The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy – It Didn't Go Well - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/ultrawealthy-taxes-irs-internal-revenue-service-global-high-wealth-audits <comment><USER2> Re: the term "abuse" rather than a more concrete term like "violation."

About 10 years back, Bono (of U2) was being interviewed on irish tv. They asked about U2's business interests (real estate and hotels), taxes, and overseas holding companies... with a " _why don 't you pay taxes in ireland_" implication.

Bono started with a generic " _U2 is a Businezss_ " answer but he ended with a (IMO) an honest point that people avoid making.. because it's kind of an admission of guilt:

"Look... We (ireland) manipulate our tax rules for all sorts of gain^. How can it be ok for the country but not U2?"

We're an extreme example, but not that extreme. American politicians have also been big believers in complex tax reforms/policies as a way of tweaking all sorts of economic results.

We can't have it both ways. Either we have a "the rules are the rules" approach or we have a principled approach. You can't appeal to the "spirit" of a soulless ruleset.

^We have a highly "engineered" tax system, designed to encourage foreign revenue to be silmultaneously booked and not booked in ireland. >30% of ireland's gdp is Leprechaun money, according to Paul Krugman & some oecd economists. It's here, but not real. Try to touch it, and it will vanish.

A lot of these rules relate to IP which is why the biggest companies utlizing irish tax shenanigans are apple, google and other techcos. Music is also IP.

<comment><USER3> > You can't appeal to the "spirit" of a soulless ruleset

Here's a simple razor: if the people who wrote the rules, upon learning of what you are doing, would likely have written the rules differently to make illegal what you are doing, it's against the "spirit" of the rules.

Example: if some tax code says, people who make below $100k must pay $10k in taxes, and people who make above $100k must pay $20k, paying someone $99,999 to avoid extra taxes is a foreseeable consequence and therefore not an unethical loophole. However, paying someone exactly $100k so they fall in neither bracket and thus need not pay any taxes is probably not what the policymakers intended; they would surely have amended the rules had they had this pointed out to them before enacting this tax code.

Of course, this requires being a judge of intent, but what ethical framework doesn't have grey areas?

<comment><USER4> > Example: if some tax code says, people who make below $100k must pay $10k in > taxes, and people who make above $100k must pay $20k, paying someone $99,999 > to avoid extra taxes is a foreseeable consequence and therefore not an > unethical loophole.

I know you're just making an example for demonstration, but you happened to choose a scenario that many believe is actually how tax brackets work.

Thus, it's worth reiterating: in the American tax system (and I imagine almost everywhere), we use marginal rates for income tax. The first 100k you earn would get taxed at the lower rate, and every incremental dollar above that would get taxed at the higher rate.

<comment><USER5> But not capital gains. 0% -> 15% -> 20% are not marginal and require careful maneuvering to stay in the previous bracket. Why the oversight for such a hugely relevant tax?

<comment><USER6> Capital gains taxes are marginal. You are mistaken. There are no cliffs to maneuver.

For example, play with this calculator: [https://smartasset.com/investing/capital-gains-tax- calculato...](https://smartasset.com/investing/capital-gains-tax- calculator#ZFXwG6cA6V)

<comment><USER7> I think that calculator shows the opposite of what you're saying. There are different brackets depending on your overall income, but all of your capital gains are taxed at that rate. If the gains were truly taxed in a marginal fashion, some would be taxed at 0%, some at 15%, and the rest at 20%.

I can also confirm this with my own taxes. I only had $10k in long term capital gains last year, but the entire amount was taxed at 23.8% by the federal government.

<comment><USER6> That's because your other income raised you up to that bracket.

<comment><USER8> So are they marginal, or based on brackets? Cause it sounds like they're bracket-driven, if the entire gain was taxed at 23.8%.

What part am I not understanding? Is the idea that capital gains tax itself is marginal, but if your other income has already put you in that higher bracket, then you pay that rate?

Edit: playing with the knobs on the calculator seems to indicate that's what it is.

<comment><USER9> Capital gains is added on top of regular income so if you had $450k regular income then $50k long term capital gains, $38,850 would be taxed at 15% and the remainder at the top rate of 20%

<comment><USER8> Thanks for explaining it clearly. I hate to ask for more, but it's a rare opportunity that my question about capital gains is not completely off-topic. Can you (or anyone) tell in a similar idea about how Capital gains losses work?

I understand that there is a limit to how much loss you can claim against your gains in the coming year, and that you can claim the loss as a deduction in following years up to a limited number of dollars each year, and limited number of years, but what I don't know is what the losses can be claimed against.

If I have capital losses this year, and I'm getting a refund this year for my income withholdings overpayment... then next year say I owe income taxes from underpayment, but I have that deduction from the previous year, can I cancel them out?

Or do I need to report a capital gain in the next year in order to be able to "use up" the previous year's loss as a deduction? My understanding is I can't use capital losses to pay income taxes, but I am not a CPA.

Perhaps this is a question for my accountant, and this should be a billable conversation, but this is just a question I've had since I started thinking about capital gains, and I've never been able to answer it for myself.

<comment><USER9> I'm not a CPA or accountant. Investopedia has a few articles on the subject.

I think capital losses can completely cancel any capital gains - kind of obvious if you think about it - if you lose $10 on sales of stock A and gain $10 on sales of stock B you had not income from your activities.

In addition, you can apply $3,000 in losses to reduce ordinary income (not taxes directly) and carry the remainder to following years. So on sale of stock A you lost $5,000, on sale of stock B you gained $1,000. You can eliminate the gain, have $4,000 left, reduce your taxable income of $100,000 to $97,000 using $3,000 more of the loss, then have $1,000 left over for following years. In the next years I think you can use that loss to reduce gains then income in the same way.

Hope I'm right and that is clear.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for answering. That is clear, and it makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I suspect most of those strategies are perfectly legal under the current (insanely complex) US tax laws. Instead of trying to further complicate those laws to outlaw a few arcane tax strategies (likely in vain; more complexity likely leads to more arcane loopholes) we should be _simplifying_ our laws. It should be dead simple to determine legality and IRS should be left with simple enforcing function.

I would be much in favor of flat rates with negative tax rates on first $X to help bridge the gap from minimum wage to living wage. And a better safety net for those who cannot work. My 2c.

<comment><USER11> Even with a concise and simple tax code the problem is that those with large amounts of wealth are better off spending a portion of that wealth on intentionally obscuring their assets and incomes than by simply paying their fair tax.

From the article:

> They often have trusts, foundations, limited liability companies, complex > partnerships and overseas operations, all woven together to lower their tax > bills.

Which is to say that...even if you set out a flat tax rate of X% it is possible to arrange situations where multiple trusts, companies, partnerships, etc, are arranged in such a way that even though they are operated for the benefit of an individual that individual has little to no real obligation via their engagement, and the interactions of those independent entities behave in such a way as to - on paper - present a reduced income then it becomes exceptionally hard to determine who owes what without devoting massive amounts of effort collecting all of these loosely related entities and analyzing flows of money.

<comment><USER12> I mean, foundations and trusts, especially, are artifacts of a complex tax code.

LLCs maybe less so. Overseas operations much less so.

And look, the complexity of the tax code isn't (solely) a result of raw dysfunction. We decided that we _didn 't want to_ treat all income the same as all other income, and all organizations the same as all other organizations, in ways that are pretty defensible.

But that's generally true of the insanely high-complexity legal systems of modern countries: most individual decisions make sense, but the aggregate result of them is bewildering, easily-parasitized complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like neutering the IRS is going to have long-term negative impacts on the country. I hate taxes as much as anyone, but I do think the IRS has been a force for good in our country. Not just by ensuring that wealthy people make investment in our society without the expectation of _direct_ financial return, but also by virtue of being a powerful enough to tackle corruption.

