JQ is a symptom - <AUTHOR> https://ilya-sher.org/2018/09/10/jq-is-a-symptom/ <comment><USER2> Yes, we work with structured data - especially JSON. Thank goodness we have jq to deal with that. Need to work with APIs? There's always wget and curl and should you need anything more extensive you can create a javascript file and execute it with node - all from within bash. Bottom line, I can do everything I need to do from the command line or from a bash script without having the bash maintainers needing to worry about creating and maintaining the functionality of jq, wget, curl, etc. within bash. It seems to me that the "problem" is more elegant than the "solution."</comment>


Ask HN: What do I use in place of Microsoft Clip Art now that it is dead? - <AUTHOR> Microsoft Clip Art Gallery was completely closed back in December (http://gizmodo.com/microsoft-is-killing-clip-art-because-nobody-uses-it-an-1665634402) and replaced by Bing Images. As a teacher, this is turning out to be a huge problem when trying to make worksheets. The old clip art gallery was immensely useful because:

  1. Filtering by image type worked perfectly.
  2. I knew there would be no license issues.
  3. Although content may not have been perfect, the quality was uniform and good enough for handouts.
  4. I wouldn't run into NSFW images (I have seen NSFW images even with strict search on before).
  5. No watermarks.
  6. Predictable uniform dimensions.
 I understand that for the majority of people the Clip Art Gallery was useless. But for us educators, it was invaluable. Can anyone suggest an alternative with similar quality & functionality to the old Clip Art Search?
Granted that it's legal, I'm even willing to replicate the old Clip Art Search site & host it if an archive of all the clip art images is available for download.
In case anyone is curious, here are the main problems with generic image search engines (Bing, Google):

  - Strict search is not full proof. With Google, turning it on breaks half of YouTube as well (blocks an insane amount of content so good luck looking for music/videos to use in the classroom without resorting to downloading it).
  - It's annoying to find clip art because most of the clip art on the web is watermarked.
  - Licensing (Bing is support to have an option for this but I don't see it when I use Bing Images!)
  - It's also annoying to have to deal with images of varying dimensions and quality (takes longer to adjust sizes in docs). Picking Square on Bing Images doesn't actually give you 1:1 ratio images.
 <comment><USER2> You should look at Art4Apps: [http://www.art4apps.org/](http://www.art4apps.org/)

It's a library of images in the same dimensions and a uniform style, licensed under Creative Commons.

They created it for developers of educational apps, but it could work just as well for worksheets!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This is looking to be the best resource of those suggested so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The only site I know of that would vaguely fit the bill is [https://openclipart.org/](https://openclipart.org/). However, it doesn't appear to support searching by image type or by dimension and as far as I can tell, it cannot be 100% guaranteed that you will have all SFW images.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This also looks great. Hopefully I won't run into any NSFW images at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://thenounproject.com](http://thenounproject.com)

<comment><USER5> This is a good option, all images are svgs so you won't run into scaling issues, the quality generally very high, and all images are CC licensed (or public domain) with options to pay to waive attribution. The only tricky bit would be getting them into word in an efficient manner.

<comment><USER6> They appear to offer PNGs of everything in addition to SVG so importing should be easy. Although you may lose some of the benefits of SVG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was building websites in the mid-90's myself and everyone I knew had something like "250,000 Clip Art Images" on 30 CDs or something like that. It came with a giant phone book-like directory of them all by name.

I'd be astonished if some publisher hadn't put that online even for some nominal fee. Anyone else remember this stuff?

<comment><USER8> IMSI MasterClips ("1,500,000" now.) [1]

Of course, the bulk of that number comes via 1-year membership to [http://www.iclipart.com/](http://www.iclipart.com/)

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/IMSI-00M15W10CC- MasterClips-500-000/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/IMSI-00M15W10CC- MasterClips-500-000/dp/B0000638TB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can search Flickr for Creative Commons images. These images have very flexible (and free) licensing. It's a bit of a jump to move from clip art images to photographs, but with fast internet and large image files, the use of clip art is dying out.

I was looking for easy ways to search CC images, and this website (which also has an openclipart search) also came up.

[http://search.creativecommons.org/](http://search.creativecommons.org/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Not necessarily free, but low-cost / fair price: [https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Type-of- Resource/...](https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Type-of- Resource/Clip-Art)

</comment><comment><USER11> I made canweimage.com to solve some of the pain points with generic image search engines in mind. All search results come from Wikimedia, so licensing is usually pretty liberal. You can also limit results to public domain only. No images on Wikimedia are watermarked, that I have seen.

Strict search is the only option on canweimage. It's not full proof either, but I check every file name in the results against a very long list of NSFW words and phrases. Any matches are filtered out.

While you'll still be dealing with dimension issues yourself, each result displays its dimensions. That can help pick more appropriate sizes.

</comment><comment><USER12> Clipart.com claims to be the "web's largest collection of royalty-free clipart, … available by subscription. Subscribers pay one flat fee, and download whatever they need from over 10 million digital assets."

Much of it even looks like the old Microsoft clip art.

They also have a Clipart.com Schools Edition specifically for teachers:

[http://schools.clipart.com/](http://schools.clipart.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> As a blogger and someone who uses PowerPoint a lot, I find a lot of good images over at Canva.com (not associated with them, I just really like and use their service).

There are a few times when I need some additional images or images that aren't included in their "free" list of images, though, and those are typically $1 each.

</comment><comment><USER14> You can try with [https://beta.illustrio.com](https://beta.illustrio.com), it's still in beta but I've been granted access lately. My experience with it is pretty close to what you've been describing. You can easily search for images, and filters by style (flat, outline, etc) and category. Then you can change the look (customization include color and position of elements), and finally download in the filetype and format you like.

From what I understood, the whole library is created with SVGs allowing for manipulation.

<comment><USER15> Hey, thanks for the tip! Just signed up for a beta invite...looks pretty awesome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Try [http://www.photosforclass.com/](http://www.photosforclass.com/) It's designed to be a school safe search with easy attribution.

</comment><comment><USER17> Depending on the age & topic you were teaching you could try [http://sparklebox.co.uk](http://sparklebox.co.uk) or Teachers Pet - [http://tpet.co.uk](http://tpet.co.uk) \- these cover a variety of lessons & themes and are suitable for up to age 10.

</comment><comment><USER18> The creative commons site provides links to popular search engines with with Create Commons licenses. Though these are not Clip art, there is a lot of material which you can use. Just needs a bit of searching.

[http://search.creativecommons.org/](http://search.creativecommons.org/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Depending on what type of "clipart" you're looking for these two sites may be useful: [http://www.iconarchive.com/](http://www.iconarchive.com/) and [https://www.iconfinder.com/](https://www.iconfinder.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> So out of curiosity, what are some studies indicating educational benefits of clipart on worksheets?

By which of course I am referring to studies that indicate significant educational benefits of clipart on worksheets independently of the underlying educational benefits of worksheets in general.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, it's important to note that I teach ESL in a foreign country (Japan). I'm an assistant teacher, but I do lead the classes sometimes. I primarily make handouts and games/activities for helping teach vocabulary and grammar points. That said, it should be easy to see where clip art can help.

      - helping students associate new words with images
      - illustrating grammar differences via comparison
      - breaking up a handout so the flow is easier to follow (think a comic)
      - preventing excessive text which could make a handout look daunting
      - creating flash cards for students or other such materials

I also took quite a bit of time to learn about typography and combined that with what I learned about UI/UX design in university to make my handouts look easy to read. I also choose fonts carefully because there is no way for me to know if any of my students are dyslexic (this is one great use of Comic Sans type fonts) due to Japan's privacy laws.

