the end, but doing that for the first step is too heavy unless you have a runtime to support those complexities more easily, as in e.g. BEAM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In case you are wondering, the editor used at this talk is called "Mu" and got previously discussed on HN about three months ago [0].

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17638067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17638067)</comment>


Ask HN: How to programatically photo-manipulate two images? - <AUTHOR>

Basically, I'd like to create an online tool with which people can upload an image and somehow automatically superimpose it and then shear/stretch/scale it to fit specified areas on top of that image. I'd know how to do it manually with GIMP, but I was wondering if there's a way to do with programatically, provided that I can hard-code fixed sizes and dimensions for everything.
Thanks
TLDR:Is there a way to programatically photoshop something? <comment><USER2> maybe try interfacing with some of the imagemagick tools: [http://www.imagemagick.org](http://www.imagemagick.org) \- it's insanely powerful.

</comment><comment><USER3> webGL</comment>


Woonerf and Python - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ianbicking.org/2009/01/16/woonerf-and-python/

<comment><USER2> I don't think the analogy holds very well. Woonerven have a speed limit called "a horse's walk" (less than 20 kph). Obviously such a speed limit is not what Python's about.

Woonerven also contain many speed-decreasing measures like speed bumps, chicanes, etc. There may be no traffic lights, but there certainly are measures to influence driver behavior forcefully.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems the author missed the point of a woonerf. To clarify:

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

and a better picture:

[http://transportehumano.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/woonerf-...](http://transportehumano.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/woonerf-a.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> While the analogy is nice, I'd hesitate to assume that because woonerven don't work in big cities python code won't hold up in large heavy used multi developer codebases. Much traffic is not the same as many developers. There' no such things as test code and version control in real life.</comment>


'Brogramming' Phenomenon Being Taken Way Too Seriously - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2012/03/05/brogramming-phenomenon-being-taken-way-too-seriously/

<comment><USER2> _"It's demoralising and absurd that the tech press is taking something that clearly started as a sarcastic in-joke as an actual marker of a real trend,"_

Maybe some component of the tech press has just shown that they're really competent at trolling.</comment>


85th level Orc Rogue wins election - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/85th-level-orc-rogue-wins-election-7000007225/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't this really raise the question of Forum Postings being public domain, and specifically blizzard removing anonymity for their forums? It seems less based around her gaming than her comments (weak though that particular line of attack was).

I mean, I love to post - but if I was aiming to be a politician I'd be desperately hoping that some of the drivvel I've spouted over the years was unattributable to me personally. I mean, my fascination with Goatse might not go down well with the electorate at large...</comment>


MVP - Minimal Viable Personality for startup founders - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/106823861250641198375/posts/SMyomyLwHML

<comment><USER2> Upvoted, because I love what his startup is doing. Last year I got super angry at our city councillors, so I started building something similar (pay $1, leave 1 min message, use Twillio to call all 45 councillors), but I guess I wasn't angry enough to finish it. I hope he succeeds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much Marty, really appreciate that! Wow, that sounds like a really cool idea, could definitely save lots of time. Let me know (@leowid) anytime if I can be of help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just to mention, the WSJ link on your homepage is messed up ([http://onespot.wsj.com/technology/2011/12/06/c5a58/reverse-r...](http://onespot.wsj.com/technology/2011/12/06/c5a58/reverse- robocall-turns-tables-on))</comment>


A kerning game - <AUTHOR> http://type.method.ac/

<comment><USER2> Argh, this is addictive.

One suggestion for improvement: It would be nice if I could hit escape (or click outside of the text) to get rid of the cyan highlight on the letter. Color can change the perceived size of a shape, and when you're at the level of tweaking by pixels, it can make a difference.