The anti-tax rich are totally fine with continuing to shovel government money into their pockets, via contracts, grants, etc. Which suggests that a greater share of the cost burden of enriching these people will fall to regular Americans.

<comment><USER14> Yes, weak tax enforcement shifts the tax burden from dishonest people to honest people. Unfortunately, giving funding to those scary tax collectors doesn't make for much of a political slogan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I read this, yet again I think of all the wasted incredible brains and talent that end up in ad-tech companies like facebook and google.

All this brain power could be used to help with this sort of injustice, in what seems to be essentially a battle of brains (IRS lawyers vs rich people's top lawyers).

But then the gov needs to find a way to competitively pay for this stuff.

<comment><USER16> The best idea i've heard is to abolish taxes and print money instead. Inflation becomes the tax and you just print enough to provide the services that are critical (health, police, fire, Ubi etc). That way you wouldn't have to waste the brain power on pointless legal squabbles (antechamber on the other hand...).

<comment><USER17> It's a regressive tax, as it affects everyone at the same rate. Modern tax systems are progressive, ie people get different tax rates depending on their income.

<comment><USER18> "As it affects everyone at the same rate." That's a flat tax. A regressive tax is one that affects the poor more.

However, you are right that it is probably regressive, since the rich normally place more of their wealth percentage-wise in non-cash assets than poor people do.

<comment><USER19> A flat tax is regressive in nature since the wealthy demand a greater share of the services provided by civil society.

<comment><USER20> Do they really 'demand a greater share' in proportion with how much more they contribute?

<comment><USER21> Police protect assets, fire services protect assets, schools are better in wealthy districts, The IRS targets poor and middle class because it's easier. Courts give better outcomes to the wealthy. Businesses are generally started by those with money. Pretty sure that the wealthy use significantly more resources because they have more to protect.

<comment><USER22> But where's "with how much more they contribute?" part of the answer? Such as the jobs created?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I recently called the IRS and by the end of the call I felt really bad for them. The agent that picks up immediately tells you there ID# even before their name or any formal greetings. I know it's tax season and they are harried. But speaking with him he just felt worn down, and it was only 10AM! And having to use your ID# for every call dehumanizes you. It's the same way we treat prisoners, only referring to them by their DoC number.

<comment><USER24> How else should they let you note who you spoke to? Using their actual name? They're not unique. You need some kind of reference number on each call.

I'd love it if each call I had to make to a company started with a call ID number and then I got emailed a transcript and recording afterward.

I think some call centres give staff pseudonyms so they're unique.

<comment><USER25> Name is good. You don't need a customer-facing GUID, you can automatically keep track of which customers were connected to which call centre person. You could easily combine that with the automated transcription you're suggesting, which I also like. Heck, make it an MP3!

<comment><USER24> > You don't need a customer-facing GUID

They don't need it, but I do.

> you can automatically keep track of which customers were connected to which > call centre person

But I want to keep track. I don't care how they keep track.

I want to be able to say 'on call XYZ we agreed this' rather than saying 'I spoke to someone called John Smith on Tuesday please look it up in your log'.

<comment><USER25> "Hi, I'm calling about the same thing as last week"

"<Caller ID says your perferred name, and you were talking with Mr ExampleName about your contract> Hello Mr Seaton, how can I help you today with your contract?"

<comment><USER24> Have you never had a protracted problem that's taken multiple phone calls, each with different people, to resolve?

<comment><USER25> Of course. I'm suggesting what I think is a better solution than yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Land Value Tax ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)) should be considered: It's progressive. It's hard to conceal/evade. It muffles speculation bubbles.

<comment><USER27> The problem with this is that a huge amount of wealth today is not in the form of land, it's in the form of capital (physical, cash, and equities) and a lot of that is located off-shore. Yes, the Apple UFO campus is extremely valuable land but it's a very tiny fraction of Apple's overall wealth.

<comment><USER28> Citation requested.

(I've looked for wealth distribution by asset class. It's remarkably hard to find.)

<comment><USER29> as of 2016: [https://www.claconnect.com/-/media/cla-image- repository/gene...](https://www.claconnect.com/-/media/cla-image- repository/general/illustrations_and_objects/the-investable-universe.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wealth and income are two different things.

Think of income taxes as regulatory capture by those who already have money. The higher the taxes, the greater wealth inequality becomes. Once you have a lot of wealth, you can afford to stop and start new efforts at getting income, while everyone else is stuck taking a salary (and if they're lucky, stock / 401ks). That flexibility lets them stay ahead of the tax laws that keep everyone else down.

</comment><comment><USER31> Classic hit piece from propublica, trotting out the classic villains. If only the poor IRS was allowed to go after those neer do wells!

I've known wealthy people, but not plutocrats, who the IRS has gone after. Auditing (harassing) them year after year. Referring them to be investigated by DEA, BATF, etc. It's totally insane how unaccountable the IRS is.

Of course someone in the gun sites of the IRS is going to avail themselves of the best legal and accounting talent they can get. If you have lots of money, you are in their sites.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wish a switch to a consumption tax would get more (or any) traction. It seems like it would solve so many problems, be more efficient, and considerably more liberal. Unfortunately the institution that is the IRS, the government's addiction to its citizens' private information, and the financial services / tax prep lobby are likely impassable obstacles.

<comment><USER15> This idea is appealing to me as well but unless it's based on your income (hence yet another progressive tax), such a tax hurts the poor disproportionately.

<comment><USER33> This could get complex fast, but if the consumption tax was graduated according to a subjective measure of how critical the need was ...

Food purchases get taxed at 1%

Car purchases get taxed at 2%

First home purchases get taxed at 3%

Second home purchases get taxed at 6%

Private airplane purchases get taxed at 99%

that sort of thing

<comment><USER34> I don't like it. Who gets to decide what tax rate each thing gets? There are just so many things.

Make it flat at 20% for any time money is traded for something. This would be for toilet paper to a house to a political donation and include capital gains profits. Everything is taxed at 20%.

Then eliminate income and corporate taxes. States can define other taxes like local income tax, property tax etc.

Then every adult gets a check for 20% of the agreed upon poverty level in January.

Now taxes are not tied to income, to only those that work or capitalize, etc.

<comment><USER35> > Everything is taxed at 20%.

You'd need to exclude resale of used items, unless it's your intent to kill the market for used goods and ensure that they end up straight in the trash. With a 20% sales tax on used items you might as well buy new instead, especially for durable goods which wouldn't trade at much of a discount.

Apart from that change, what you're describing is essentially the "Fair Tax", except that they calculated that the rate would need to be more like 30% to remain revenue-neutral with the current income tax scheme.

<comment><USER36> _With a 20% sales tax on used items you might as well buy new instead_

I don't see why this follows. For example, most states currently charge sales tax on the sales of used cars and there seems to be a thriving market for used cars. Do you believe that raising this rate from 5-10% to 20% would significantly impact the sales of used vehicles?

 _especially for durable goods which wouldn 't trade at much of a discount_

While I don't think it's a likely outcome, suppose that for some reason all buyers balked at paying a 20% tax. I think it's likely that this would cause sellers to reduce their asking price to clear the market. Why do you think sellers would throw the item in the trash rather than reducing the price?

<comment><USER35> > For example, most states currently charge sales tax on the sales of used > cars and there seems to be a thriving market for used cars. Do you believe > that raising this rate from 5-10% to 20% would significantly impact the > sales of used vehicles?

First, it would be raised _by_ 20%, _to_ 25-30%. Adding a federal sales taxes wouldn't negate the existing state taxes.

Second, vehicles are a special case in the tax code. When you trade in a used vehicle you typically only pay the tax once, on the value of the new vehicle. (Technically, one tax on the trade-in value and another on whatever extra you paid for the new vehicle to make up the difference.) Under your scheme there would be a 20% federal tax on the value of the old vehicle plus another 20% federal tax on the value of the replacement. (Unless you don't intend to apply the sales tax to barter... with the predictable consequence that all significant transactions thereafter will avoid any actual exchange of currency.)