I know that my position has little power when it comes to the method of education. So I do my best to provide the highest quality work for the little things I do have control over. Also, the work I do now will no doubt help me when I pursue an education career back in my home country.

I'm too busy to find the sources I've read over the years since I never archived any of them. But if you read up on ESL, special needs teaching, education in general, raising children, psychology, and combine it with a general understanding of design, you'll see that clip art can be extremely useful. Mainly because the best clip art == cartoons boiled down to a single essential point. No extraneous fluff unlike realistic drawing or photos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Google LIFE Photo archive is one of my personal favorites: [http://images.google.com/hosted/life](http://images.google.com/hosted/life)

<comment><USER22> That 404s for me? EDIT: Oh... they screwed up their http/https config. Only accessible via HTTP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> While it's not exactly in the same league, [http://shareasimage.com](http://shareasimage.com) is my go-to

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps you should talk to/partner with patio11, sounds like a great product and relevant to the same market as Bingo Card Creator!

</comment><comment><USER25> What about The Noun Project [http://thenounproject.com/](http://thenounproject.com/)?

</comment><comment><USER26> You can click the search options button in Google image search and choose the dimensions, license, and picture type you want.

</comment><comment><USER27> [http://www.vecteezy.com](http://www.vecteezy.com) has loads of free art to download.

</comment><comment><USER28> You may find some options here: [https://openclipart.org](https://openclipart.org)

</comment><comment><USER29> [http://www.freevectors.net/](http://www.freevectors.net/)

</comment><comment><USER30> [http://flaticon.com](http://flaticon.com)

</comment><comment><USER31> this is less clipart and more icons, but I loved [http://findicons.com](http://findicons.com) for making personal apps as most icons on there are free for commercial uses.

</comment><comment><USER32> find an old office disc, and get the clipart images from it?</comment>


Using the power of Katy Perry to help launch our beta - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBAyWNb9rHU

<comment><AUTHOR> Our music startup (The Fan Connection) has a sponsored band who, with the help of their song "Katy Perry", is driving fans to their TFC merch store...an on- demand shopping place where bands put up no money upfront and get a percentage of every sale. All tied up with an interactive social media experience. A thousand beta bands so far!</comment>


Apple's Lack of Online Reviews Hurts Online Store [Infographic] - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2012/12/28/lack-of-online-reviews-hurts-apples-online-store-infographic

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not convinced Apple should be put into the same category as Amazon. There's an incredible momentum of hate against Apple, and drones of Fandroids would surely sign up and give products they've never tried 0 stars and unhelpful reviews. You would rarely see this phenomenon for a Kindle on Amazon.

And then the positive reviews - customers would be suspicious if the iPad had an average rating of 5/5 and all the comments said "Magical", even if that were indeed what fanboys felt. The Apple brand has become so controversial that customer reviews would either be abused too often, or not trusted.

NOTE: Apple does have customer reviews for all peripherals, just not their flagship products.</comment>


Election Betting Odds - <AUTHOR> https://electionbettingodds.com/ <comment><USER3> This is a fabulous, if trivial, example of what proper prediction markets can do.

We run a betting exchange, and one of our long term goals is to make universal prediction markets(+) a reality. These are pretty much the crystallisation of "Seldon Mathematics" \- a way to accurately predict the probability of a sociologically meaningful event happening.

Now, there are of course caveats. Prediction markets depend on having sufficiently large numbers of people making and taking bets on the event. Because in the world of betting the prediction markets are (at best) a niche of a niche, to become accurate these things require user base of tens to hundreds of millions of people. At that scale the tail end of user base - <USER2> people who _do_ happen to care about their particular prediction markets - becomes large enough.

Interestingly enough, prediction markets could also allow to experiment with certain theoretical market making models. The markets run for a very long time, and for that reason WILL be affected by all kinds of external factors. My personal favourite is something along the lines of liquidity-sensitive pricing [0].

EDIT: link layout fixed

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

0: [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Practical- Liquidity-...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Practical-Liquidity- Sensitive-Automated-Market-Othman- Pennock/72de958e664c0d3d053de62343a646b3da83f8ab)

</comment><comment><USER4> The Presidential election odds seem about on point. Maybe giving more of a chance to others than warranted for the nominations. But the 74% chance for Hillary for the Presidency seems pretty spot on, where I'd guess it.

The VICE President page is super interesting, because it's far less clear cut. There's a lot of options on the table, and nobody has a clear majority.

Obviously Warren is a good choice for appeasing Sanders fans, Sanders himself has a tiny chance, unsurprisingly. Republican side I feel is super early to tell, Trump could go anywhere (it's Trump, I mean, come on). Gingrich is listed at the top on this page right now, which is an interesting choice. When I saw Gingrich interviewed, I thought he was a pretty clever guy, he could be a reasonable voice working in a Trump White House, until he gave up trying to bring order to chaos.</comment>


Stats Show iPhone Owners Get More Sex - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/gadget-sex/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29 <comment><USER2> Is this a good thing? They also have a higher occurrence of herpes apparently, go figure.</comment>


The Doctor and the Doc - <AUTHOR> https://vector.org.uk/the-doctor-and-the-doc/ <comment><USER2> It started out as an interesting history lesson told in a narrative style, but then it went off the rails and started talking about why "we" chose some random documentation platform. I'm confused

<comment><USER3> It's not really a great history lesson, it was an ironic and silly summary of events.

A better history lesson would be KEI's autobiography, which is pretty neat.

But really it's just meant to point out that k now has something reasonably resembling documentation now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "nautical miles from radians" has to be one of the most esoteric functions built into any language.</comment>


Leonardo DiCaprio joins celebrity tech start-up investors - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupsmart.com.au/growth/leonardo-dicaprio-joins-celebrity-tech-start-up-investors/201110264336.html

<comment><USER2> >DiCaprio joins an increasingly long line of young celebrities investing in start-ups, including Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga and even Justin Bieber.

Who would have thought?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sort of reminiscent of Ashton Kutcher's Blah Girls .. Ie a teen heart throb with a lot of money investing in companies that don't solve problems.</comment>


Is anybody else getting a 404 when trying to access google doc files? - <AUTHOR>

This is really frustrating... anybody else having the same problem? <comment><USER2> I was getting 502 errors trying to access code.google.com earlier tonight.</comment>


Tactics to beat Akrasia (acting against one's better judgement) - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/1sm/akrasia_tactics_review/

<comment><USER2> Personally, acting against my "better judgment" almost always results from a failure of emotional regulation. The only way I've found to reliably solve this problem has been to develop awareness of the emotional issues underlying ill-considered reactions, and develop the capacity to peacefully experience those emotions without a behavioral reaction. Technical solutions like leechblock and organizational solutions like strict scheduling can temporarily mask the problem, but they don't last, because I experience them as a form of fighting with myself, and when I fight with myself, I always lose.

<comment><USER3> > Personally, acting against my "better judgment" almost always results from a > failure of emotional regulation. The only way I've found to reliably solve > this problem has been to develop awareness of the emotional issues > underlying ill-considered reactions, and develop the capacity to peacefully > experience those emotions without a behavioral reaction.

Would you care to elaborate on this? Seems like quite valuable stuff you're doing.

