Countries that are reducing numbers of immigrant workers - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/963530/h-1b-its-not-just-trumps-america-indian-techies-are-unwanted-from-east-to-west/ <comment><USER2> As a matter of fact, in India, engineers mostly avoid service based Indian companies like Infosys, CTS, TCS unless otherwise they are in the extreme bottom end of the funnel (they just need a job) or at the extreme top end (disproportionate high pay).

These firms are notorious for their carrot (probable on-site opportunities) and stick (mindless work hours clocking among others) approach, and their typical workplace is full of discontent and frustration. Just for an example, I have known people working there who were trying to game the clocking system by finding a bug that allowed them to leave early provided they clock before midnight from any of the offices which would increase their clocking hours.

That aside, these firms are just a small part of the actual tech scene in India, except they have sheer numbers when it comes to the H1B process, which kind of projects these firms as representative entities of Indian engineers.

</comment><comment><USER3> While many Indians seeking employment abroad are impacted a lot by these changes, I don't think the sentiment behind these changes has much to do with Indian people per se. There's a global backlash against too much immigration in general. Indians are just caught in the mix.

<comment><USER4> People are tired of the corporate owned politicians allowing companies to run roughshod over the laws, morals & expectations of society.

This is expressed in many ways, from xenophobia to the rise of Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump. People don't want another corporate owned shill like either of the Clintons, both Bushes, and Obama, and I'd wager that Obama knew this in 2008, hence why he made sure his moderately grassroots organization was put out to pasture safely.

We need to stop the union busting, bring back workers rights, prosecute Walmart & T-Mobile for their union response teams (where most potentially "infected" employees are fired), and fight for a better future.

I think we should open our borders, but when it comes to employment we should strive to avoid what has happened in Canada, where low cost workers from overseas work at every single Tim Hortons.

<comment><USER5> If they didn't want a corporate owned shill why did they elect a corporate shill?

>where low cost workers from overseas work at every single Tim Hortons.

This isn't reality I think you need to check your information sources.

<comment><USER6> Trump shills for himself, while the others are much more nebulous.

<comment><USER7> We have to take it on faith because we have no tax returns to check who he owns money too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nationalistic tribalism, such as we're seeing now, usually comes and goes as a cycle.

My hypothesis: Increasing automation puts pressure on the job market, leading to such sentiment. We're seeing this effect, the world over. And India being the largest low-cost English-speaking tech-center will feel this effect the largest.

I guess the silver lining is that this will stop the brain-brain from India, hopefully leading to a more stronger local tech and other industries.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't say it's all down to populism and tribalism. The company I worked for in the UK laid off over 1000 local IT staff and replaced them with people on Tier 2 visas from Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra who were willing to work for significantly less than our salaries.

<comment><USER8> Agreed that the replacement happens.

I'm saying "give jobs to locals than outsiders" is tribalism. (Not saying if it's right or wrong -- just that it's by definition tribalism).

<comment><USER9> Not sure if it's tribalism so much as protecting the local economy against salary arbitrage.

<comment><USER10> Are the products of your "local economy" sold locally. If not, then you have no right to claim protection.

<comment><USER11> People don't want what's fair, people want what's better for them.

I don't want my wage to lower just so people in the third world can live better because I, honestly, don't give a fuck about them. That's the sentiment that's rising lately.

<comment><USER7> And this is where the tribalism comes in to play. At some point, governments have to do what's fair and not what the angry mob they represents want. White Europeans might've wanted colonialism hundreds of years ago, and to this day some people don't really care when their military commits war crimes against "them".

It's hard for me to sympathise with the view that "the real unfairness here is that people born in miserable conditions are happy to do my job for less, so I'm the victim here".

<comment><USER12> _" At some point, governments have to do what's fair and not what the angry mob they represents want."_

Fair to whom? A government has to be fair primarily to their subjects. It's their subject's trust and resources that mandate government's power. Outsiders haven't contributed with nothing prior to their coming so it's unfair to give them equal amount of consideration about anything in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope the India govt moves fast now. The should take this opportunity to improve local infrastructure and put in reforms for a domestic software economy. The TCS, Infosys & Wipro helped kickstart the software revolution in India but they need to take this to a better conclusion than it is now. We need product based companies in India and we need a strong local domestic market. It needs to retain it's talent at home. Any Indians want to chime in on whether this is likely? I hear great things about Modi.

<comment><USER14> TCS, Infosys & Wipro are more of a sweatshops than innovative companies...

<comment><USER15> They weren't from day one. At some point the idea and implementation of cost arbitrage was itself innovation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a small business owner, revenue streams are fickle these days. It makes pay as you go, zero hour labour alluring even if it's more expensive because it can be planned according to the revenue stream.

This same discipline leads one to encapsulate work better. A senior data scientist goes for £700/d in London; theres a significant advantage to being able to use her counterpart in Delhi.

It is salary arbing. It is also inevitable. Companies buy services that they could perform themselves more often than not, in order to keep focus on core business. After a certain price they don't.