More importantly, used cars tend to be _much_ cheaper than new ones. There's some basis to that joke about losing half the value just driving the car off the lot. Even a 25-30% tax wouldn't make up for that much of a difference in price, though it _would_ make used vehicle trades more expensive and probably put a damper on the market. Do you believe that imposing an extra cost of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars in taxes on any used vehicle sale _wouldn 't_ significantly impact the sales of used vehicles? I think people would be more likely to buy their vehicles new, when they can afford it, and hold on to them longer. The ones that would be available used would consequently tend to be older and in worse condition, on average.

> Why do you think sellers would throw the item in the trash rather than > reducing the price?

How much do you think they can reduce the price before it isn't worth the trouble? Finding a buyer is not necessarily an effortless process, and given that buyers aren't likely to want to pay more (incl. tax) than they do now the seller will have to lower their pre-tax price by at least 16% to make the sale. I already see perfectly good items sitting out on the curb with a "free" sign in less-than-ideal weather because they'd be too much trouble to sell; reducing the incentive to advertise and locate someone who values the item will only make that more prevalent.

Besides, do you really want individuals collecting and remitting sales tax on behalf of the federal government? Sales of used items are much more likely to be person-to-person. Taxes on the sales of new items tend to be collected by registered businesses, which makes it a more manageable problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I see the tax issue as a cybersecurity analogous issue - the complexity gives room for exploitation. A refactor could help alleviate many of the issues but that would be a very difficult task even without regulatory capture and perverse incentives.

<comment><USER38> To riff on that, the complexity is a feature. For some.

<comment><USER39> Well, in IT it definitely is :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One of the challenges we have with our current tax code is the fact that it's based on income (salary, capital gains, etc). One idea is to use a value-added tax (VAT) that allows all consumption to be taxed. This is a big part of Andrew Yang's campaign to fund UBI.

[https://www.yang2020.com/policies/value-added- tax/](https://www.yang2020.com/policies/value-added-tax/)

He also wants to increase the IRS's funding which would help go after those super rich people and their lawyers.

<comment><USER28> Or wealth / property taxes.

Or exim taxes on international money transfers.

Or taxes on bank balances, particularly offshore.

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/Chapter_2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you've never had a tax scheme offered to you, this is how it goes. My experience is in the UK but there's similar stuff everywhere, I'm sure.

Someone from an "aggressive accountant" will somehow find you. They will tell you what kind of people they represent, and why you are one of them.

Then they will draw an immensely complicated block diagram, like the UML diagram of a large enterprise application, except none of the blocks means anything to you.

There's always some special rule they are using. One time it hinged on me, a guy who can't play or sing a note, spending an hour or two each week critiquing the lyrics of a well known rap artist. Another time it hinged on me writing and publishing poetry. Yet another one was related to films. I've got zero skill in anything artistic, so obviously this was not going to be legit.

It is what the guy presents it as, a tax dodge. The guy also says your winning are dependent on running a legal gauntlet; Some schemes work, others don't and you end up paying the tax bill, the accountants, and a penalty.

Luckily I wasn't tempted to participate in any of these schemes. You know why you are participating in these schemes, and it's not a sincere desire to improve rap music. And I did hear about a friend of a friend recently who tried and lost, and is now in deep trouble.

That's just the tip of the iceberg as well. All sorts of other tax games are played by people way wealthier than me, as well as corporate entities.

</comment><comment><USER42> 1\. This is a fantastic piece of reporting.

2\. Reading through all of this, I hold no sympathy to the IRS given this situation. The government policies described, from the requests of disclosure to the taxation levied in this specific case appear downright abusive.

<comment><USER43> I read it and came to the same conclusion. The whole crux of the case is that there was unreported income from a loan that was forgiven. The banks did make it complicated, but they did so to avoid driving the company (and themselves) into bankruptcy, and look to still get paid back.

Collecting a billion dollars on a loan that really hasn't been forgiven and driving the company into bankruptcy seems insane. The IRS would have more of a case if they looked at the situation at the term of the loan and found it hadn't been repaid.

<comment><USER44> I agree with your take on it.

If they got their billions of taxes they'd have bankrupted this guy and put Continental Tire and a bunch of other companies out of business.

There would be a ton of lost jobs and a lot of value in society destroyed.

All because they couldn't back out of a deal because of the law in the first place.

Definitely a weird international thing going on here too with the IRS potentially bankrupting a German company and the Germans being stuck with the fallout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It used to be simple. Government taxed their citizens.

But now at a certain level of wealth you can turn yourself into an international corporation. Who isn't really a citizen of any one country.

No one is going to ban international business. So the ultra rich will probably continue to get away with this. And the upper class (100k - 500k a year) will bear the tax burden.

</comment><comment><USER46> All tax returns should be public. This would vastly reduce cheating on taxes.

Our society has run into a fundamental problem - there are always a certain number of people who will cheat on their taxes. According to research, these people are disproportionately the ultrawealthy. The real problem comes up when the government does not do proper audits and doesn't enforce penalties because then good and honest people see the cheaters get away with it. This leads to a quick erosion of morals and integrity in the whole system.

Making all tax returns public makes it very easy for anyone to spot the cheaters. Even pathological liars and cheaters will have a strong disincentive against cheating and will be quickly punished if they do.

<comment><USER47> Making tax returns public also attracts a shit ton of spammers and conmen.

But I whole heartedly agree, if you want to solve any form of corruption or "some are more equal than others", public accountability and immutable/verifiable record keeping is the best counter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder if there's enough public information to do third party (citizen) audits?

Crowd fund some under employed accountants and geeks and sleuths to dig into some of the big boys.

\--

Is there some kind of bounty program exposing tax cheats? Like that small law group that's made millions whistleblowing big pharma.

</comment><comment><USER49> Dear interested lawyers, keep half the money you recover.

Problem solved.

<comment><USER50> That would be brutal, but really good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> See also Propublica on what regions are subjected to the most audits. Hint is in the URL.

[https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/eitc- audit](https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/eitc-audit)

</comment><comment><USER52> If any other revenue generating entity was bringing in $4500/hr of labour, it'd be rapidly scaled up and funded to capture the maximum possible upside... crazy how that doesn't happen here.

</comment><comment><USER53> The graphic on that article reminds me of something a multi-millionaire once told me about his stock market high-frequency trading: It's like picking up pennies in front of a steam roller.

</comment><comment><USER54> I love the quotation "From the minute it went live, it was dead on arrival."

I mean, that's pretty dead.

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh, this adds another twist to why taxes are so complicated in the US. If the IRS was not bogged down in the tax reports of commoners, they might have more time for mischief, like pursuing Schaeffler and friends.

<comment><USER55> But are the "commoners" taxes really complicated? If you only have w2 income it's just a simple 2-page 1040 form.

<comment><USER56> A form so simple it only needs 117 pages of instructions.

<comment><USER57> I mean, it's got 4 pages of instructions for whether you should file it at all, and if so where to send it. It's got a third of a page for what to put in the "name and address" fields. It's got half a page for what to put in the "SSN" field. A bunch of that deals with edge cases that are not relevant to most people, who don't even read this part of the instructions and just write down their name, address, and SSN.

8 pages of EIC credit table. 10 pages of tax table. Longish, but pretty simple.

Now there are in fact things in there that are not simple. Filing status is usually simple, unless you try to figure out "head of household", in which case it's not. But in general, the 1040 is quite simple as tax forms go, and the instructions are mostly long because they are written out with a lot of detail and to be easy to follow, and have to cover various edge cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> wav-part Ultrawealthy Ought to Help

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs)

</comment><comment><USER58> The pain of Trump's tax law in California can't be understated ...the cap on SALT deductions means that you cannot deduct more than $10k in income + property taxes anymore, which barely covers an average base salary for many people. Double taxed on income we'll never see.