<comment><USER2> It is incredibly valuable, but it is also slow and often quite painful.

My approach has been through Buddhist meditation, but any practice which fosters emotional awareness and resilience could help in the same way.

The practices described in the podcasts linked below are a concrete example of what I'm talking about. (But my own meditation practice goes in a different direction.)

[http://www.unfetteredmind.com/audio/podretreat.php?code=RER#...](http://www.unfetteredmind.com/audio/podretreat.php?code=RER#here)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Akrasia means not actually doing what you think you should be doing. For example, actually spending time reading HN when you should be coding.

I think this article would get more traction if a different term was used, or a parenthetical explanation provided. A lot of people are interested in this issue, but most of them probably don't know what "akrasia" is.

<comment><USER5> Kids these days! Need more Aristotle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really appreciate the author's rigorous scientific stance on the actual utility of these suggestions; I went into this article expecting pure pseudoscience (judging on nothing more than the title).</comment>


Saposs Aquarium - <AUTHOR> http://www.saposs.com/developers/download <comment><AUTHOR> Change the way to build web application which all independent assembly components will be consolidated into.</comment>


Open letter to German readers: What you were never told about Greece - <AUTHOR> http://syriza.net.gr/index.php/en/pressroom/253-open-letter-to-the-german-readers-that-which-you-were-never-told-about-greece <comment><USER3> This one sentence sums up what I think is the fundamental problem: "An insolvency problem was thus dealt with as if it were a case of illiquidity." That is, the problem isn't some ephemeral panic where people are temporarily unwilling to lend. The problem is there are massive capital losses that have yet to be acknowledged. The problem is that Euro politicians believe that by continuing to bankroll Greece they will stem a wider panic. But as John Mills observed in a speech given to the Manchester Statistical Society in 1867, "panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works"

The losses must be acknowledged. The only question is by whom? By the people who made the loans? Or will the taxpayers of Europe be called upon, as the taxpayers of America were, to eat the losses?

<comment><USER4> Well, no. The fundamental problem is that Germany has been treating the rest of the EU as an expedient export market while refusing to allow equivalent imports, and at the same time aggressively insisting that countries in the EU should somehow magically not need debt... to continue buying from Germany.

There's also the minor point that this is yet another excuse to indulge the usual neoliberal hatred of social spending and everything else that improves the condition of ordinary people who work for a living.

Germany has a long post-war history of renegotiating or ignoring debt. So crashing the Greek economy by enforcing murderous austerity - <USER2> murderous in its effects, and not hyperbole - is a new peak in self-serving hypocrisy.

<comment><USER5> Your statement about Germnay refusing to allow imports is manifestly false. The EU is a free trade area and its member states are not permitted to engage in such activities. The EU has its own courts to enforce such rules.

It's certainly true that Germany is a net exporter: this is because of their ability and competitiveness in engineering and technology, combined with the fact that Germans are not big consumers and prefer to save their money. It would be good for Europe as a whole if Germans spent more money on imports - but the idea that they are deliberately blocking imports is bogus.

Europe doesn't really have neoliberals, so I'm not sure what your point is there. If anything, Europe leans to the left.

If you want to find a country with a long history of ignoring debt, then look no further than Greece, which has defaulted over 20 times. It is a country in deep need of structural reforms in order to have a viable economy. Yet the reforms haven't happened, due to corruption, cronyism and general foot- dragging. This is the real problem and debt-reduction isn't going to solve it.

<comment><USER6> No, Germans are not more frugal than other people. The main issue behind lacklustre German consumption is that neither their wages nor their investment in infrastructure has kept pace with their productivity growth.

<comment><USER7> What's your source, your intuition? Germany is one of the highest savers in the Euro area; much higher than Greece.

[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS)

<comment><USER8> This table does not mention personal savings. It is cannot provide insight, is as useless as GPD per capita.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sure. I agree that (morally) the EU shouldn't have bailed out Greece. Greece cooked its books and Greek debt holders at the time of the bail out were suffering the consequences of lending to a fiscally irresponsible state.

That being said, the world was uncertain as to how much economic damage had yet to be done, and by shoring up Greece it assuaged investor confidence across the western world. Personally I think that the level of debt in the developed world is completely unsustainable because it relies on population growth and productivity growth in a manner that will one day lead to a massive global failure / inflation, but my opinion isn't really the majority opinion on economics. Essentially Germany shored up Greece for Germany's own interests: stabilize the Euro and investor confidence in Europe.

That being said, Greece can afford to pay back its debts. The current debt to GDP of Greece is 175%. Before the populist clowns looked like they were about to win the government, the interest rate on Greek debt was around 5 or 6%, which is affordable, and the longer it is paid, the lower that rate will go. Look at Canada during the 90s, the interest rates plummeted as soon as the government paid off 10 points of the debt to GDP ratio, just because the government gained investor confidence.

Greek pensions and benefits are unsustainable. Greek tax rates, while nominally high, are not uniformly paid due to corruption. That is the real real reason Greece can't afford this debt burden. And frankly, if they are going to default, they should do so soon, since the world is at a high mark financially right now.

<comment><USER10> What I don't understand about this type of logic is the refusal to acknowledge the damage being done by the forced depression. It's like a 19th century leech therapy, keep sucking out blood until they get better. If Greece's economy is allowed to recover everybody will be better off, the banks, the politics, the people living in Greece and even the German taxpayer.

<comment><USER11> > _" forced depression"_

Nothing about Greece's current situation was forced on them. Sure, lots of politicking went on and the current situation was definitely engineered to benefit others, but Greece was effectively bankrupt and in default prior to the bailout. You just can't tolerate the level of corruption [1], tax avoidance, and union greed that Greece tolerated for so long. A normal sovereign default would have been just as painful, but in different ways. Greece as a country decided it wanted to stay in the Eurozone, thus picking its poison.

Comments like this remind me of people like Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, obsessed about the pain of their economic situation to the extent that awareness of how they got there in the first place is lost.

Greece got itself into a very deep shithole with only two main ways out. People look at the hardship of the current path out and see that it's obviously painful, then make the classic fallacy of the-grass-is-greener-on- the-other-side.

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece- most-c...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greece-most-corrupt- eu-country-survey-reveals-8386456.html)

<comment><USER12> > Nothing about Greece's current situation was forced on them.

What would you call the fact that the Troika has forced the Greek government to implement brutal and deadly austerity measures?

I mean, sure, technically Greece could have avoided this. If they had left the Eurozone in 2009 or 2010, they would now be in a much stronger position (after a brutal but short period of even more chaos). But that wouldn't have made the European elite happy, either.

<comment><USER13> Fire some of the public servants. In fact, change the constitution to make that possible without passing laws for each and every case. That's the absolute minimum required for it be called "brutal", "deadly", and "austerity".

What is the cost of the Greek railways per passenger kilometer again compared to paying for similar cab rides?

What does the Greek constitution say about firing public servants? How early can they retire, still, after the "austerity"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's perhaps prudent to distinguish between the German people and the German politicians. It's my feeling that the average German would have suggested NOT to extend large loans to Greece. It is the EU (and German, French, Italian and so on) politicians that believed that in the grand scheme of the Euro, it would be the best cause of action.