Forcing the immigrants away pushes up prices, which literally changes the internals of companies and how and what they buy over time. this is constantly afoot but there's an inherent risk that any given change may be for the worse.

</comment><comment><USER17> Being an Indian engineer myself the funniest part is that regardless of your branch/stream almost every person in my college got an IT job (your branch is decided by the entrance test).

We had a saying about TCS in our college "trespassers will be recruited". And they asked chemical engineering and GK questions during the placement tests. It was so weird when I think about it now.

<comment><USER18> What are examples are branch/stream? Are they just different engineering majors like Civil, Chemical, Mechanical?

<comment><USER17> Yes that is exactly it.

Competition is really fierce in Indian engineering colleges. The ratio is 1 out 10K (or something similar) for getting into good colleges so you end up picking any branch you can get.

I'm not sure how it is in other countries though.

<comment><USER18> Kind of the same in the US. Some majors are "impacted" which means tougher to get in due to heavy demand. Computer science/engineering used to be tough to get into even 20 years back before the internet became popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If India were smart they would copy China and ban Facebook, Google and the rest of the American web companies. This would have the effect of creating powerhouse Indian web companies similar to Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, etc in China which are now starting to break out to become global brands. India more than has the talent to pull this off.

<comment><USER2> China didn't ban those web companies for using their local talent. They did it as part of their censorship practices. There are plenty of Indian people working now in Google, Facebook etc. Google CEO itself is an Indian. It would be extremely foolish of any government to ban any entity solely to create an alternative with the hope of utilising its local talent. In India, so far this kind of discussions is solely focused on getting tax concessions for home grown companies (like for Flipkart, Ola which are Indian Amazon, Uber respectively). Even then, they are faced with lot of flak, since their investor money is mostly from abroad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> People recognize Indian engineers (competent or not, racism or no) as the weapons of wage suppression.

<comment><USER21> I mean, when you put your "scum-bag profit or nothing boss" thinking hat on, it makes so much sense.

You can hire these people, and they'll accept extremely noncompetitive wages (lowers wages), over-saturates the labour market (lowers wages), AND gives a nice boost to PR because on the outside it seems like this company is "diversely hiring from all backgrounds".

Great!

<comment><USER20> All the people who didn't wear that hat-- got fired by the people who did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1.I don't agree with the author, issue is local job loss due to immigration 2.Don't forget Google and Microsoft CEO's are INDIAN Engineers 3.Looks odd A Global leader Country advocating protectionism 4.Rather than job loss at micro level check How many Job loss due to wrong practice by companies to make more profits check "double-Irish" tax system used by Google, Apple and Oracle 5.Check Job loss due to scandals Enron,Lehman brothers [http://www.accounting- degree.org/scandals/](http://www.accounting-degree.org/scandals/) 6.Yes its eye opener for Indians only focusing on services thats why we don't have Baidu,Yandex and QQ What will happen If every country started nationalism, protectionism and avoids Products made by other countries? Who will hurt more?

</comment><comment><USER23> I met an Aussie guy here in Shenzhen this week who is quite wealthy indeed and who actually wants to spend money to bring some manufacturing to Australia from China.

Unfortunately, he can't get a visa for the one (Chinese) employee who really needs it (to plan out the factory and begin many million dollars of investment), and can't get a reason why out of the immigration department. Nobody in Australia can do the job because they don't have experience with current gear (Australian manufacturing is today basically a few specialist, legacy facilities and some defense-related stuff only) and it's only documented in Chinese.

Because the guy is wealthy and well connected and Australia is a small place, he managed to get some phone calls directly with the Immigration Minister, Mr. D., who essentially said "re-apply, I can't do anything". Meanwhile, the target region (with no jobs) has lost 200 planned jobs (including 30% committed to be allocated to disabled workers, and others likely to be allocated to challenged demographics such as aged workers) and the significant accompanying economic stimulation from the planned facility, and the guy is paying 10s of 1000s a month in opportunity costs. True story, this week.

</comment><comment><USER24> What a rubbish article.

In Australia for example it has NOTHING to with Indians and the situation is basically the same in all the countries listed. It is pure politics within the right-wing governments in power caused by the rise of nationalism, the struggles of blue collar workers who have been left behind and the fear of terrorism.

Politicians are so scared of being flanked by the right (e.g. Tony Abbott in Australia) that they are pushing the anti-immigrant angle at every opportunity. But if you look at the details you will see that any immigration changes are more about "feeling good" than doing anything substantive. For example recent changes in Australia have seen a "values" test added which is hilariously pointless. And in fact we have made it easier for highly skilled migrants to enter the country e.g. Indian IT consultants.

</comment><comment><USER25> All these returning engineers might be a great opportunity for India.

<comment><USER26> There will be a personal cost to many many of them becoming unemployed, but you are right - there will be some companies starting out this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Countries that are reducing numbers of immigrant workers

Is this headline accurate? Are numbers of immigrant workers reducing?

The H1B visa program is always over-subscribed more than 4x so if the number of applicants decreases, there is still the same number coming in.