</comment><comment><USER59> The tactics used for lowering taxes looks like a great target for WikiLeaks. The more people use the same tactics, the less efficient it is for billionaires.

<comment><USER55> How to lower your taxes using the same tactics as billionaires:

step 1. Hire a team of accountants and legal advisors

<comment><USER60> Is that really all it is, though? Hire wizards and they cast spells to make your taxes lower? I think being able to lower taxes has more to do with your billionaire status (there are more loopholes and deductions for wealthy people) and less to do with hiring professional help.

Nearly 100% of my income is W2 labor, and I always do my own taxes. A long time ago I thought I'd hire a CPA to do my taxes, to double check that I was doing mine optimally. Total waste of money. He cost about $400 (I understand that's a pretty good bargain these days), and found no additional deductions, and was kind of a pain to deal with. For working class and middle class people, there really aren't that many ways to get creative with your income to reduce your tax bill.

<comment><USER55> It's not about some special status, it's purely about money: casting the magic tax-lowering spell requires a lot of mana.

I'm sure your accountant could have set up a charity, put most of your assets there, the charity would hire yourself as an independent contractor... But it will cost more than it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is what people who argue for the expansion of the welfare state don't understand. The ultrawealthy will always find ways to protect themselves from taxation (as they did back in the days when "tax rates" were "80 to 90 percent" as they love to tell you) and the brunt will be borne by people like me, who are relatively comfortable in providing for my family but still worry a lot about saving adequately for retirement and college payments down the road (which if I am restricted further from doing properly, will simply increase the burden on the welfare state).

<comment><USER62> We do not have a welfare state. There are simple ways to get people to pay their taxes, there simple isn't political will.</comment></comment>


SpaceX's Starship SN4 prototype fires rocket engine for first time - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn4-engine-static-fire-test.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone with real expertise in aerospace have thoughts about Musk's choice to use steel instead of carbon fiber for star ship? Does his arguments make sense or is it likely just a cost saving measure?

Would future Falcon rockets also switch to steel?

<comment><USER3> I don't know about steel but carbon fiber has so far never succeeded as a material for cryogenic rockets or fuel tanks.

The proposed space shuttle successor was designed around carbon fiber fuel tanks / hull and engineering problems with them eventually killed the project.

The material struggles with low temperatures of cryogenic fuels (brittle), high temperatures of re-entry (just burns), oxidation in oxygen tanks. Also they apparently tend to sponatiously combust with rocket fuels.

Some reference: [https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/an-update-on- compos...](https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/an-update-on-composite- tanks-for-cryogens)

<comment><USER4> RocketLab's rocket has carbon fiber tanks.

<comment><USER5> But the scale is much, much smaller than Starship.

If I understand correctly after you pass a certain tank radius you basically step into "nobody's ever done this with CF before", which is not a good place to be for SpaceX. Starship was on that spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice milestone. I think the first test hop to 150m will be in a few weeks. Very exciting!</comment>


Show HN: Make the world more beautiful with customized QR codes - <AUTHOR> https://bonnieqr.com

<comment><USER2> There are some great images showing off the end result. Quite like the logo.

However, the text styling looks awful. I can't read any of it. Unfortunately, that makes it unusable for me, the entire process becomes trial and error

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm the technical lead of the project.

Thank you for the feedback! We will try to make the fonts better readable. Was it the size, the contrast, or the font that made it bad to read for you?

<comment><USER2> too small mostly. The top half of each letter was squashed. looked very pixelly. I'd suggest upping the size and may be the contrast as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks again for bothering!

We will work on this and I would be delighted if you would give it another try after this Friday.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who Killed Tumblr? We All Did - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/tumblr-sold.html <comment><USER2> Why does everyone see the early internet as some beautiful and clean time in which all websites were philanthropic? I remember the early internet as a cesspool of bad porn websites and a zillion different scams. There was a few semi useful tools like Yahoo and MapQuest, and a few interesting but poorly build personal sites. If you weren't extremely savvy though, your computer was nearly guaranteed to get malware.

Our internet today is enormously more useful - Gmail, Google Maps, Facebook, a highly evolved tool for almost anything you want to do, strong search engines, strong protections to help prevent users from getting malware, free photo and video storage, and rapidly improving infrastructure.

<comment><USER3> >If you weren't extremely savvy though, your computer was nearly guaranteed to get malware.

No, you just had to not be stupid enough to use IE6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I didn't kill Tumblr. Pretty sure about that.

<comment><USER5> Me neither. Anyone here responsible for killing Tumblr?

<comment><USER6> Oops, my bad. I must have tripped over the plug on my way out.

No big loss after the purge. While I could care less about boobies on the internet, the 'porn' ban somehow decimated all the liberal communities my friends seemed to enjoy there. Network effect, chilling speech, who knows; but the fire was extinguished and the sauce ruined.</comment></comment></comment>


Learning Perl 6 - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1422827986/learning-perl-6 <comment><USER2> I'm excited to see a P6 book, but don't know why O'Reilly isn't funding it unless Brian gets to keep most of the $. Some things I'm concerned about are the crazy short length (350 for a language this big), what will be included, and the fact that it sounds like he is still in the exploratory phase.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand why O'Reilly might do this- it mitigates risk and may help you judge whether this is a title to push or not.

But it does make one wonder if they are superfluous.

Not: is an editor or typesetter superfluous. You can contract that pipeline.

</comment><comment> vytas-dauksa That's great news! Perl6 is a powerful language, unfortunately, it lacks a book which is a studding method many needs to pick up a new language. I will back it up!

</comment><comment><USER4> O'Reilly is now participating in Kickstarters for books they plan to publish? Wow. Things must have gotten really tough for them.

And I'm not saying this to gloat, in case anyone interprets it that way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I backed the Kickstarter. Looking forward to having the book.

<comment><USER2> I'll probably do the same</comment></comment>


Open Source 3D Printers challenge giants Stratasys and 3D Systems - <AUTHOR> http://blog.3dhubs.com/post/66187555251/open-source-3d-printers-stand-up-to-giants-stratasys

<comment><USER2> I don't think the cheap 3D printers took away market share from leading companies, just expanded the market because now 3D printing is affordable.

As far as I know only the Ultimaker has the print speed/quality that comes close to Stratasys and 3D Systems.</comment>


Engine Yard AppCloud: free 500 hours for new customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2011/try-appcloud-risk-free/

<comment><USER3> This hit a nerve for me. I keep going back and looking at Engine Yard Hoping there will be something there for me but I just can't justify moving from Heroku for the ruby stuff. They have so many knobs to turn and a nice low entry point for very small apps that can be cranked up easily. It's this low barrier to entry that Engine Yard is missing and free for three weeks is not a substitute for this.

AppCloud seems to be (and I hate to use this word) "just" a thin wrapper around EC2. At least I get that impression looking at the price points - <USER2> smallest 32bit instance is just shy of 1k/year. Am I going to get more performance out of three Dynos at Heroku for about the same cost? Maybe maybe not. But where am I going to put my staging test/servers? On a 20/month VPS? On an instance @AppCloud that I spin up and down? No, I'll tell you where, I'm going to stick it on a Dyno or two at Heroku and not worry about it. And then when I need to scale or the product is ready for production where is it going to be hosted. That's right - the same place it's been validated and tested on.

By the way, Engine Yard is not the only place that has this barrier to entry problem. Most of the cloud providers do. Joyent.com, Media Temple, Rackspace cloud all have Barriers whether it's poor documentation, higher than normal base costs and bandwidth fees or just inconvenience like having to wait on a call from someone in Texas in order to be allowed to create instances.

If the other players want to compete with Heroku on the service and ease of use side or Amazon on flexibility and scale then they are going to have to do much, much, much better.