The sad part is that the loans to Greece perhaps wasn't so much about Greece, as it was about Spain, Ireland and perhaps even Italy. If we ignored everything else, then letting Greece leave the Euro, rather than offering large loans and unrealistic terms, most likely would have hurt neither the Euro, nor the EU. In the real world, letting Greece leave would mean that investors and speculators would start to question the dedication to the Euro, given that Spain or Italy (much larger economies) might be forced to leave the EU next.

I'm not an economist, so I might be totally wrong, but for a regular person an investment (of this scale) in Greece was obviously a bad move, at least in hindsight. It's sad for Greece, but they where just casualties of their own politicians and a Euro they should never have been allowed to be part of in the first place.

<comment><USER15> I'm not so sure of that. Greece might be a special case. Its a tourist economy with heavy social services and a retirement age of 58 with overly generous pensions; about 80% of one's salary. Its fraudulent on practically all levels of government. Its recent cozying to Putin is just more spit in the eye of the EU partners who tried working with Greece's debt issues.

While Italy and Spain aren't the shining stars of fiscal responsibility and anti-corruption, they're bush league compared to Greece's MLB financial shenanigans. An Italian exit would be a huge event, considering Italy's economy is bigger than Russia's. Greece is just a bottom feeder.

As a Greek-American is pains me to say these things, but Greece is just on the wrong side of history here. Its incredible how corrupt that country is. Its a clusterfuck of far-leftist nonsense that has no place in the EU. I could see a re-entry in a few decades after they've cleaned up their act, assuming that's possible. Expecting everyone else to bankroll Greece's generous pensions seems unfair to working Europeans.

This should also be a wake-up call for EU expansion. Taking on these corrupt countries is a major risk. I'm very glad they never got Turkey, considering its deep into a spiral of Islamic autocracy and has also lost its major economic growth around Q1 2014.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A CNN article from 2010 referenced 2008 government documents that said "6 in 10 Greeks don't pay income taxes" source: [http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/31/greece.taxes/](http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/31/greece.taxes/)

I don't know what the rate of tax evasion is in other western countries, but I'm willing to wager the situation in Greece is dramatically worse.

I remember reading a NYT article from the same year that provided further insight:

 _Various studies, including one by the Federation of Greek Industries last year, have estimated that the government may be losing as much as $30 billion a year to tax evasion — a figure that would have gone a long way to solving its debt problems._

 _The cheating is often quite bold. When tax authorities recently surveyed the returns of 150 doctors with offices in the trendy Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki, where Prada and Chanel stores can be found, more than half had claimed an income of less than $40,000. Thirty-four of them claimed less than $13,300, a figure that exempted them from paying any taxes at all._ source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

I haven't seen more recent numbers, but it makes me wonder about citizens' culpability in the government's debt crisis.

Maybe I'm overestimating the role of taxation in this debt fiasco, but it does seem as if the attitude of a lot of Greek citizens needs to change, if it hasn't already.

<comment><USER17> Here is something that maybe I am not understanding.. but saying that 6/10 greeks pay no income tax does not tell us how much tax evasion there is, right?

From what I can google: [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/federal- taxes-house...](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/federal-taxes- households.cfm)

43% of Americans do not pay federal income tax (and some % of those get a net gain of federal income tax). Sure 60% is > 40%... but that could be due to a ratio of more people really poor, compared to more tax evasion.

(Not doubting Greece has a tax evasion problem, but 6/10 not paying taxes seems bad evidence).

<comment><USER16> _saying that 6 /10 greeks pay no income tax does not tell us how much tax evasion there is, right?_

You're right, the 6 in 10 figure seems rather misleading. Those people shouldn't be characterized as tax evaders as I suggested. That said, it probably points to an issue of not enough tax contributors.

The numbers for America are interesting, I wouldn't have guessed the rates were that high.

Anyway, as far as tax evasion goes, I wonder how much a lack of enforcement allows well compensated workers to get away with claiming they're below the tax exempt mark.

<comment><USER17> I mean that is the trick right? You have a doctor making 100k claiming he makes 10k and paying no tax. I have seen individual stories of it, but is that really the common case? Or is it more like rich business owner making 300k claims he made 200k because of the cash heavy economy in Greece?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What isn't addressed in this letter and most people don't realize is that the Greek debt as an absolute number isn't that big.

The real problem is that Greece needs more money to continue operation than it produces, and this fact hasn't changed nor will in the near future. Effectively this makes Greece a black hole for incoming money where incoming money have no actual benefit for anyone other than just keep a near-corpse alive for a little more.

If there was a surplus generated every year, the debt amount wouldn't matter as it would be paid off eventually.

The whole point is to get to the state where the economy is healthy as a yearly in/out amount. If that's done there is no reason to get any bigger loans...

Edit: Forgot to add: it's in the greater interest of the eurozone to keep Greece from bankruptcy though, and it's twofold: one is the interconnection of markets, ie Greece IS a buyer, and the second is the geography as Greece is a central node for shipments from the east, has natural gas reserves etc..

<comment><USER19> Actually greece has a primary budget surplus, so at this point they are paying back the "loans", the problem is that they are miserable while doing so.

If people are unemployed you are squandering resources.

<comment><USER20> While being miserable they are better of than let's say Slovaks who paid 660 mil Euro to bail out Greece. Think about it, they are not really living in poverty, they just lost the luxury standard they were used to.

<comment><USER21> If by "luxury standard" you mean "being able to afford rent and have youth unemployment be less than 50%", then I agree.

<comment><USER22> Oh come on, have you been to Athens? Everyone drives a Porsche and wears a Rolex, but all the buildings are unfinished, because if they were they'd be taxed. Greece is a poor country weirdly full of rich people.

<comment><USER21> Everyone? Really? Because half of my friends are unemployed, and every single one has a university degree. And who starts building and then doesn't finish it because they don't want it to be taxed?

<comment><USER23> That's how it is in Mexico, too. They leave some unfinished faux-second-story attached to their building and never pay full property tax on the value of property-with-one-completed-story. Re: "who starts ..." why don't you search before you post?

<comment><USER21> Oh, is Mexico actually a rich country too, then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The thing that seems to be often missed about the 'Greek bailout'is it wasn't about bailing out Greece, it was more about bailing out the German bankers who'd lent Greece more money than they should have.

The Greek people were shafted by the EU, IMF etc. because they didn't want to see the German bankers take the pain.

We see a similar problem with the current round of Quantitive Easing that the ECB are undertaking - they're giving the money to the bankers in the hope they'll lend it to others.

Instead they should be giving it to people, so they can save, spend or pay off debt as they wish - it'll all end up in the banking system anyway but will actually do some benefit first.

<comment><USER25> "Give the money to the people". The US did this in the form of tax credits for housing. Germany did something similar in the form of credits for car purchases. This form of giving goes directly toward an industry in need. I'm not sure how giving a blanket check helps. If the problem is consumer spending and _IF_ this is an important driver for your economy it may have some impact but I think the problems the EU were facing were not this. So giving money to the people just sounds like dangerous populism and an action that makes little attempt to rebalance some ailment in the economic system.

<comment><USER24> But at the moment we end up subsidising the banks with _our money_ so they can make more money at _our expense_

If you want to kickstart economies then expecting banks that are up shit creek due to their past lending and investment practices isn't the way to do it.

The way to do it is give people money to use as they wish and not pick favourite industries.

If people save the money it increases banks capital ratios, if they pay off debt it reduces the banks loan book, if they spend it it may increase inflation through consumer prices.

Some people might even use it as capital to create a new business.

Our current bank focused model of QE does none of these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> tl;dr: "This time it's different."