<comment><USER3> Today the cyan color can be removed by clicking outside the text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem with this game is that you can only move the inside letters. Which means that the default tracking (often crappy) of the sample words can't be changed. In other words, you're polishing a turd.</comment>


Can SQL Injection Fool Speed Traps and Clear Your Record? - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2014/04/04/sql-injection-fools-speed-traps-and-clears-your-record/#comments

<comment><AUTHOR> I changed the title to "Can [it be done]" because the article's title states it as fact even though its effectiveness is questioned. I'm aware that this deviates from HN guidelines but I don't want to submit clickbait.</comment>


Show HN: Automated data entry for emails - <AUTHOR> https://parseur.com <comment><USER2> I coded a script to extract data from transcripts of an automated customer support chat and enter them into a CRM. Even if customers had to answer quite precisely defined questions (example: birth place and dd.mm.yy) they make all sort of mistakes, which won't be mistakes at all in a normal conversation. Do you have something to handle messy data or does your tool works like copying all it sees in a position to a form field with no further processing? Obviously processing can be done later on and better questions might be asked.

<comment><AUTHOR> The tool works best for machine generated emails where the structure remains the same from one email to the other.

That being said, the parsing engine is quite resistant to noise. For instance, you can have changes in the footer or some other sections of the email, or have additional forwards and it will be able to get the data without issues.

Regarding cleaning up the type of data itself, we don't do any post processing at the moment besides trimming spaces and removing html tags. We plan to add data types at some point (for instance to convert any text date into a standard date) but we'll be waiting to have a paying customer request for it before it gets implemented :-)</comment></comment>


Inside Stories from Interviews with Shark Tank Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Shark-Tank-MOMpreneurs-Take-Publicity-ebook/dp/B00KTM5V12/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1416951292&sr=8-1&keywords=shark+tank+mompreneurs

<comment><AUTHOR> [Disclosure: I know the author] Kindle version of this book is free today. Short quick read with some good data points for funding and getting traction. Focused more on bringing physical goods to market.</comment>


Walk Monster (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0005 <comment><USER2> An almost 2h talk which is very worth it for everyone who has an interest in minimalism, simplicity, performance or anyone who has a feeling there is something wrong in software.

Casey's complaint is basicly that there are several million lines of code between an application and the hardware. This creates a large problem surface i.e. performance/security/complexity. In addition, the current hardware is so complex that an software/os (r)evolution is not possible. Casey suggests an SoC+ISA and vastly simplified interfaces for SATA/USB/NICs/etc. Which would make it feasible to ship custom OSes with just a few 10 thousands lines of ASM/code. Downside is that this would require interest from chip/hardware vendors.

\--

I lack technical depths regarding hardware and OSes, but I like that idea very much. Shrinking the OS parts to comprehensible sizes would vastly change the landscape. Programming computers would be so much more interesting if a single individual could grasp all of it.

<comment><USER3> Casey always makes interesting points about modern computing and I tend to agree with a lot of what he says. Unfortunately he has a bad habit of insulting people on public platforms. Windows aggravates me as much as the next person but then he'll go off on Twitter asking if Microsoft is run by babies in diapers or whatever. Pretty sure he's also called web developers incompetent idiots more than once too.

It's one thing to say in that private out of frustration but in public all you'll do is just alienate the side you're trying to appeal to and they'll carry on doing what they do.

Edit: typos.

<comment><USER4> Thing is, Microsoft completely deserves it because they are insulting their users every day. They are now consistently forcing changes on their users that nobody asked for, and it takes significant amounts of complaints for them to yield in even the slightest degree.

See: Metro replacing the start button, forced Windows 10 upgrades, and forced updates in Windows 10 in for starters. Users said they didn't want these things, Microsoft told them to get bent.

Casey complained about some issues with VS on HMH, Microsoft reached out and made some suggestions, suggestions completely broke his build environment. That's the kind of crap we're dealing with from today's Microsoft. Calling them babies is far more polite than what I routinely call them.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't matter what Microsoft did. As a programmer imparting knowledge in a public forum, you have a duty to be professional and state your case or air your grievances in a civilized way. What Casey did was unprofessional and toxic.

<comment><USER4> I'll grant it might have been unprofessional, but we're also talking about Casey's personal twitter and his personal project that he streams to the world for free.

I guess I come from a different culture/generation, where if someone is doing as badly at their jobs as a lot of people at Microsoft are right now, then it is acceptable to call them out on it. I mean christ, we live in a world where it's ok to fire people expressing a mildly controversial opinion at work when asked to do so , or over tweets they made in the distant past that they've long since apologized for, but we have to treat people who are really crap at their jobs with kid gloves?