<comment><USER4> Agreed; after using their product for many months, I learned how it is little better than running your own instances. There are some cool things it does, but you end up doing plenty of sysadmin work yourself, writing Chef recipes for anything not supported by their (aging) platform, and then you lose the benefit of support as well. Did I mention that support costs start at $275 (12/5) or $475 (24/7) a month?[1] Without it, you can't open a ticket.

It's also increasingly annoying to see shots taken at Heroku in their blog posts and on Twitter. It's unprofessional. Compete on features and services, please.

[1]: <http://www.engineyard.com/products/appcloud/support>

<comment><USER5> "It's also increasingly annoying to see shots taken at Heroku in their blog posts and on Twitter"

Really? We've always been friendly with everyone in the Rails deployment space, and I don't ever remember taking shots at Heroku specifically, though it's certainly possible that we've expressed disagreement on technologies or practices that they and others may use. I'd appreciate it if you'd point out what you've seen, as it's certainly not part of our philosophy or business practice.

With respect to your comment about our "aging" platform, we all age a bit every day. There's tremendous work underway at Engine Yard, some visible, some not. This is no-doubt true of every competitive platform. Many of our customers choose to describe this as maturation! :-)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, as a long time EngineYard AppCloud customer, I have to defend them a bit here.

1\. The platform has evolved in a nice, iterative way with no interruptions to my service.

2\. Even without a support plan, they have some of the best people in the world answering questions in the forums.

3\. I'm happy to see competition in this space, and I don't begrudge anyone from pointing out their relative advantages over their competitors.

<comment><USER4> I am--was--an EY customer as well for some time, about a year, and had been following it since its inception, particularly through a friend who was a customer while it was still in beta.

1\. I haven't seen any significant changes to their product, except for the CLI tool as a replacement for capistrano. The CLI tool is a great improvement, but it's still basically a glorified capistrano tool, and doesn't even get close to comparing to the Heroku command-line tool. Predominately, I feel like the product has been stagnant. Support for Ruby 1.9 and Rubinius (currently in beta) is the most exciting thing I've seen lately. It's surprising rbx has taken so long when it's an EY sponsored project!

Part of the challenge with a product like AppCloud is there is no obvious way to update the stack without disturbing applications, but I'd still have liked a way to potentially update our base software (libraries and such) to something more current.

2\. I'm so-so on this. Heroku support is free, but is not 24/7 unless you are a very large customer with a support contract. We paid for support, and EY support was sometimes helpful, sometimes not.

3\. I'm not talking about objective comparisons here, these are "shots across the bow" so to speak. I know the pros and cons of both services very well, but what I am talking about are "subtle jabs" about how Heroku is not production- ready/capable, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is huge for Rails consulting companies. Hopefully we can now convince one of our clients to switch over to EY AppCloud from Bluehost.

<comment><USER7> I'm surprised by this reaction. It's less than three weeks of hosting. I can't imagine being meaningfully swayed by that.

<comment><USER5> No, we don't expect many will make a decision based upon 500 free hours, but we do expect many will give us a try, and make their decision based upon the experience they have during their 500 hour trial. :-)

<comment><USER7> Sure. I think it's a potentially effective promotion for exactly the reason you describe. (free test, and if they're not actively dissatisfied, switching costs will likely cause them to stick with you.) That's an idea worth testing.

I just can't understand the parent post indicating that it's 'huge for rails consulting companies'. After all, rails consulting companies are sending out five digit monthly invoices. A $150 discount on the first month of hosting is a rounding error in that context.

<comment><USER8> Ha, that's possibly true as a percentage of total fees. Hopefully the total fees paid to Engine Yard will always be a rounding error in the context of consulting fees! :)

We're investigating other benefits for our Development Partners too. Any thoughts?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will a massive exaflood of traffic crash the internet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12673221 <comment><USER2> Look, this stupid idea has been bandied about for years, just as the Economist article says. I'd like to point out that the Discovery Institute also promotes intelligent design and teaching creationism in U.S. schools in lieu of ACTUAL SCIENCE. Perhaps they believe we need less scientists and technologists because God will save the internet. Idiots.</comment>


Best Practices of Combining Typefaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/11/04/best-practices-of-combining-typefaces/ <comment><USER2> The side-by-side examples should be in the same colours.

It's impossible to separate the psychological effect of the typeface from the effect of the colour changes.

I'd like to learn something from the content of this article, but I suspect that I'm likely to learn the wrong thing, due to bad experimental design.

<comment><USER3> I'd enjoy reading more good articles by experienced practitioners about ideas for combinations of fonts, colours, etc. Many of us rely on graphic design skills for building company web sites and on-line services, but don't have time to study the subject as deeply as a specialist and aren't naturally artistic geniuses.

However, I agree with the parent post: I don't think this particular article is very good at all. The colours and text shadows distort the presentation. Worse, many of the later images are textbook examples of why you _don't_ normally mix lots of fonts together on the same page. I think the author is trying to do too much with wide variations in fonts, while ignoring related tools like whitespace that might do the job better.

<comment><USER4> The best advice I can give is: Don't use Smashing Magazine as a source of design education. Their articles are superficial at best and I've never seen one written by anyone who exhibits real expertise in the topic. Learn the basics first - color theory, composition, etc - from good art or design texts, and from learning to draw.

<comment><USER5> matrix, thank you for your comment. But I would like to provide our opinion on this. Actually, we work very hard to prvide the best content out there, and articles are checked and revised by invited experts around the world before it gets published. It's too bad that you haven't noticed any articles written by authors who exhibit real expertise in the topic. Please check the following articles published over the last 2 months:

Christian Heilmann - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/11/local- storage-and...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/11/local-storage-and- how-to-use-it/)

Bruce Lawson, Remy Sharp - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/23/html5-the- facts-a...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/23/html5-the-facts-and- the-myths/)

Alma Hoffmann - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/14/finding- alternati...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/14/finding-alternative- sources-of-typographic-layout-in-our-surroundings/)

Paul Boag - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/06/fight-the- system-...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/06/fight-the-system- battling-bureaucracy/)

Rachel Andrew - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/19/how-to-use- css3-m...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/19/how-to-use-css3-media- queries-to-create-a-mobile-version-of-your-website/)

Thomas Giannattasio - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/02/the-ails-of- typog...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/02/the-ails-of-typographic- anti-aliasing/)

They are all experts in what they are writing about. The focus on Smashing Magazine is not design theory, but rather insights from practice, learned and shared by designers and developers out there. And yes, sometimes we do mistakes, but we always clear things up and improve the articles.

Also, we always welcome feedback and constructive criticism, and we would love to hear what you think we could do to improve the quality of Smashing Magazine's article. Thank you for your time.

Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine

<comment><USER4> It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to provide feedback.

Smashing Magazine covers a wide range of topics without necessarily going into depth in any one of them. I'm sure this is a function of wanting to drive traffic from reddit and the like. Understanding and learning takes time which isn't the kind of thing that leads to quick upvotes on the big social media sites. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, merely that this leads to a certain type of article.

Nobody learns to be a rock star developer by merely cutting and pasting code that comes up in a Google search. They work at it through experience, good books, and working with smart people. Design is the same - you can do the equivalent of cutting and pasting some rules, but to become a good designer there's a learning process.

I suggest having content such as a series of articles on one particular aspect of design, leading the reader from fundamentals to more advanced concepts. These articles are unlikely to be quick hits on the social networks, but they create more long-term value that keeps people coming back.

That aside, I think it would benefit Smashing Magazine's brand enormously if you resisted the temptation to run the "N beautiful pictures of Y" articles. No doubt they're quick hits for social media, but they come at the price of diluting the value of Smashing Magazine.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for your feedback, I understand what you are saying. If you compare Smashing Magazine's article from a year ago with the recently published ones, you'll notice a big difference. We haven't been publishing "N beautiful pictures of Y" articles for almost a year now. We are trying to make SmashingMag a high quality publication for designers and developers. You won't find photography posts on Smash any longer (only maybe once every 3 months or so, over the weekend, but they are not our focus).