Every country looks to be trying to reduce low-skilled immigration which is fair enough.

Its tiring these days that every headline is made alarmist by lumping all immigrants into one big group. Illegal immigration vs legal immigration is always referred to as simply "immigration". Low skilled vs high skilled = immigrant. Temporary working visa vs. foreign-born US citizen = immigrant.

</comment><comment><USER28> A rare example of government legislation being ahead of private sector practice.

</comment><comment><USER29> Despite the title of the article, I see one thing unmentioned: general reputation of incompetence. However, nearly everybody I know in IT, from different countries and backgrounds, knows "Indian code" to be a meme of not only bad quality but gross, mind-boggling incompetence.

I don't have a personal experience with indian companies and/or engineers, so don't have a personal opinion on that matter. If anything, it seems strange to me to translate an opinion about outsourcing companies from a poor country to top engineers from that country immigrating abroad. But regardless of whether that opinion is valid or not, people believe it and it certainly has an impact.

<comment><USER30> I've met a few brilliant Indian engineers. I asked one of them why he was different to his peers.

He explained that most of his peers don't enjoy or like what they are doing. They chose to become a developer, because it's a potential path to become a 'manager', which has a higher status in the eyes of their parents, friends and family.

Edit: But we have to be careful not to stereo type. I think a comment made here is pretty good 'Shit code doesn't have nationality'. We just need to understand the motivators for people to become an engineer and if the joy of creating something with code isn't up there and it's mainly about money or a stepping stone to higher status, then code quality will suffer as it seems.

<comment><USER31> True, I am an Indian engineer living in India and have written one of the most user friendly guides to writing webapps in Go, [https://github.com/thewhitetulip/web-dev-golang-anti- textboo...](https://github.com/thewhitetulip/web-dev-golang-anti-textbook)

Thus, we can't just generalize.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for sharing that link. A developer friend wants to explore GO, so I'll be forwarding your work.

<comment><USER31> The pleasure is mine :)

Thank you for forwarding!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't really get why the submission title was changed from the initial "Everywhere Indian engineers are unwanted," to the current one, since the former is the literal title in the linked article and its actual focus ?

I'm all for having reasonable Politically Correctness on HN, it just seems weird in this case.

</comment><comment><USER33> Visas are essential only for jobs for which face-2-face spitting is deemed a must. I am a programmer. I do not remember to ever have done a project where this was the case. If the client insists on unimportant issues, already when just recruiting programmers, what is the likelihood that his project will NOT fail? Every piece of bullshit is always just the beginning. You should expect an entire avalanche of bullshit to follow after that. In that sense, Indian programmers who worry about visas, undoubtedly deserve to worry about them, while the ones who don't worry about visas, know exactly why they do not need to worry about them.

</comment><comment><USER34> American salaries along with low taxes are way more attractive even compared to Nordic countries which apart from high taxes also have some of the highest living costs in the world.

The whole debate on suppressing incomes is quite debatable. Though one can see the argument for people who have spent decades working exclusively on legacy systems. When these become cost centres, companies try and outsource them.

The brief period that I spent working for an Indian outsourcer, I noticed almost every project was about maintenance of legacy systems.

<comment><USER4> Bringing in low cost foreign workers to maintain a system directly drags down the average wage, hurting Americans in the IT industry and lowering their income & benefits. Foreign workers are a tool that companies like to use to scare IT workers away from organizing & unionizing, keeping the Americans they do employ under foot and poorly paid.

As an example, Kroger has a support center for its Fred Meyer brand of stores in Portland, OR. As of last year, they were paying $12hr while expecting in depth networking knowledge, familiarity with SUSE & SunOS, and the ability to write moderately complex scripts for these legacy systems.

Comparatively, another employee who was transfered from Portland to Cleveland went from making a little over $14hr to $120k a year, as the market in Cleveland is apparently so barren of talent that poaching is a serious issue.

<comment><USER34> What you say is true, but as I mentioned that works only with legacy systems, which are often just cost centres.

There are in general very few people who can work with or want to work with legacy systems and therefore does demand a very good pay but it does not add any value to the American economy.

<comment><USER4> These aren't legacy systems, just a few years back Kroger started moving off IBM 4690, which was a legacy OS. That is gone from most areas of the business at this point, hence the expectation to be familiar with SUSE.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Self-XSS attack explained - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=956977232793

<comment><USER2> I believe the real problem lies in the fact that Flash can actually put things in your clipboard. There should be a security configuration in Flash that makes this clipboard "feature" disabled by default, or at least it should alert the user when the new clipboard content contains malicious code.

Another thing that _Facebook_ can do, is detect Wall-spamming and require the user to confirm that (s)he really wants to spam all his/her friends.

<comment><USER3> >Another thing that Facebook can do, is detect Wall-spamming and require the user to confirm that (s)he really wants to spam all his/her friends.

The XSS code could just be modified to automatically confirm its actions.

<comment><USER4> Not if it required a captcha.

<comment><USER5> But at that point, you're already working with a user that's fallen victim to social engineering. The script could likely find a way to present the captchas that would similarly fool the user into completing them.