<comment><USER3> Yup it's his personal Twitter. No one was contesting his right to post whatever he wants. But as soon as you're trying to address an audience it comes with certain responsibilities. You're free to ignore these of course but then don't be surprised if you get backlash or if new people don't listen.

I'm not really sure why you need to equate being civilized with wearing kid gloves? Is it hard for you to not call people stupid when addressing an audience? Or rather, if you do, does it help? You can call people stupid all you like in private but if you want to educate developers on how to do better I'm not sure why you're so intent on going down this route.

People also often try to make this a generational thing and blame silly emotional millenials but not attacking _individuals_ isn't a brand new concept. And until people stop buying Windows and VS licenses en masse these people have no real reason to worry over their job and thus no real reason to listen to personal insults.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Casey is currently building in real-time on live stream a game: [https://handmadehero.org](https://handmadehero.org)</comment>


What to do when a customer says "Fuck you" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmob.com/post/40823022011/what-to-do-when-a-customer-says-f-ck-you <comment><USER3> > cant replicate it

That's how the co-founder of a customer service oriented company responds to a bug complaint? Three whole words? And then he has the nerve to "go nuclear" on the customer? Wow, talk about being rude and arrogant. Not only is your response unprofessional because of its poor grammar, you also didn't even give the cusomter the impression that their complaint matters to you.

How about something like, "Still haven't been able to replicate it yet, but we're trying"?

I wouldn't respond how the customer did, but I think you deserved it.

<comment><USER4> Pretty much this. A better response might be "I need more information, because I can't get this problem to happen on my machine. Can you tell me more about exactly what you were doing when the problem happened?" That's just a generic response; someone who knows the product could probably come up with more specific questions to guide the user toward giving the right info.

<comment><AUTHOR> > A better response might be "I need more information, because I can't get > this problem to happen on my machine. Can you tell me more about exactly > what you were doing when the problem happened?"

Definitely a better response. No excuse for the casualness of my tone - <USER2> reflective of my relationship with Jon (which at the time was more casual/familiar than with others)

<comment><USER5> In that case, his response was also one of casual exclaim - complete with a smiley that meant he's at a loss of words.

Not an excuse - when your job's doing customer service better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you might want to consider why the customer said fuck you here. You're "can't replicate it" response is terrible customer service, and it seems commons sense to expect that they'd be frustrated. Your response of "can't replicate it" feels like a fuck you, if not in so many words.

Also, giving advice based on a single experience rather than several repeated successful outcomes seems like a bad practice for helping other entrepreneurs, and they might not read all the way to the bottom to discover that data point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point - should have added more context there: the exchange referenced as a small part of a longer multi-part conversation during which we'd been really responsive (conversations lasting hours sometimes). We eventually fixed the problem - my contention is merely that a "f*ck you" was neither necessary nor productive towards solving Jon's problem (which we eventually did despite the comment).

<comment><USER7> Even if there was a long conversation leading up to this, the sudden, curt tone of "can't replicate it" would all but guarantee aggravation and insult to the customer (I'd most certainly feel insulted). A more appropriate response would have been "I'm sorry, but we just can't replicate it on our end. We'll keep trying, though."

<comment><AUTHOR> > A more appropriate response would have been "I'm sorry, but we just can't > replicate it on our end.

You're totally right. No excuse for the casual tone there.

<comment><USER8> Frankly, you deserved what you got.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "cant replicate it"

Holy shit, if you were providing a service and sent me (a customer) an email like that I'd leave you in a heartbeat. Talk about a "fuck you".

I get customers can be hard but "can't replicate it" translates directly into "find another service provider".

Really, if the relationship has moved to this level a canned "We're sorry but we are going to have to terminate this relationship, here's a generous timeline and a few freebies to make us look like the better person" response would have been MUCH better.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I get customers can be hard but "can't replicate it" translates directly > into "find another service provider".

Omitted for brevity (as others have pointed out in the comments): we maintained a relationship with the customer long after the exchange. The goal definitely wasn't to get him to "find another service provider" so much as it was to reset the tone.

All that being said, clearly my casual response ("can't replicate it") definitely was the wrong thing to do, as I didn't intend it to offend at all.