Please do check Smashing Magazine and its recent articles. We have changed a lot, and we are aware that this is probably a long process, and we are willing to get better and become more useful and relevant for the design community. Comments such as yours help us find the right direction and stick to it.

For instance, we created an experts panel where we invited experts of various fields to review articles published on Smashing Magazine before they get published. Every expert gets paid for his/her review. We would love to have you as a reviewer in our expert panel, to improve and maintain the high quality of the articles. Are you interested? Or maybe you or some other readers of Hacker News would like to write a rebuttal, explaining what's wrong in the article and what the real "proper" rules are? We would love to publish it on Smashing Magazine. We really want to help out the community. It was never about just pumping some (good, bad or average) content out there, it never was. We want to publish high quality articles, and only high quality.

I like the idea of having a series of articles on one particular aspect of design, and we've had such series in the past, and they usually work well. So I will definitely keep that in mind.

Thank you, matrix, I truly appreciate your time and your feedback.

— Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine

<comment><USER6> > We haven't been publishing "N beautiful pictures of Y" articles for almost a > year now. We are trying to make SmashingMag a high quality publication for > designers and developers

Thank you for that. I think you have done a great job overall going in this direction. I loved [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/18/the-beauty-of- typ...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/18/the-beauty-of-typography- writing-systems-and-calligraphy-of-the-world/) posted earlier this year. I understand it's impossible to make every single article aim for perfection but now that you have raised the bar for yourself and we know about it, you have no choice but to meet it every single time.

The first thought in my mind when reading the current article was how the color difference between left and right slides affected my perceptions and hence completely negated the subsequent analysis. For a second I actually thought it would be funny if I made a parody article and switched the left and right slides and justified it with copy-pasted text from your own article.

I love typography and I try to learn more about it any time I get. But unfortunately, despite reading the entire article, I left away feeling like I learnt nothing. It's hard to say exactly why but just compare the current article with The Beauty Of Typography and you'll see what I'm trying to say here.

<comment><USER5> Thank you, I truly appreciate your feedback.

The truth is that reader's expectations are permanently increasing and sometimes it is really difficult to meet these expectations because every reader has different expectations and requirements for our articles. You can't please everybody, and we can just try to make sure that the vast majority of readers finds a piece useful and/or interesting. We try to do our best to keep the high quality level, and the amount of editing work for every single article hopefully speaks to that.

I understand what you are saying regarding the color difference in the examples, and it would be more correct to keep the background color the same, but I truly do not think that it would change the choice of typefaces a lot. We have carefully considered the typefaces and how they work together regardless the background they are on.

Also, I found quite many useful practical tips in the article, which is why it was published in the first place. But I can see that some descriptions are more general and could (and should) be more precise and concise. I will certainly keep your remark in mind for the next articles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good points, the only issue with this is that if you have any sense of "tension" in your typeface choices, you probably don't need an article like this. And if you don't, you'll have trouble applying any but the most concrete instructions (e.g. use only 2 typefaces). Learning to recognize typographic tension is probably not something that can be taught in one blog post.

<comment><USER8> Precisely. This is the typographic equivalent of advising "don't use colors that clash" without specifying what "clashing" means.

I actually think you could teach objective if subtle rules about this (for instance, compare the lowercase 'n' for the fonts in the first example) but this article doesn't do that. Instead the article uses terms like "neutral", "outspoken", "conservative". "dynamic", etc. to describe what to a casual observer are quite similar fonts (it's not like we're comparing Helvetica to Karbine or Comic Sans).

<comment><USER9> Oftentimes, in art and design, you can't specify, in a binary way, why something clashes. To your eye, if it clashes, it clashes. You can't really break down an impression into a series of isolated minutia while retaining a sense of the overall.

It's also much easier to define "clash" by simply showing "harmony", which is the simpler, more intuitive approach to take in a simplified blog format.

Sometimes you don't need to know why something is good or bad, you just need to trust your eyes. And if you train your eyes on enough good stuff, the bad becomes blindingly obvious.

<comment><USER8> I agree. It's clearly not something that can be entirely reduced to formulas and numerical relationships.

Moreover, an intuitive "design sense" is probably faster and will carry you farther than any set of specific guidelines.

But this doesn't have to be something you just intuit or pick up through osmosis.

For instance, a blind person could create an acceptably harmonic color scheme with a little knowledge of color theory. It ain't all handy-waving and intuition, there's some baseline part of this that _can_ be reduced to numbers and guidelines.

You can jump-start someone's path to an intuitive design sense by teaching them some of the theory behind it (whether or not designers are conscious of some of the guidelines they're often following). It'll only take you so far, but it will take you a long way from square one.

EDIT:

Hi Douglas, I see from another comment that you are the author of the article. Neat, that's always one of the great things about HN.

By the way, since your account is new, let me offer this disclaimer: don't let the harshness of HN users get you down. Engineers are jerks by nature, and HN readers in particular are keen on offering what they see as constructive criticism.

To that end, I think the root comment on this thread has it right, what strikes me as odd about this article is that seems to be simultaneously aimed at neophytes and experts.

For example, under "Avoid Similar Classifications" you write about "slab serif" and "transitional serif" fonts without defining those terms.

If someone knows what these terms mean, are they likely to need this advice, or anything more than a simple reminder of it?

That's something of an honest question. I have no idea what "slab serif" and "transitional serif" mean beyond what I can grok from your usage of the term in the article.

IMO, this article would be much more useful to me, for example, if it said something along the lines of:

"Here's a slab serif font. Notice how the serifs have the same weight as the body.

"Here's a transitional serif font. Notice how the serifs are thinner than the body.

"Notice how if you use two slightly different fonts from the same category they create tension? It's better to use fonts from different categories, like this..."

but maybe I'm not in the target audience for this article.

<comment><USER9> "...neophytes and experts"

I think if you read the comments, your assessment is incorrect. There is a near unanimous thanks for some simple, clear examples. If you are reading about combining typefaces, you obviously know the basics already. If you don't know what a slab serif is, you wouldn't be worrying about combining them with something else. In fact, you'd probably be doing something else entirely :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Trade Gothic wants to get to the facts, but Bell Gothic wants to have some > fun.

What? It looks like fun is in the eye of the beholder. The lack of proper specification really bugs me. It's sort of similar to how wine connoisseurs use words like "round" which don't really mean anything, or at least not until you've had enough "round" wines to recognise the distinct flavour property that is being described. I vote for ditching this stupid scheme in favour of being more specific and / or defining terms clearly.

<comment><USER11> Do you look at fonts and see personalities? Or personalities for tints or shapes?

<comment><USER9> Good question. I look at fonts and see overall personalities first and tints and shapes later. The tints and shapes are incidentals in the overall personality, and carry little weight when isolated from one another.

In the same way, when looking at someones face, you are struck with an overall impression first. Then you single out features. I have never met anyone who said, at first glance, so and so has wonderful eyebrows.

<comment><USER11> I actually meant seeing personalities for colours and shapes, independently of fonts.

I'm just wondering if there are some people who don't see personalities in these things (e.g., a font being "fun" or "stern") and whether they should, where budget permits, leave design to those who do?

Then again, I don't bat an eyelid at wine descriptors like "barn", "forest floor", "skinsy", etc while some people really dislike it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My all-time favorite post on combining typefaces comes from the world-renowned H&FJ: <http://www.typography.com/email/2010_03/index_tw.htm>

</comment><comment><USER13> This is an article that all non-designers should bookmark and re-read monthly. Typography is one of those things that separates real designers from i-know- how-to-use-photoshop people.