<comment><AUTHOR> They could just tell the user that the captcha is part of the "security check" the user must do to see if they're in the 2% or whatever. Users will do almost anything if you instruct them well enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real question here is why is facebook embedding an untrusted widget. They should whitelist youtube, vimeo and all the major content providers and this issue is effectively gone.

I'm real curious about the url facebook is embedding. If it's an iframe, how does facebook tells that it should be embedded?

<comment><USER7> > The real question here is why is facebook embedding an untrusted widget.

1\. That's not really the question, at all. The attack works fine w/o flash. Flash just helps reduce friction. I'm pretty certain we've seen versions of the attack that don't use flash.

2\. Given #1, it doesn't solve the problem, and it creates a new one. See the other response you received.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure it might work without flash, there's no way to copy and paste, at least aside from IE[1]. What I'm arguing is the fact that the widget is embedded. Without it, at least one crucial step will be added (switch back to the previous tab), making the scam way less effective.

1: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/400212/how-to-copy-to- cli...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/400212/how-to-copy-to-clipboard-in- javascript) (yeah, it's kinda old, but just check google docs--even in chrome, there's no way to copy something with the menu)

<comment><AUTHOR> We've seen the same attack on a 3rd party site that pops up a facebook window that's minimized such that all you can see is the address bar, and has you paste into there. Perhaps a lower conversion rate, but still effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This type of attack has been possible for years, but wasn't really _replicating_ until the advent of social networking. Here is the bug I filed with Mozilla the first time I saw this type of attack in the wild: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=527530>

There is a lot of interesting discussion in the thread, and Brendan Eich shows up to throw up his two cents in as well.

Also, here is my blog post discussing an attack scenario: [http://www.nathanhammond.com/social-engineering-issue- with-j...](http://www.nathanhammond.com/social-engineering-issue-with- javascript-urls)

</comment><comment><USER9> Quick question, is there any difference between running code in the browser bar vs. running it in the Chrome console? If there isn't, Chrome should just disable this behavior. I don't think I've ever run code in the browser bar vs. the console because I usually have the console open or it's very easy to get to.

I bet most users would smell something fishy if they had to use something like the console to see a video. "Going to a website," even if it's a JS snippet, not a website, is something people are used to. Looking at developer tools, even if it's asking an end user to just see if there was an error, still feels very strange to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not 100% sure, but I think the chrome console is essentially the same, but you needn't prepend with javascript: and it has like autocompletion and history and a bunch of other things. Not sure why anyone would legitimately use the address bar for js.

<comment><USER10> _Not sure why anyone would legitimately use the address bar for js._

Bookmarklets, like <http://kathack.com/>.

<comment><USER11> Browsers can support bookmarklets without allowing javascript to be entered directly in the address bar.

<comment><USER12> Then the attack shifts. The "security check" becomes, drag this link to your bookmark bar and click it.

<comment><USER13> A solution to that for browser vendors: Don't let the user drag javascript links from iframes into the bookmark bar.

<comment><USER10> Why let users do anything in their browser? What if someone tricks them into jumping out their window?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


WEstinghouse innovative LFR brings bright future for nuclear power - <AUTHOR> http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/About/News/View/Westinghouse-Innovative-Lead-Cooled-Fast-Reactor-LFR-Brings-Bright-Future-for-Nuclear-Power <comment><AUTHOR> Proposed a feasibility study for the UK to UK Innovate Energy Catalyst competition last year these days and was rebuked with a "no market justification for this". Missed opportunity but vindicated, in the end.</comment>


Amazon Translate - <AUTHOR> https://sniphub.net/2019/02/28/Amazon-Translate.html <comment><USER2> I'm a little skeptical as to how accurate this is. It definitely looks like it operates at a better price point than Google's ridiculously expensive Translate API, but does it really offer a huge boost over say, OpenNMT? You can deploy OpenNMT at scale pretty cheaply using Amazon's own EC2 Load Balancer so I'm not sure...

Also do AWS credits apply to this? I and most startup founders I know have upwards of 30k$ in AWS credits usually sitting around so this would definitely go a long way as to integrating translation without running a pre-scale cost.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, these rest API's for translation are amazing. I did a localization from English -> French for a bunch of set top cable boxes by just piping all the UI strings into Googles translate API. No QA, nothing, straight into production lol!

<comment><USER4> Depending on your needs/budget it's probably not a bad way to go... if you have a large-ish open-source project and want to localize to a few languages, an initial pass like this, while taking pull requests is probably the best way to go.

<comment><USER5> Yes, the best way to get the correct solution to your problem is to post wrong solution on the Internet and wait for people to explain why you're utterly wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't know Amazon also had a translation service. I wonder how it compares to Bing, Systrans, and Google?

<comment><USER7> Add Deepl to the list

<comment><USER8> Frupr as well.

<comment><USER9> Azure too

<comment><USER10> It would be fun to see a website that lets the user input a string and compare all these APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Someone should really make a version of TranslationParty[1] that lets you choose/swap which translation service gets used.