The piece was more persuasive than I thought it would be, and Tsipras' diagnosis of the cause of the problem is dead-on: this is a crisis of insolvency, not illiquidity.

The problem with what Tsipras is asking for is that markets get a vote, too, and the outright forgiveness of Greek debt would cause massive upheaval -- potentially to the point of making the EU itself unsustainable.

I think the only way the Germans will agree to debt forgiveness at meaningful quantums is if Greece leaves the Euro currency union and goes back to the drachma. That would send a powerful message to the financial markets -- "you get one mulligan, and the price of that mulligan is leaving the Eurozone".

Of course, Tsipras doesn't want that. He wants a "European New Deal", the details of which he provides rather sparingly. My guess is that if he were to flesh out these details, Germans would find them not only unreasonable but laughable.

The "wild card" scenario is if SYRIZA undertakes a project of massive wealth confiscation from the Greek elite. That actually might move the needle of German public opinion--one of the biggest points of outrage among the German people over the last 5 years has been the juxtaposition of media coverage of the excesses of wealthy Greeks (and their creative non-payment of taxes) with the math of how much each German family was being asked to give to rescue Greece. Start levying massive one-time luxury taxes on Greek-domiciled assets of Greek citizens (with asset seizures as penalty of non-payment) and maybe you get enough schadenfreude flowing in Germany to meaningfully alter public opinion.

<comment><USER27> The "wild card" scenario seems especially accurate, as he speaks a lot of "ill-gotten privileges" and "major reforms" towards the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _Most of you, dear Handesblatt readers, will have formed a preconception of what this article is about before you actually read it. [...] Prejudice was never a good guide, [...]_

How does he not hear himself? Also, "Handelsblatt" is missing a letter. Anyway ...

I reject the premise of his letter. He seems to think the purpose of the money was to help the greek people, and offers a more productive way of doing so. That's all fine, but I'm pretty sure the sole purpose of the money was to save the Euro. Whether that's ethical is debatable, but I think it's important to remember that Greece has messed up quite a lot of things without considering how that might effect other EU member states; ignoring at least some of their responsibilities. But that's a different story entirely.

His tone is utterly disrespectful, if you ask me. I'm really not sure who he thinks he is or what he thinks he's doing, but I know for a fact that a lot of my fellow germans aren't gonna like being spoken to in this tone of voice. He mentions fear and anxiety a lot. I don't know what he means by that. We're quite calm, as far as I can tell, and I can imagine that scares him a little.

Germany is one of the riches countries on this planet. We will do almost anything to keep it that way. I appreciate that he needs to sell his own agency to his people, but if he actually believes he can control the fate of his country even so slightly, I'm afraid he's delusional.

Just for the record: I'm neither proud of nor happy about how we treated the greek people, but I'm tired of pretending this is about anything but money.

<comment><USER29> > Germany is one of the riches countries on this planet.

A lot of that riches comes from the fact that EUR is a common currency both of economically successful countries like Germany and of economically weak countries like Greece. That makes the currency artificially undervalued, which boosts German exports and hurts Greek imports, making Germany more competitive and Greece less competitive (longer comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8954377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8954377)).

I think it's time Germany admits to that and pays its dues, by which I mean help finance the rest of EU (via a fiscal union).

<comment><USER30> This is utterly ridiculous. West Germany was FAR better off economically when the D-Mark was strong.

<comment><USER28> You're assuming that the D-Mark would be as strong (or possibly even stronger) as it was back then today. Which is a bold assumption. As a matter of fact, nobody (apart from some utterly ridiculous right-wing politicians) even considerers this an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am German and have had a very negative opinion of Tsipras. He makes some very good points in this letter and his view seems to be consistent. I can understand his position and my opinion of him has improved a bit after reading the letter.

Nevertheless I see no solution, only 3 possible bad outcomes:

1\. Europe loans more money to Greece and we can be pretty certain that they can't pay it back.

2\. Europe gifts money to Greece (forgive some of the debt) to temporarily reduce their debt and after a few years we are in the same situation again

3\. Greece defaults on its debt (and maybe exits the Euro) and can't borrow money for the foreseeable future.

None of these options looks particularly desirable and imo Tsipras doesn't help the situation when he says to hell with it; let's rehire all these public servant. We don't have the money for that but it wont matter much regardless which possible outcome becomes reality

<comment><USER32> How about 4\. Greece leaves the EU.

There could still be favourable trade agreements and some currency stabilizing etc. so it's not the end of the world, but it would be a wakeup call for everyone to treat their finances a little more seriously.

German yellow press also mentioned various social programs in Greece that can only be described as frivolous even by social state standards. It's harder to be sympathetic with the Greek cause if we're paying for higher welfare abroad than we enjoy ourselves.

<comment><USER33> > German yellow press also mentioned various social programs in Greece that > can only be described as frivolous even by social state standards. It's > harder to be sympathetic with the Greek cause if we're paying for higher > welfare abroad than we enjoy ourselves.

You are free to move there.

<comment><USER32> This has nothing to do with me:

\- I wouldn't be eligible to most of these purported benefits in Greece \- My standards of living would likely be lower even with funny welfare \- Moving there would theoretically make it worse since theoretically I'm currently helping/paying

So, why not write another open letter that discusses reasonable ways to save some money, OR debunk myths that discourage peope from helping?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Paul Krugman's opinion on this is rather eye opening. He feels even Syriza is not radical enough!

[1]: [http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/01/new_pms_plan_to_save...](http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/01/new_pms_plan_to_save_greece_-.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> As other comments have pointed out, and Tsipras pretty much says himself in this article, good money was thrown at bad but was done so not to prevent a productivity fallout in Greece but to prevent one in the rest of the EU or world. And now Tsipras is arguing bluntly that Greece's economic system will not rebound as expected because it's productivity problems are deeper than liquidity.

It is worth looking at Detroit here. Not because of where they are similar but where they are not.

Detroit could not repay debts and required restructuring (aka hair cuts). Importantly they decided the type of hair cuts on their own. They had to do this because there was no Federal bailout. Michigan agreed to pay 194 mil for pensions as a lump some (aka a gift) but Detroit had to sell off assets, renegotiate with creditors on their own and reform where they could. But again, they did this because they knew they had to. It wasn't directly dictated by "The Union" (Fed).

Importantly they were given some breathing room because at least some portions of social services providing stability are Federal (social security, medicare, medicaid). And though they just exited bankruptcy it's likely without investment from overloads (state and federal) a full recovery will not happen. Or at least, investment will certainly help that become more possible.

What is missing in the EU are these social safe guards. And it seems a good time to build them. Rather than dictate to Greece how to alot retirement or social welfare or other social services, they should provide a baseline EU wide option for entities that default. This option makes it easier to let them get at least as close to default as is required for them to be in a place to consider what changes they could make to provide future stability. And when it comes to bailouts it should come in the form of investment. Both seem to be a rather obvious steps in maintaining the Union and providing greater trust and integration. Anything else should be decided in negotiations only after Greece begins the hard negotiations with its creditors after all accept imminent default.

</comment><comment><USER35> Some notes:

1\. Greece is talking about Germany because it helps mobilize masses. Germany does not decide on it's on on this nor is the most agressive player. Most northern and eastern countries are more agressive in their opinion against Greece. But it helps to mobilize Greek masses with a simple enemy.

2\. Greece has defaulted have a dozen times in modern times. This is the Greek way of doing things and will continue, whatever the EU, Germany or the IWF thinks and does.