<comment><USER14> This is an article that to me, non-designer, says nothing at all. See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1869728>

<comment><USER9> Mission accomplished :). As a non-designer, you aren't the target audience, so I'm not surprised, since I wrote the article for those who self-identify as designers, and who have some command of rudimentary typographic terminology. Read the comments on the article to determine who the audience is and whether or not the article reached its intended audience.</comment></comment></comment>


1.2B Facebook profile pictures on a single page - <AUTHOR> http://app.thefacesoffacebook.com

<comment><USER2> Shame the zoomed-out view is just nonsense. All this is, is a way to click and see a couple hundred random ones at a time. The zoomed-out view is just actual random noise, not an average of colors or anything. The title is disingenuous.</comment>


Remote work, outside the US [sucks?] - <AUTHOR>

I'm a web developer, and for the longest time, I've dreamed about working remotely while traveling from country to country. Recently I went on a short vacation to china and attempted to work  .
Now, I know China may be an exception but in my opinion, this is not a country a web developer can work remotely. You're hands are tied behind your back with blind folds on. Internet through mobile is widely available, but speed is normally capped at edge speeds(56k). Then there's the bigger problem of censorship. Google, facebook, twitter, and tons more are blocked.
VPN you say? Before, I left I did setup my own vpn server on Digital ocean and tested before leaving. Now, I need to investigate this further when I return but it is not 100%. I can't say why, but I've ran into many connectivity issue trying to surf through the VPN. Having to deal with reconnecting and timing out a lot. Might be due to poor internet connectivity in general. Also on the mobile, I haven't figured out how to tunnel traffic through VPN. Another thing I should research.
When internet is not fast, I do not feel like using it. As a developer, browsing, googling are things you do 90% of the time. More than coding.
How do you guys handle remote work in other countries with censorship and generally slow speeds? <comment><USER2> Working remotely from anywhere can be great, you just have to research the setup before you go and be prepared.

I've worked remotely from Oregon, Seattle, Singapore, Tokyo and Manila (where I am now). None of the cities except Manila caused any problems once you get around the time zone issue. The Internet in the Philippines is generally slow (averaging 1 mbps) and expensive. I'm not sure if this is due to infrastructure or a monopoly or something, but it's tough to work with a slow, expensive connection especially when you're a web developer.

I manage it by working late at night or early in the morning, when the connection seems to be faster (less people are awake and online). I also keep two different connections handy--one is my mobile data, which I can hotspot and use on my computer, and the other is a portable broadband device. That way, even if one of them loses connection (did I mention in addition to it being slow and expensive, the Internet is unreliable???) I can still work using the other one.

Even with the awful Internet I still get things done in Manila, and if it's possible here it's possible anywhere.

<comment><USER3> I was just in Manila a couple of weeks ago and found the Internet to be infuriating. I could simply not find a place with decent Internet. Even the mobile Internet was terrible. I left Manila and one point and went to a remote-ish island and got faster mobile Internet there than I did in Manila.

From my understanding, the reason for the slow speed is both infrastructure and business. Apparently all traffic in the Philippines is routed through California or something weird like that. On top of that, Filipino telecoms are corrupt and have little incentive to provide good service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get the most reliable solution for online anonymity and surf the internet without being tracked by any entity, not even your Internet Service Provider. [https://www.ivacy.com/](https://www.ivacy.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> You need to make this site your best friend: [https://nomadlist.com/](https://nomadlist.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> HAHA, yes I agree. I am a part of the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Internet is going to be spotty all over Asia unless you're in South Korea. The only reliable trick I've found is to find a local coworking space that caters to the tech startup scene. Typically these spaces have good, reliable Internet.

Otherwise, to deal with the censorship and monitoring VPN is the way to go.</comment>


A disaster is looming for American men - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/26/larry-summers-a-disaster-is-looming-for-american-men/ <comment><USER2> Disaster is already here. In the 1950's you could raise a family with 2.3 children on a 40 hour work week. Today, families are struggling to make ends meet with 60-70+ hour work weeks. Technology was supposed to have made things more efficient. It seems to have had the opposite effect.

<comment><USER3> The average home size in the 1950s was just 953 square feet. Now it's 2500 square feet. You likely would have a single car. Your utility bill would be a lot lower (no internet, no cable, no air conditioning). You'd eat a lot of home-cooked meals, have a serious vegetable garden, would sew and mend your own clothes, etc. You wouldn't need to pay for your own clothes.

I suspect it's quite possible to raise a family on a single income if you're willing to live like it was the 1950s.

<comment><USER4> talking about the home size is disingenuous, you might want to look at the lot size, not the home size, for example. Or do you think you would be able to have a 'serious vegetable garden' on today's postage stamp lots?

Schooling costs are also way, way, way higher than they were in the 50s, and there are no well paying manufacturing jobs to do if you aren't inclined to go to college.

I really doubt that you would be able to raise a family on a single income these days with the same standard of living you could have back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is built on sand. First off, Summers doesn't provide any evidence that his linear trend is a valid predictor. Coupled with his history of predictions, that should be a red flag to anyone reading this. If you're interested, you should read about his suggestion that California deregulate its energy market during the rolling blackouts caused by Enron's manipulation of the energy supply. Similarly, he supported the rapid privatization of former Soviet bloc countries in the 1990s without considering that former party members would consolidate resources and wealth among themselves. Lo and behold, Russia is now ruled by an oligarchy.

Second, not even the links he provides support his points. The one to the BLS shows the number of cashiers is expected to grow by 2%, not decline as he states.

Third, "to the extent that non-work is contagious, it is likely to grow exponentially rather than at a linear rate." No citation given. Nothing to substantiate this claim. Again, given Larry's history, I'd advise against taking him at his word. He also cites falling marriage rates as contributors, but only links to evidence of the rates falling, NOT to evidence of a causal effect of declining marriage rates on employment.

Finally, seeing as this [1] was posted on HN today, Larry seems to be living in a world where he doesn't read the news. Companies still need workers.

It's drivel like this written by people like Larry that erode my trust in the media.

[1]U.S. Companies Turn to German Vocational Training Model to Fill Jobs Gap: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584606)

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is what I don't understand about this argument. When the USA first started we lived in a very agricultural society.

[https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural- employment/](https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-employment/)

You would think by this logic that removing these jobs would have caused a MASSIVE unemployment issue in the USA. Which it did to some degree. I mean farmers were pushed off their land by bigger farmers, and other groups and they went out to find other jobs.

If you look at the Great Depression there were a lot of similar things going on to what is going on now. The wealth is sitting at the top 1%, people end up working crazy hours to make it. Skyrocketing property costs.

The recession was an indicator of this and my question is, where we able to divert disaster or did we just kick the disaster down to the next decade? What political movement will help turn around the disaster that we are currently facing (if we are facing a disaster)? I don't know the answer to this but I personally see that there are a few economic bubbles we're sitting on tech, real estate, government employment. Any one could pop and cause a massive problem.

Does anyone have a place I can go to learn more about this? Specific books, blogs, podcasts or sites that talk about these issues?

<comment><USER7> Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

[https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John- Steinbeck/dp/014303...](https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John- Steinbeck/dp/0143039431)

"The Western States nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land. The land company--that's the bank when it has land \--wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good--not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But the tractor does two things--it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side- meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket--take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning--from "I" to "we."

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

The Western States are nervous under the begining change. Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.

And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land."

<comment><USER6> This is part of why I was able to pull my question together the way I did. I read that book and I feel like it changed my perspective. It shows the damage that happened to individuals but it doesn't stick with how people responded after the depression.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> seems easy to deal with, but there is no political capital to do so. invest in public infrastructure (roads, buildings, schools, health) and there will be lots of jobs. no one is automating construction away any time too soon.