<comment><USER8> _as I didn't intend it to offend at all_

What on earth did you think it would do, make him jump for joy?

Especially since "it works for me" is standard helpdesk-speak for fobbing people off and closing their issues.

It didn't even occur to you to say " _Sorry_ can't replicate it?"

<comment><AUTHOR> >It didn't even occur to you to say "Sorry can't replicate it?"

That would clearly have been the right answer here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Happens to me all the time. I run an online football management game, and there are a lot of children who play and think calling you names is a reasoned response to an issue.

The thing is, you don't let it get to you or even register it. They pay you money, you deal with it. That's the way it works.

Also, I've never once told them it's not very nice. They know it's not very nice.

I've turned paying customers around from "Fuck you" into "take my money please" by just responding to the issues they say around the insults.

Here's an example.

Customer - "One of my players was cut off my team, this fucking game is stupid and I'm never going to play it again. FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUU"

Me - "Wow, that sucks to hear. I looked over your team and it looks like you signed 1 too many players, and it had to find someone to cut. I can go ahead and reassign him to your team if you'd like, but you need to specify who so you aren't over roster limits."

Customer responds with who, and thanks me.

Completely normal. No big deal, don't let it ever get to you.

<comment><USER11> I once had a user complaining on twitter "HelloInbox sucks" (that was my company in those days). I responded "Sorry to hear that, what is the problem?". Guy asks for email address. Sends a 2 pager, starting that he really liked HelloInbox but had a list of addition featured he wanted. So awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Prepare for a potential avalanche of bad press. Do the following:

1\. Realize that a great product has _never_ been enough! How you treat people is very, very important.

2\. Apologize to the client. Publicly. Why? You just humiliated him/her by posting the conversation. People value their privacy, even when they are seeking customer service. Now every client might think you are going to post everything online.

3\. Either learn some CS skills, or hire someone to do it, or better yet, hire me to make you a simple CS script. It only costs a couple hundred bucks but will save you these types of embarrasments.

4\. Erase that blog post, and replace it with a PG version. Specially the headline. You are trading credibility for traffic? Awful idea!

5\. Publish a blog post stating your new customer service guidelines and feature it on the front page of the site. If this goes viral you are going to need to combat that.

6\. Next time you feel like posting something like this just _stop_. Think! How would you feel if you were getting shitty customer service? Would you tell them to go fuck themselves? Of course you would! Always, always think about the other side of the coin.

Good luck. You will need it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I agree with most of the post, but I think it barely scratches the surface. There is just so much to say about this...

* What about a culture where people end up feeling entitled to ask for everything? Should I accept abuses?

* What about personality disorders? There are lots of people out there suffering psychological diseases. How do you diagnose it and handle it, if you are not a psychiatrist?

* You're supposed to be show genuine empathy for your customers needs. I don't know if that is even possible without some emotional vulnerability. How do you control your emotions when people react just plain mean?

<comment><USER14> There are worse customers, to me, than those that simply aren't polite. For example, a few times a year, someone will show up, subscribe to a webapp for months, then send an e-mail asking to cancel and get a refund for all their past payments "because I meant to cancel before" -- when they were logging in and using the service regularly the entire time. Even the most polite ways of saying "no" seem to lead to "I'll just call my bank for a refund then". A series of chargebacks, even if they're easily disputed, is more of a threat than the lost revenue -- and running into people so unethical messes with my head more than a "fuck you" ever would.

<comment><USER12> This is quite true and real. Though you must be aware that this happens to every business. Adjust your prices accordingly, and only worry when it starts being a common occurrence (keep track of it). Plus, not everyone that does it is evil. People go through hard times. They might need to scrounge up some funds to pay rent this month and will do anything to survive (short of assaulting a bank). Don't demonize them. You dont know what might be happening in their lives.

Though some just are entitled assholes. Leave those alone. No sense in trying to paint the sky.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think the customers are assholes intrinsically - just sometimes say mean things.