3\. People in Greece don't think of taxes as something you have to pay. Many Greeks stopped paying taxes the last months in anticipation of a new government. This will not change and is the main driver for Greek defaults.

<comment><USER36> Some counter-notes:

1\. That's b*shit. It's Germany all way. The Fins and Dutch are easy to bend.

2\. Germany has defaulted 3 times in the last 100 years. The Marshall plan was issued in 1948, otherwise now Germany would be worse than you date to imagine + wars damages to Greece were never paid.

3\. Why don't you come live in Greece and find out. Try to deal with the state, then run a business WITHOUT tax-evading in this environment. Then share your knowledge, show us how you did it.

<comment><USER35> 1\. The Baltic states, Poland, everyone except the southern countries (and I assume Spain with a thriving economy in 2014/2015 will join the club when unemployment drops) is on the same page. But as an excellent demagogue Tsipras knows he needs a simple enemy (Germany) to rally the mob.

2\. Yes Germany defaulted, but did not make it it's modus operandi.

Excellent that you've brought up the Marshall plan:

The Marshall plan was essentially the same as what the EU imposes on Greece: "The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many petty regulations constraining business, and encouraged increase productivity, labour union membership, and the adoption of modern business procedures." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan)

Where it differed: Beside that the Marshall Plan required European countries (beside Germany e.g. France, Britain, essentially everyone else) to buy from US companies: "Much of the Marshall Plan aid would be used by the Europeans to buy manufactured goods and raw materials from the United States and Canada. [...] The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States" (Same source)

Last interesting tidbit from the Marshall plan "The first substantial aid went to Greece and Turkey in January 1947". (Same source)

 __Indeed Greece got nearly twice the money from the Marhsall plan per person compared to Germany. __

(For comparision Germany got 1.5B, Greece 0.4B, UK 3.3B, France 2.3B)

2\. On war damages: I agree they were not paid and I agree with you on moral grounds, but I'm not sure it is economically relevant. The billions from the EU and the (2015 Euro) Marshall plan did not help, so I would not assume paying war damages would put Greece in a different situation. Except perhaps this makes Germany (see 1) a nice enemy.

While we're at war damages, I don't think Greece has paid war damages for any of the wars it started over the last 2500 years. The invasion of Turkey, the baltic war or going back to the support of Alexander the Great - I wonder if Greece paid war damages to Iran for that. Or to Italy for the occupation and exploitation of Sicily (or the other colonies when Greece was an imperialistic colonial power house). So while I agree that Germany should have paid damages on moral grounds, this is a very slippery slope.

3\. Tax cheaters always find moral explainations for their behaviour.

<comment><USER36> Germany defaulted 3 times in 100 years, you can find the dates on Google (if you can't let me know, I'll help you). Greece has defaulted 3 times (actually 4 counting 2010).

I'd say it's _a modus operandi_. One even might assume that making _world wars_ is a modus operandi given the fact that it happened twice the last century.

> 3\. Tax cheaters always find moral explainations for their behaviour.

So does anyone else[1] [2] [3] (there are least another 4 well known cases).

[1] [https://anestis.quora.com/Links-to-credible-sources-about- Gr...](https://anestis.quora.com/Links-to-credible-sources-about-Greek-euro- crisis)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_Greek_bribery_scandal)

[3] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece- military...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military- spending-debt-crisis)

<comment><USER35> About the modus operandi: Greece in years of financial crisis

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/greece-spends-90-years-in- defa...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/greece-spends-90-years-in- default-2015-2?r=US)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> If Greece was to finally capitulate to the markets and declare bankruptcy, how different is that to the 2001 Argentina default?

It seems crazy to me that banks are allowed to deal with corrupt inept politicians who accept debts that are not repayable on the behalf of a country's people. Countries should be allowed to declare themselves bankrupt and after should follow a period of distrust not unlike personal bankruptcy. As a result banks would think twice before lending to poor debtors. Or is this a completely niavie viewpoint? I'm not in any way an economist so I'm genuinely interested to hear people's thoughts

</comment><comment><USER38> When people start writing contractual obligations in quote marks, things are getting bad.

</comment><comment><USER39> tldr; Instead of taking new loans and servicing our existing debt, we'd like new loans and NOT have to service our existing debt.

EDIT: To those responding "he didn't ask for loans" in the last line he's asking for a "European New Deal"... what else could that be besides new loans or a straight-on gifting of more money?

<comment><USER40> I am having a hard time getting that from this message:

>My party, and I personally, disagreed fiercely with the May 2010 loan agreement not because you, the citizens of Germany, did not give us enough money but because you gave us much, much more than you should have and our government accepted far, far more than it had a right to.

>Our task is not to confront our partners. It is not to secure larger loans or, equivalently, the right to higher deficits.

There will have to be some money injected somewhere in Greece, but not in the same way, and the point is to get away from loans.

<comment><USER39> Well, there's only two ways I know of that you can use to "inject" money into a person: You either give it to them as a loan or a gift.

<comment><USER40> Money doesn't have to go directly to the government. Their plan to fund things is more along the lines of making the many, many tax-evaders actually pay. Businesses that need loans can take them out on an individual basis, injecting money into the economy, but the government can get money from its own people rather than other countries.

<comment><USER39> Sounds like the same end result to me.

BTW- I'm not disagreeing that giving Greece more money one way or another doesn't make sense, I'm just pointing out that I see nothing in OP where Greece is saying "let us go our own scrappy way without your money, we can fend for ourselves". Instead they want debt forgiveness, followed by more money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The title of the letter in the German newspaper was (translated) 'fiscal water-boarding'.

<comment><USER42> If I recall correctly, that's the favorite phrase of the new minister of finance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Here is what I want to know. What role does the Greek central bank play? What is the fractional reserve rate in Greece? What is the interest rate set by the central bank? How is the money generated in the first place and what are the return rates and restrictions on that method (eg: in US it's treasury bonds)?

I'm increasingly convinced that central banks operate only marginally on the interest of the country they serve, enough so they don't ruin everything, but instead are primarily (and counter to what many economists will say) working for their own profit. Keep in mind that profit is actually usually in the form of political and economic _power_ , but not money directly. Of course I'm coming from the American perspective where I think the Federal Reserve Act was passed on suspicious circumstances by suspicious men for suspicious reasons and that congress should stick to the constitution and control coin itself and not allow some outside potentially foreign entity to control our money system, but hey, every economist I know just says trust the Fed so they must be right.

<comment><USER36> What role does the Greek central bank play? None. Just distributes the money it gets from the ECB to local banks. Like a post-office for money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The situation bears a certain resemblance to a period of history in the USA between the successful bid for independence and the ratification of its constitution. During that period, the articles of confederation was the document in force and among its many disasters was economic chaos. It was a monetary union (actually not even that as each state printed its own money but efficient currency exchanges were still a century or two in the future) without a political union.

I didn't invent that phrase - Der Speigel mentioned it several years ago in reference to the Greek crisis.

And while I lack the expertise to prescribe the form of a "more perfect union" in Europe, the USA can at least address competitive imbalances bewteen states through a process of income redistribution. Take for example West Virginia. It perennially ranks in the top of USA states that receive more federal money than it generates in federal taxes. Some people complain about this, but most accept it if for no other reason than the knowledge that WV is DC's fallout shelter.