<comment><USER9> Well, there is a small problem with that. Road projects on the eastern side of North Dakota have been delayed because all the people capable of doing those projects were on the western side making money in the oil fields. Vocational education has for the most part been exiled from our high schools[1], and we lack a lot of that expertise. Public infrastructure projects require people trained to do them.

1) an interesting parallel to the decline of programming classes can be drawn as both have specialized instructor and facility requirements

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern. It is > something we have been living with for two generations"

If American thought leaders such as Larry Summers think that technology destroys jobs and that it's a relatively recent phenomenon, then America is truly screwed.

<comment> tuna-piano I'll leave this here for those making the "technical unemployment" argument.

After hundreds of years of virtually the same argument being made, I think the burden is on you to say why this time is different.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre_16th_Century)

<comment><USER11> It's not actually any different; "technical unemployment" has caused many problems that are clearly visible from a cursory examination of the historical record.

The obvious place to start is the horse: the horse population in the US peaked at 26M in 1917 and had declined to 3M by 1960, almost 1/10th of its peak value [0].

When those horses were unemployed by the automobile, we did not retrain them in new lines of work. They just died. It got so bad that conversation societies were established to protect endangered breeds.

Eventually we created a handful of new jobs in the recreational sector for them, so the population of horses is rising now, but it is nowhere close to the peak value, and of course we did not create those jobs within the lifetime of any displaced horse.

In fact what the historical record shows is that massive technological shocks produce long-term unemployment. It doesn't seem to matter if it's a horse, because of course they're just resources to be exploited in the furtherance of human goals. But then again, so are you.

[0] [http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.p...](http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.pdf)

<comment><USER10> I'm sorry, but the horses example is really terrible.

Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed?

What about the other important element no one seems to care about in this conversation: the jobs created - very often - require a higher level of skills and specialization.

<comment><USER11> > If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy > is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've > destroyed?

The number of jobs does not correlate to GDP growth [0]. So whether "the economy is growing" is not terribly related to whether jobs are being created. This is somewhat puzzling under Adam-Smith-Wealth-of-Nations ideas about economics, but it's an empirical fact.

> Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever.

You seem to be misunderstanding the argument; I'm not arguing for something new. I'm arguing that negative effects of technological shock are well- attested in the historical record: you can look back at historical data and plainly see them.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us- growth...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth-and- employment-data-tell-different-stories.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this only a problem for men? And if so why?

I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff.

<comment><USER13> I can think of a few reasons.

1) Women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men.

2) Women are going to college at a higher rate than men.

3) Women have a higher literacy rate than men.

4) Women graduate from high school at a higher rate than men.

These trends are likely to continue. I don't see any possible scenario where men are not worse off in 20 years than they are today, while the higher educated women continue upwards. This is likely especially the case given that trends in education are pointing drastically in favor of women.

If you examine men-heavy trades such as trucking, they are likely to almost entirely disappear in regards to providing plentiful millions of moderate paying jobs to fairly low skill blue collar workers. Nearly all taxi & Uber type jobs will also disappear, those too are dominated by men. Manufacturing will become even further automated by robotics + AI, those jobs are heavily dominated by men. Even military jobs are likely to be meaningfully reduced by leaps in automation and robotics.

<comment><USER14> And the "housewife" skew was probably pretty heavy in the 1970's, where his data starts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love this version of Larry Summers effecting an air of concern for the common man. It's almost like he never pushed for the deregulation of the derivatives market. Magic!

<comment><USER16> It's possible to observe a trend without believing it should be prevented from happening. His argument is that we need to deal with the consequences.

<comment><USER15> Sure. But pardon me for believing the only consequence he's liable to care about is a pitchfork mob assembled outside his gates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looming? Men now make up barely more than 1/3rd of all college students:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-gender- fa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-gender-factor-in- college-admissions/2014/03/26/4996e988-b4e6-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html)

The disaster is here, fam.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Second, the gains in average education and health of the workforce over the last 50 years are unlikely to be repeated"

I'm cautious about arguments that rely on a pessimistic expectation that progress will reverse because it's just never continued in the past. If the argument identified some fundamental reasons why progress will slow instead of drawing historical correlations then it would have merit. Then again if we knew those principles then we could correct our society and avoid disaster. Because this argument is flawed and human knowledge and understanding is the only thing that solves human problems, the validity of the argument is lost.

</comment><comment><USER19> Luddite arguments aside, why would anyone care what Larry Summers thinks? This is the same guy that was a principal behind repealing Glass-Steagall. If anything we should just do and think the opposite of whatever he says.

</comment><comment><USER20> Without any evidence whatsoever, Larry Summers posits that the four-decade long trend of an increasing share of young men not working implies "job destruction caused by technology".

Instead, I think this trend is far more likely to be caused by an increasing share of young women entering the workforce over the same timeframe.

</comment><comment><USER21> This will rise for a few more years and then will start to slowly fall off as the old professions start to die, and more and more young people choose professions still in demand. We are now simply in a transition period, both in regard to the technology and the effects of the globalization.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if the employment rate would be different if the minimum wage were zero.

<comment><USER23> What good is employment when it doesn't pay enough to survive?

<comment><USER24> nah man, everyone has the resources to turn down jobs which don't pay enough /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Job destruction caused by technology" kind of begs the question, especially when the US has an immigration policy that results in vast additions to the labor supply that compete with natives.

<comment><USER26> Shhhh! There is a massive labor shortage dont you know?

<comment><USER27> Are you suggesting that US is importing a vast army of truckers from Asia ?

<comment><USER25> Summers is talking about hypothetical future job losses in, eg, trucking. I am talking about present unemployment caused by excess labor in sectors like agriculture, food processing, food service, nursing, construction, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I take pause when I see anything from Larry Summers. From his wikipedia page:

Summers's role in the deregulation of derivatives contracts

On May 7, 1998, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a Concept Release soliciting input from regulators, academics, and practitioners to determine "how best to maintain adequate regulatory safeguards without impairing the ability of the OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives market to grow and the ability of U.S. entities to remain competitive in the global financial marketplace."[21] On July 30, 1998, then-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that "the parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies." At the time Summers stated that "to date there has been no clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation must bear the burden of demonstrating that need."[22] In 1999 Summers endorsed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks, saying "With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st Century."[23]

When George Stephanopoulos asked Summers about the financial crisis in an ABC interview on March 15, 2009, Summers replied that "there are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last eighteen months, but what's happened at A.I.G. ... the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching ... is outrageous."

At the 2005 Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole, Raghuram Rajan presented a paper called "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?". Rajan pointed to a number of potential problems with the financial developments of the past thirty years.[24] The problems that Rajan considered include skewed incentives of managers, herding behavior among traders, investment bankers, and hedge fund operators who suffer withdrawals if they under-perform the market. Rajan also discussed the problems associated with firms that "goose up returns" by taking risky positions that yield a "positive carry."[25] Justin Lahart, writing in the Wall Street Journal in January 2009 about the response to Rajan's paper at the conference recounts that "former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, famous among economists for his blistering attacks, told the audience he found 'the basic, slightly lead-eyed premise of [Mr. Rajan's] paper to be largely misguided.'"[26]

In February 2009, Summers quoted John Maynard Keynes, saying "When circumstances change, I change my opinion", reflecting both on the failures of Wall Street deregulation and his new leadership role in the government bailout.[27] On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program, Clinton said Summers was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives.</comment>


School district gives students Linux laptops instead of Chromebooks - <AUTHOR> https://edscoop.com/student-laptops-linux-root-access-pennsylvania <comment><USER2> This is a cool initiative but I can't help but think the author has misunderstood a few things:

> Ubuntu is the name of the specific Linux OS that Penn Manor students run on, > and has many default programs and security measures — such as a "sudo" > account with temporarily decreased privileges for students to use when > performing administrative tasks that could otherwise corrupt their system — > that make it a perfect fit for students to explore computing on.</comment>