[1] [https://www.translationparty.com](https://www.translationparty.com)</comment>


Nokia N9 Unlocked Goes on Sale in the US; Starts at $690 - <AUTHOR> http://www.devicemag.com/2011/11/05/nokia-n9-unlocked-goes-on-sale-in-the-us-starts-at-at-690/ Listen,America! The utterly gorgeous phone you have been waiting to lay your hands has now arrived in your midst, though in an unlocked form. <comment><USER2> wow, $690, does Nokia really expect people to shell out that much?</comment>


IRS sends warning letters to more than 10k cryptocurrency holders - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/irs-sending-warning-letters-to-more-than-10-000-cryptocurrency-holders-11564159523?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> > One version of the letter recently uploaded to the IRS website asks > recipients who believe they have followed the law to sign a statement

Does anyone have a link to the letters? It drives me mad that journalists refuse to link to primary sources.

<comment><USER3> > _One version of the letter recently uploaded to the IRS website asks > recipients who believe they have followed the law to sign a statement..._

Just a word of advice to anyone who may be receiving letters like this in the future. Do not, under any circumstances, sign a statement that you have followed the law without consulting with qualified counsel first. You should know that every time you sign off on something to the federal government, if it turns out not to be true, they got you on a count of Lying to the Federal Government. (Yes, each signature is a separate count. At least that's the way our lawyers explained it to us when advising us on FDA approval for our product.) So you can easily rack up years behind bars in this situation right? There's the original forms in you return. How many times did you sign papers there? Then there's this statement that they want you to sign. That's another potential count.

What's worse, you may have made an honest mistake, and you really do believe that you are in compliance. So you go ahead and sign such a statement. Only you weren't in compliance. Now what? I hate to say this, but just don't. Don't sign it. Get everything looked over by the experts first. Maybe they can even negotiate with the IRS on your behalf if you have made a mistake.

But you don't want to be in the position of having signed something like that with honest mistakes potentially out there in your documentation.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. It falls in line with similar to "don't talk to the police". Just keep quiet. This applies to everything when dealing with any government agency. The government is not your friend.

<comment><USER5> People say stuff to police that's later used against them in court all the time, so I agree keeping quiet is generally good advice. You should still use your common sense though.

I have a friend who took this advice way too literally when we were 18.

I was in the car when he got pulled over for speeding once, and he refused to say a single word to the officer. He handed over his license, registration and proof of insurance, but wouldn't answer any questions.

The cop asked how him how fast he thought he was going, and my friend didn't even tell the cop that he wouldn't answer his questions. It was just the straight silent treatment. The cop was clearly getting agitated. I was begging my friend just to answer the questions, even if just say he didn't remember or something, but he refused.

Fortunately, his grandma is in the backseat and really saved the day by apologizing for her idiot grandson. My friend wound up only getting a warning thanks to his grandma, but no doubt we would have gotten a big ticket at the minimum if he kept the silent treatment up.

Another time, we both got busted for launching bottle rockets in a public park a couple weeks after the 4th of July. There were several witnesses including the people that called the cops, but once again my friend did the exact same silent treatment to the cops. I sang like a bird about my own actions while being careful not to say that my friend had also launched rockets.

Fortunately the questions were directed at both of us, and we weren't asked specifically who all was involved before my friend felt guilty that I was taking all the blame and started talking to the cops himself.

Good thing because in Ohio launching bottle rockets is an M-1 misdemeanor carrying up to a six month prison sentence. The cops could have been jerks, but instead they recommended that the prosecutor drop charges after we did some community service. Had my friend stuck with the silent treatment, I fully believe we would have been punished more severely.

Again I urge common sense. Every situation is different. Had it been someone else or somewhere else or a slightly different situation, being quiet could have been the right decision. This could be an example of white privilege, but so far in my life, I've never regretted just being honest with the cops.

<comment><USER6> > in Ohio launching bottle rockets is an M-1 misdemeanor carrying up to a six > month prison sentence

I wonder if we're thinking of the same kind of bottle rocket... like a plastic soda bottle propelled into the air by water and/or compressed air? Why is the penalty so severe?

<comment><USER5> I've played with those too, but the bottle rockets I got in trouble for were small fireworks. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrocket](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrocket)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is no different from any other profit or gain. The Government isn't specifically targeting these people; it just wants them to make sure they realize it's like any other investment.

<comment><USER8> Here's one situation where it is very different.

Say I get paid 100 BTC for doing a job worth $100/BTC at the time or $10000. Now, say BTC drops to $1/BTC. I owe income tax on the $10000. Let's say I owe $2000 (20%) in taxes. However, I only have $100 now. My effective tax rate is 2000%.

This does allow for a small deduction of capital gains each year. However you can only deduct $3000 a year in capital gains. In a larger scenario, this would take decades to fully receive your total deduction.

<comment><USER9> > _Here 's one situation where it is very different._

Good god, no it is not different.

When the internet bubble collapsed in 2000, it literally bankrupted some people who had been compensated with stock options because of taxes. Exercising the options not only had resulted in greater income, but it caused AMT to kick in.