Last time I checked, only two or three German Laender (sorry for not using umlauts) generated net positive federal revenues. Certainly some Germans complain about it, but it's not realistic to expect every political jurisdiction to break even on the tax / revenue ledger.

Both Germans and Greeks (and everyone else in the EU as well) should be willing to bear some of the blame and some of the burden as well.

The Germans are smart enough to know one cannot maintain a competitive advantage forever without bankrupting one's customers. If beggaring the Greeks was part of the plan, then EU rests upon a foundation of bad faith and does not deserve to exist.

The Greeks are smart enough to know that remaining uncompetitive is also not sustainable. If mooching off the Germans was part of the plan, then the EU rests upon a foundations of bad faith, you know the rest.

</comment><comment><USER35> Main point is: Poland got a lot of money from the EU and worked hard and today is a prospering country. Greece got billions from the Marshall plan, billions from the EU through many programs, cheap credit based on the Euro and squandered all of it.

</comment><comment><USER45> Tsirpas article is as shallow as it is boring. His statement "Greece's debt is currently unsustainable and will never be serviced" is a typical, bold, populist statement, twisting reality. Greece's debt would indeed be sustainable, if it wasn't for Tsipras' recent claims that they would rehire some recently laid of government workers and stop the privatization process. The debt is serviceable, it just isn't repayable. But that's no problem since the ECB can always take over these bad loans, once the Greece government has fulfilled all the requirements for reform. When he says in his last paragraph:

 _I understand that, behind your 'demand' that our government fulfills all of its 'contractual obligations' hides the fear that, if you let us Greeks some breathing space, we shall return to our bad, old ways._

Then this is exactly the reason why the debt needs to be retained. Tsipras has already proven with his recent actions that he's very tempted to return to the "bad, old ways" of Greece government spending. European solidarity means helping out equal partners in the union, it does _not_ mean funding dysfunctional governments at the expense of others.

<comment><USER46> The "rehiring" refers actually to only a relatively small number of employees (~3500) that were unlawfully fired. They went to court and won their case but the previous government still refused to take them back.

And because most of them were actually suspended and not really fired they were still receiving 75% of their wages. This means that financially speaking the extra cost is a drop in the ocean.

I do not know if Syriza's politics/policies will be successful but keep in mind that most of what is circulating in media, both in Greece and abroad, are usually half-truths and sensationalist journalism.

When the crisis started a lot was written about Greece's big government and its spending. After the dust settled down and more dispassionate voices were heard, a good look at the data showed that Greece's government and spending was more or less around the EU average. But by then no one was paying attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> As Tsipras and his party compared Mrs. Merkel to Hitler, what is happening to Greece to the Holocaust (implying fired state employees have the same fate as victims in concentration camps) and calling the German finance minister 'Gauleiter' this is a tough sell.

</comment><comment><USER47> Can I say that it is quite refreshing to see a politician talking straight & frankly with the stakeholders publicly about what the issues are and the way forward no matter how bitter the medicine.

It is quite inspiring actually.

I feel like going to Greece to help.

I hope they follow through, and it works!

</comment><comment><USER23> Poor Greece. Exports so low. Wages and local prices so high. But nobody will hire anybody. They voted for the impossible. Better inject some more capital; they're expecting it.

</comment><comment><USER48> German translation: [http://blog.fdik.org/2015-01/s1422553522](http://blog.fdik.org/2015-01/s1422553522)

</comment><comment><USER49> Excellent. I fervently hope he can help call time on the "fiscal waterboarding". Here's the truth: the EU bailouts of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were mainly about protecting private creditors from taking losses on their investments. In fact this week the IMF had this to say about the Irish bailout:

"The failure of policy makers to impose losses on some bank creditors at the height of Ireland's financial crisis was a mistake that forced Irish taxpayers to foot a bill that should have been borne by the wider eurozone, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The failure to 'bail-in' unsecured creditors to a bank rescue that cost Irish taxpayers €64bn and bankrupted the country was based on the view that doing so would have serious adverse 'spillover' effects in other eurozone countries, even though such risks were 'not obvious'."[1]

All of the developed world bailouts have benefited the most well-connected, the most wealthy, entrenched interests, i.e. banks and investors. And in the case of the U.S. banks this has not led to an end to Too Big To Fail, in fact, they've just gotten bigger and the relatively modest reforms that were passed are now even in danger of being rolled back.[2]

All of these extraordinary measures have led to paltry growth at best. And this includes quantitative easing which has not worked in Japan, has not worked in the U.S. and is not likely to work in Europe...unless you are wealthy or a bank, in which case it has worked just fine.[3][4]

No wonder we have Davos-man plotting his escape.[5] Any fool can see this kind of economic leadership is not sustainable.

##

[1] [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5f3131a4-a7ca-11e4-8e78-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5f3131a4-a7ca-11e4-8e78-00144feab7de.html#axzz3QKHoCwxb)

[2] [http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/republican-led-u-s- ho...](http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/republican-led-u-s-house-to- vote-on-diluting-financial/article_b3f171f0-21dd-55ca-aa61-705f25e23803.html)

[3] [http://www.ibtimes.com/was-qe-effective-europe-awaits-qe- que...](http://www.ibtimes.com/was-qe-effective-europe-awaits-qe-questions- remain-about-its-success-us-1793564)

[4] [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get- ri...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get-richer- through-the-recovery/?_r=0)

[5] [http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders- network/2015/jan/2...](http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders- network/2015/jan/23/nervous-super-rich-planning-escapes-davos-2015)

</comment><comment><USER50> The author also forgets to tell the german people that he is going to just steal from them 160€ billion.

</comment><comment><USER51> Europe had and has a fundamental problem in its dealing with sovereign bankruptcy, or insolvency as Alexis Tsipras puts it. The reality is that the government of a state cannot go out of business and make way for a new one. But, it's not uncommon for states to become insolvent. State collapse is not an option.

The way it is normally dealt with is inflation, which is kind of treated as default by economists but not really by financial markets and law. The print money which (A) can be used to continue operating and (B) reduces the value of the debt (sovereign and private) as the currency devalues. The 'C' is one that Greece really needs. It's also one of the hated (or loved) mystery components of "Keynsian _" economics.

Inflation lowers salaries, and other pre-agreed contracts. It allows (for example) houses to sell at a lower (real) price without the "animal spirit" responses involved when someone sells a house 5 years later at a 15% nominal loss. There's debate in pedantic circles about whether this effect is indeed emotional or if it's related to mortgages being denominated nominally and other "rational" reasons.

Whatever the theoretically best way of understanding it (the two most vocal sides are Austrian vs Keynsian economists with actual politicians usually adopting a confusing mix of both vocabularies), it remains the case that the tried and tested (though certainly not free) solution is printing money.

The German solution is just to stay solvent. They manage to do it and they want other EU countries to do it too. This is a combination of strange optimism, stubbornness, fear of inflation and belief in Beaurocratic controls (which work better in German than in Greece).

This is the core of the issue. A State that runs its own budget (a fundamental EU principle) that does not control its own currency (a fundamental EU principle) cannot make it through insolvency.

One option that I quite like is letting states go into a sort of "bankruptcy." The banks would have to take the hit. This means the system must be robust against bank failure (which is easier to swing than state failure, but we're not there at this point. Too big to fail, Systemic risk, etc.) But, that doesn't prevent the problem overall. It prevents states from digging quite as deep as their interest rates rise sharply, but it doesn't completely block off the risk of failure.