<comment><USER12> Good point. But some people are just assholes, and thats _OK_. Realize that people are different and come in quite an array of colors, personalities, backgrounds, etc. Some of them will be assholes to _you_. Plus you can't just let people push your buttons. People will say mean things. Hell, I'm a big- eared latino nerd who wears black plastic glasses. I was never great at sports and was very shy. All of my life has been about people telling me mean things and names. But it doesnt matter to me now. Why? Becuase those who say mean things are just a reflection of the things they say. I know you are a good person, and shit, we all have bad moments like this. Do realize that you have to face the mistake and make things rights. Your busines is about customer service, and this is a great opportunity to show what you really are made of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Nuclear option"? I think it is more the Applebee's / lame tech support option. It was taught to the whole industry and now is used by everyone to a counterproductive end. I subscribe much more to the ways described by Gary Vaynerchuk in the _The Thank You Economy_ where someone swore to his face and that person is now, years later, one of his VPs after Gary got to the bottom of the problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thx for sharing - hadn't heard the Gary Vaynerchuk story before. Pretty cool that he was able to do that and definitely worth trying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> RE Scaling comment - I work for a fairly large company, and we definitely have a template that says something along the lines of, "When you send us an email, you're talking to a real human being. If you can't talk to us in a more courteous manner, we're more than happy to send you your balance and end our relationship."

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is what Herb Kelleher was getting at - treating his employees well while still providing a good customer experience (which Southwest is still known for)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In providing customer service for our business, I always keep these two things in mind.

* I'll bend over backwards for you, but I won't bend over forwards.

* The customer is not always right - we discontinued that policy years ago due to abuse.

With that said - you'll get my absolute best effort to support you.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, what a great opportunity here! You have highlighted the hard chunk of your customer conversation, omitting most of what led up to it.

A very productive way of dealing with this is to dig out of it with your customer. That person will likely become a great ally.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone on HN go to training anymore? Effective customer service, hiring practices, how to treat your employees, etc are all solved problems. One can pick up a book and/or have an educator teach you how to do these things effectively.

<comment><USER20> I have never had any training my self but I can instantly tell how horrible a "can't replicate it" would sound on the other end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are many more ways of responding to a "f __* you" than, telling them they are not very nice. He just drove a customer away with all his responses. A few hints from a blog post I wrote on dealing with angry customers just two weeks ago:[http://www.olark.com/blog/2013/how-i-chat-part-3-dealing- wit...](http://www.olark.com/blog/2013/how-i-chat-part-3-dealing-with-angry- customers/)

</comment><comment><USER22> The difference between this and the Southwest Airlines example is that the latter comes off as touching loyalty to one's employees, which is nice pr if the anecdote becomes public. If the team member handling the abuse takes it upon him or herself to politely snub the client in the same way, it makes the entire organization seem a little snooty. Whether or not this is justified is, of course, besides the point.

</comment><comment><USER23> At our company we want only happy customers. Thus we're very liberal with giving refunds when we can't fix a customer's problem.

There's no sense in having someone being mad at you and your brand because of $30. And the interesting thing is that most of those customers back off from taking the refund and prefer to keep using the software omitting the not working parts.

<comment><USER12> Very important point being made here. If you are pro-active with your customer service policies you will disarm most angry customers. But dont just offer a refund. Do more than that. Listen to them. Fix the issue (if possible), and offer a gift or refund. Very _few_ businesses do this, and people will be blown away by your friendly attitude.

Why does my wife keep shopping at walmart.com even though their prices are not that great? Because if the item is not the coreect one (clothing size, defective gadgets, etc) she can just take it to the store and receive a refund. No questions asked. What does she do with the refund? She spends it in the store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This company seems thin skinned. I agree its best not allow abusive relationships with customer fester. However I don't agree that you should react to a customer blowing off steam the same way as a customer that is serially abusive.

</comment><comment><USER25> You should asking yourself why things got to that point. It's unlikely they will when clients feel they are getting value from your product/service and are being treated fairly.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow. You're making your company look like complete idiots here, to be honest.

"cant replicate it" directly to the customer in a 3 word non-sentence from the co-founder? Really? From what's supposed to be a "customer service" company? WTF?

This should have been handled by competent support stuff who know how to talk to users. You should be apologizing for whatever it is and telling them that while you have not been able to reproduce it after many many hours of testing, you'd really like to the bottom of this mysterious issue, and then go on to suggest some steps to try and track the issue down.

... WTF.</comment>