Moreover, some of the exercised options yielded stock that was still in lock- up due to IPO agreements. (People were anxious to start the long-term capital gains clock.) Shares plummeted even before they could be sold to pay off the taxes due.

The moral of the story is: Make sure to set aside money (liquid, USD) for taxes if you get hit with a sudden windfall. (edit addition, JumpCrisscross comment below has it right.)

Here's a couple of links to that history:

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-tech-taxes- story.html](https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-tech-taxes-story.html)

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/11/10/rescue-bill-offers- re...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/11/10/rescue-bill-offers-relief-to- some-valley-taxpayers-hit-with-the-amt/)

<comment><USER10> > _When the internet bubble collapsed in 2000, it literally bankrupted people > who had been compensated with stock options_

Best practice is to sell stock sufficient to pay for taxes when exercising options. (Same for workers subject to U.S. taxation being paid in a foreign currency.)

<comment><USER11> Alternatively, you can sell a covered collar that protects your downside enough to know that you'll have the cash on hand come tax time. This limits your upside somewhat, but usually less than selling the stock outright. Mark Cuban famously used this strategy to protect his Broadcast.com payout under lock-out.

[https://www.acceleratedfi.com/real-world-options-example- how...](https://www.acceleratedfi.com/real-world-options-example-how-mark- cuban-used-options-to-survive-the-dotcom-crash/)

(Check the details of your contracts with an attorney and financial advisor; I've heard that some lock-outs now explicitly forbid trading in derivatives of the stock to prevent doing what Cuban did. With financial engineering being as advanced as it is, though, it's always possible to create a "synthetic" derivative that is nearly guaranteed to have the same value as a particular options strategy without mentioning the particular asset involved.)

<comment><USER12> Trading options against employer's stock may be forbidden by insider trading policy. It was in my previous job (along with shorting, and only trading during trading windows). Can't say I disagree with such policies.

Other than that yeah, get a collar or just straight up buy some puts. Or like others recommended - sell some % instantly and put in high grade bonds, or a savings account. Forgetting taxes is a big mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To highlight how nuts this could be:

I travel to India every year, and I always carry with me a few hundred USD worth of rupees (the local currency).

It would be insane for me to try and track the value of the rupees (in USD) for every time I bought something, and calculate the deltas between that and what I originally gave to the money changer. It is completely impractical to do that, and while I'm not an accountant, I have an intuition that for any reasonable amount of money that any traveller would be carrying with them, the fluctuations are irrelevant.

And yet this is what people using cryptocurrencies are expected to do.

Obviously if there is a large capital loss or gain, then this should be reported on your taxes, and I suspect the same is true for foreign currency exchange.

I guess to ask a question: are individuals expected to track the fluctuations in USD value of their cash while travelling? If so: is there a threshold? Why is crypto different (other than some belief that it might be more convenient).

<comment><USER14> The IRS has decided to treat cryptocurrency as an asset (like gold) instead of a currency.

<comment><USER15> Well a lot of people are treating cryptocurrencies as speculative assets. ICOs wouldn't have been such a big thing if people didn't do that.

So why shouldn't the IRS do the same?

<comment><USER16> The ICO market crashed and trading volume on crypto exchanges keeps dipping lower and lower and lower. Its main use-case has shifted back to currency after a failed bid as a security.

<comment><USER17> Can you refer me to the source of "crypto exchanges [volume] keeps dipping", please? I'm looking at BTC volume and it's not dipping at all. There was a sharp drop in Jan '17 when Chinese exchanges were forced to close. Other than that volume correlates to the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My experiences with the IRS have been nothing but positive over the years. They were always polite and clear in their positioning. They either made corrections in my favor or sought more information to identify what if any additional taxes I owed due to a mistake in my filing.

What I suspect is happening here is that the IRS is figuring out how to prioritize it's investigations. Sign or don't, it only determines when you are investigated. Once they've identified a holder of bitcoin it's likely that an investigation will be forthcoming.

</comment><comment><USER19> So long as this is the case how can it possibly make sense to use bitcoin to actually transact e.g. fulfill the vision of bitcoin as "digital money" if every time you buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin the expectation is that you'd have to calculate capital gains and report every year?

<comment><USER20> It's not buying a cup of coffee that's the issue. The issue is in converting between currencies, which is no different than investing in foreign currencies. If you exchange USD for EUR, wait a while, then exchange back to USD and you've made a profit, it's taxable.

<comment><USER21> _Every_ taxable event is something you have to keep track of.

And _spending_ appreciated crypto, even on coffee, or anything else, is a taxable event.

So the point stands that using crypto as "spending money" vs purposefully saving it as store of value is going to be a real pain, for all of the technical reasons but also the tax complexity.

To see why this is the case, imagine someone saved BTC as store of value, then years later exchanged it for a house.

They didn't sell if for $. But they used its appreciated value to buy something. There is a capital gain involved, and so taxes as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't think most people getting phone calls or letters from the IRS think any of them are real at this point.