I don't really have a solution. I don't like the Keynsian approach, but it is popular because it offers a solution to recession and state solvency at the same time.

We can see similar things happen in sub-state governments. US cities & States (provinces elsewhere) can go bankrupt. They are locked into spending on salaries, physical maintenance and such which require future revenues that were never realistic or haven't been achieved for some other reason (eg migration). They control a budget, they don't control a currency.

The EU needs to solve this in a way that doesn't make it happen again. bailing out Greece with an actual cash transfer would not achieve this. It would (A) make it easier for other EU states to get into the same trouble and (B) take the pressure off Greece to do what they need to do, become solvent.

Greece's governmental spending is unsustainable. Not of the currently declining tax revenues. Not on the pre-austerity revenues. Not even in a best case scenario. Inflation causing a (quite but extensive) reduction in government salaries, contracts, pensions, etc. is not an option in the EU context, but it may not have been enough anyway.

It's actually quite scary. I have no idea how they solve this. I have no idea how the EU gets "fixed."

_I use Keynsian quite loosely. It's only tangentially and perhaps spiritually related to John Maynard Keynes the person.

 __Printing money doesn 't always work either. Hyperinflation can destroy the State. Borrowing in foreign currency (as the poorest countries must do) takes away the option.

</comment><comment><USER52> tl;dr

If there is a fire, you can't put it out by drenching it with gasoline.

</comment><comment><USER53> >So, let me be frank: Greece's debt is currently unsustainable and will never be serviced, especially while Greece is being subjected to continuous fiscal waterboarding.

Despite the rhetoric this is the problem of not just Greece but many other developed governments, notably Japan. Central banks have been goosing the time value of money in an effort to spur 'growth' because if an entity can become richer faster than their debt will grow then it's a win-win situation.

<comment><USER54> Japan is doing just fine. Most economists accept that it will keep on like that for a long, long time.

Since their debt is in yen, in the far future they can still reset their currency. Germany has done this twice in the 20th century and while it was certainly a disaster for people who has saved some money, the economy always recovered quickly.

It's the same for everyone predicting doom for the US. Let's not forget that even a currency reform does not wipe out a country. It merely wipes out all wealth stored in banks.

It's bad, but it's not worth keeping everyone worried for decades, when it might just happen once in a century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Tsipras' spoken english is very limited, it is unlikely he wrote this himself.

<comment><USER56> It was probably translated from Greek, why is it a problem?

<comment><USER57> Yeah, it's reasonable that a leader should do all his writing in his native language and have it professionally translated. Why would it be any other way?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: HR policies for a young startup? - <AUTHOR>

Hey there,<p>We're a small startup going from 4 to 6-8 people, and we're trying to professionalize. What HR policies should we have in place? <comment><USER2> * PTO/vacation rules

* Clear and simple issue escalation that handles the case where an associate has a problem with their immediate manager

* A clear policy against discrimination that ties into that issue escalation and assures that facts and impressions are documented

* User privacy and security controls; for instance, the rule that prevents rando associates from poking around production databases, or from logging in as arbitrary users; also, the rule that keeps the dev team from using prod data as testcase datasets

* The 2FA and user laptop encryption rule. At Matasano, we had a "probationary" period for new hires during which they needed permission to remove laptops from company prem, which was concluded by a formal audit. Matasano handles almost nothing but hazmat, so think of that as one end of the spectrum.

* Expectations about off-hours work, and about what kinds of things are OK if they show up in your associates Github account and what kinds of things aren't.

* Whatever rule you want to create about employees representing you on their Twitter accounts.

* The rule that says people need to be press-trained before talking to reporters.

There are more, but by the time I got to "Twitter accounts" I was scraping the bottom of my brain for more examples.

<comment><USER3> Did Matasano do much onsite work? Seems one way to handle the hazmat is is to bring a laptop imaged with necessary tools then wipe it clean before returning to base.

<comment><USER2> A fair amount, yes, and some clients did set up processes like that. But the real purpose of the probation system was just to ensure that every team member truly understood the security policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Policy number 1: Never hire HR people or create an HR department.

Policy number 2: The core team is everything. Anyone else is just there to help out.

I'm probably an extremist. So take my comment as more of a personal opinion. But be very very careful with HR departments in a tech company. Most of us hate them. Most of us think they are useless. And most of us hate interacting with HR during job interviews or even during day to day activity. Yes, you need people that manage personnel bureaucracy. But they should act as an invisible helping hand. Not as an intermediary between employees and the leadership.

And more importantly, avoid including HR in hiring decisions. Because they are biased, just like everybody else. They are going to pick people that they like. Not people you and your team like. Plus, they usually have no idea what the job is about. So all they do is make uninformed assumptions.

Sure, they can sit in on the talks and give you opinions about personality and whatever. But never ever be included in the decision chain. Hiring decisions should be made by the CEO/CTO and the affected team. Otherwise you're just going to get heartless boring relationships between random people that are just waiting to find a better job.

<comment><USER5> HR's primary purpose is to protect the company from lawsuits. So of course employees hate them; they hate you too. You are the potential enemy.

They're not useless overall, they're just not useful to you.

<comment><USER4> That's so fucked up on so many levels, I wouldn't know where to start. But it does explain the current job market and ridiculous office politics.

Treat your employees like enemies and they will do their best to act like ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of things can be put in place to head off issues in the future.

1) Ensure you're in compliance with local labor laws in your area and that required signage is displayed.

2)Leave policies, including maternity/paternity, even if you don't have any female employees and no one is thinking about having kids yet. Jury duty, bereavement, etc

3) Equipment purchases by staff

4)Work from home policy

It's a lot easier to put this stuff together when it's not heat of the moment and based on favoritism. If these things are put in place it will also show incoming people that these are items someone has thought about and you aren't just winging it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm an HR Professional and would be happy to help you. You can reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Practices for asking co-workers to help with your side project? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, this is a throw away account if you haven't guessed already.
I work with some amazingly talented people, whether they be developers, designers or marketing experts, and thought it would be great to work with them on my side project. My question is, what's the best way to approach them and to make sure that the company we both work for understands that this is simply a client/contractor relationship and would not interfere with the work we're both hired to do?
Just note, I'm not trying to hire them away from the company nor am I trying to get them to work for free as a favor to me or for some equity. I think it's just a faster way to get the work done I'd already know them. No browsing through elance or odesk or interfacing with someone far, far away.
Thanks for your input! <comment><USER2> By far the best way of approaching this is to look for suitable ex-colleagues - either they've left the company or you have. Solves pretty much all of the nasty issues.

Also make sure you think about the long term. Sure, you're not trying to hire them away from the company now, but what if your side project is unexpectedly successful?

</comment><comment><USER3> Unless you guys are totally friends, and you don't have any clauses in your contracts about any side-projects being property of your current company, I would be careful!

Definitely double check any contracts you have with your company before anything too crazy.

That aside, I'd hate to see talent and potential partnerships get staunched by rules like this. If you have a good fit with someone, definitely hack your way through it to make it happen.</comment>


Fermi paradox - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox <comment><USER2> The short version of this is that every advanced society develops some technology to destroy itself (like nukes) before it develops interstellar travel.

It's the most rational explanation for the lack of aliens that I've ever seen. What are the odds that we escape this planet? Probably none.</comment>


Poor and less educated suffer the most from chronic pain - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10267.html <comment><USER2> I think the causality is more in the other direction.</comment>