<comment><USER23> Worth noting that the IRS will not call without having sent a letter first

<comment><USER4> New scams have been sending fake letters claiming to be from the irs.

<comment><USER24> I haven't seen the letters. Isn't that considered a federal crime since it's fraud via the US Postal Service?

<comment><USER13> Isn't it fraud already a federal crime?

<comment><USER25> Federal? No. You defraud someone and it is state, local, or even civil.. unless circumstance (e.g. via mail) makes it a federal offense.

<comment><USER13> What about if you defraud somebody by pretending to be the IRS?

<comment><USER26> Probably a federal crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So why do we have to file? Why cant the IRS just tell us every year if we owe or not and how much?

<comment><USER28> A serious answer that isn't just "lobbyists":

Even if the IRS had perfect info about all your income and investments, there are decisions you can make which effectively make taxes non-deterministic. Suppose on two different dates, you bought shares of a company. Then on a later date, you sold one share. You get to choose which purchase date to count the sale as being against. This is important because you pay on the profit made based on that assumption. It also effects whether you pay short-term or long-term capital gains taxes for the sale.

Say for example you bought 1 share for $100 two years ago, and another share for $500 one month ago. One week ago, you sold one share for $1000. If you count it as selling the $100 share, then you must pay taxes on $900 in profit, BUT you enjoy the lower long-term capital gain tax rate. If you count it as selling the $500 share, you must pay taxes on only $500 in profits, BUT you suffer the short-term capital gain tax rate. Which of the two should you do (if you're a hypothetical perfectly rational actor who always makes absolutely optimal decisions)? Depends on what you plan to do with the other share, what you think is going to happen to the stock price, and so many other factors you could write a 10,000-page book about them...

<comment><USER29> Lot identification actually isn't a tax-time decision; it's a transaction-time decision. If you don't identify the specific lot you're selling (or more specifically if your broker isn't given or doesn't follow instructions which lot to sell), then in general sales are treated as FIFO, which might not be surprising because that characterization leads to maximum gain in a rising market. See Internal Revenue Service Publication 550 for more. This means that the tax treatment of a stock sale is in fact fixed at the time of transaction; moreover, it's entirely automatable by standing instructions to the brokerage, which most brokerages routinely offer as a feature ("tax optimizer" or "tax- lot optimizer" or similar language).

(This of course is all US tax code, not applicable to US states or other countries.)

<comment><USER28> Not a tax lawyer, but _reporting_ of lot identification is a tax-time decision, at least for the things being discussed in this thread.

If it's transaction-time then that's totally unenforceable since this discussion applies to things as diverse as trading physical goods for other physical goods in an ad hoc unrecorded environment. It would make no sense for it to automatically be FIFO anyway, for example a person with amnesia might temporarily forget their ownership of longer-term holdings.

And for just one example where FIFO would be suboptimal despite a rising market, merely suppose that you know you're about to die and your children are about to inherit everything with a higher cost basis, but you need a bit of cash right now. (I highly doubt tax optimizer software has achieved the strong AI that would be necessary to know if you're about to die.)

<comment><USER30> You've clearly never bought and sold stock in two different lots in the US before. Brokerages report cost-basis to the IRS, this basis will be calculated based on your selection when you initiate the trade.

You can't start talking about other capital gains in the same sentence as regulated securities as the reporting requirements are going to be different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> For what it's worth, Gemini doesn't report everything to the IRS. This is the response I got from them when I asked last year:

 _" Gemini is required to report gross proceeds paid to US customers from bitcoin or ether sales on the Gemini exchange on IRS Forms 1099-K when applicable reporting thresholds are met. Typically, Form 1099-K reporting will be required by Gemini where the number of bitcoin or ether sales transactions on the exchange exceeds 200 transactions per year AND the total sales proceeds from all sales transactions exceeds $20,000 per year."_

<comment><USER32> Coinbase didn't "report" these account holders, they were given a subpoena to turn it over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm sure there's a lot to know about this topic, but it's odd to me that they'd treat a "currency" as an appreciating asset. If I'm given a dollar (or peso) as change, and if between the time I receive the dollar and the time I spend it the currency purchasing power increases, I do not pay taxes on that gain. I can just buy more stuff with that dollar (including other currencies). In this instance, where it's increasingly true that bitcoin can be used as currency to purchase goods and services, it's odd to me that those are realizing events that require you calculate gain. I get it that shares of stock work that way, but I can't buy a hamburger with shares of stock.

<comment><USER34> How practical is bitcoin as a currency for day to day use. I thought the transaction time was 10 to 30 minutes. I get frustrated at the checkout counter when my credit card takes longer than 10 seconds.

10 to 30 minutes seems a lot closer to how long it takes for a stock sale to go through on E-Trade so I can see why the IRS would classify it more like a stock than currency.

<comment><USER35> Ignoring the periods in the past with very high transaction fees and network congestion, for the most part it's been as practical as a card and often faster since I can just use my phone to scan a QR code and click a verify button. We can also ignore the lightning network in the calculation of practicality. Normally if I send you a payment you'll see the notification of a pending transaction with the amount on your side pretty much immediately. There is a risk that I could after walking off with the goods create a new transaction with a higher fee (especially if the replace-by-fee flag was part of the original send, and one might want to be more cautious if that was the case) to send them to myself instead, though even if I try it's not guaranteed to succeed. If you wait around for on average ten minutes (could in actuality be a few seconds, could be more than ten minutes) for the transaction to get one confirmation in a block you can be a lot more certain no shenanigans will occur. Most merchants will use a third party system that will take on this risk for you. I don't know if third party systems like Stripe do the same for credit cards, but credit cards have the same risk profile. (I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting the goods. They'll then in turn not honor the charge. It takes something like 180 days before a CC charge becomes much harder for the payer to dispute, vs. bitcoin's 10 minutes for very hard and 60 minutes for basically impossible. Seems like an ok tradeoff to me.)

<comment><USER36> > _for the most part it 's been as practical as a card and often faster_

Have you ever used a card? If you think that opening your phone, scanning a QR and then hitting "verify" is faster than a tap or swipe of your credit card, I'm not sure what to tell you. _Best_ case scenario, they're about the same.

> _I can call up my card company and claim a fraudulent charge after getting > the goods_

And they'll investigate and determine you committed fraud, and you'll be fined or go to prison. What's the equivalent with Bitcoin?

<comment><USER35> I of course use a card frequently, though have yet to have the "pleasure" of dealing with a tap-to-pay card. I don't really want to. I'd say average case (not best case) is they're about the same, but yes, getting out my phone and unlocking it, opening the bitcoin app, scanning the QR code and hitting confirm, then putting my phone away, is indeed often faster than getting out my wallet, picking out my card from the other crap in there, inserting it into the chip reader (or swiping it), and hitting confirm (after maybe having to enter a pin or zip code or tell it "this is a credit card" or dismiss a "do you want to donate to grocery store's cause-of-the-month?" dialog) and then sometimes having to sign a printout or a touch screen, then putting my card back into the wallet and putting my wallet away. CCs are a usability nightmare that I'm amazed we put up with.

> And they'll investigate

Have you never reported fraudulent charges before? There's basically no investigation unless it was an ACH thing.

<comment><USER37> Using a tap-to-pay card would probably change your perspective. They were specifically designed to eliminate that usability nightmare. I find them easier to use than Apple Pay (because Touch ID only works about 90% of the time for me), and certainly easier than scanning a QR code (look at the queue of people struggling to enter any concert with electronic ticketing). The only downside is that you still have to carry a card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So how does BitCoin Cash distribution get handled in USA?

Is it like a dividend? A stock split? A spin-off?

What about all of these airdropped tokens? Are they dividends, with tax payable even if you didn't "collect" them in some way? Or splits?

Can you deduct the Day1 value of the new token from the capital gain on the first token? Or do you assume the cost of the new token was $0 and any sale is a total capital gain?

<comment><USER39> I'm not sure the burden is on the individual unless they recognize receipt of the cryptocurrency. If someone mails you $100 and you discard it I don't think you owe taxes on it. Same for air drops and forks like Bitcoin gold.

Bitcoin cash, if you acknowledged receipt of it, is exactly like earning $266 and must be reported, at least that's what tax experts noted at the time: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/08/04/ho...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/08/04/how- to-report-bitcoin-cash-and-avoid-irs-trouble/)

<comment><USER38> The $100 for nothing, I agree.

But if something that you owned mailed you $100 because you owned them, that sounds taxable in some way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> There are a bunch of websites that will help compile your crypto trades into the forms you need for your taxes. This year I used cointracker.io and it worked pretty good for me. It created a file that was easily imported into TurboTax. Also if you lost money on crypto you can claim some of that as a deduction.

</comment><comment><USER41> Crypto trading is so casual it's very easy to not realize you have legal responsibilities. That's what got Chris Boden of The Geek Group arrested.

</comment><comment><USER42> As far as I understand it, IRS wants cryptocurrency traders to report USD profit on every trade. This gets extremely ugly if you are trading one cryptocurrency for another, as these trades are unclear as to whether they are an entry or an exit.

Now, I simply recommend that everyone only trades USD-to-crypto and back, never crypto-to-crypto if you want to comply with tax law - it gets very complicated fast.

<comment><USER43> > This gets extremely ugly if you are trading one cryptocurrency for another, > as these trades are unclear as to whether they are an entry or an exit.

Trading one crytocurrency for another is a taxable event. Just like how trading one real currency for another is a taxable event. It's not unclear and trading platforms provide tax tools that solves this problem

I traded crypto and paid my taxes

<comment><USER44> I believe prior to 2018 this was not the case with crypto.

<comment><USER45> Weren't they treated more like property then?

<comment><USER46> I think Like-Kind is the term. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC any crypto-for-crypto was a Like-Kind exchange prior to Jan 1, 2018.

<comment><USER25> There is no evidence this is the case except wishful thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Having talked to many people I do believe there is low tax compliance, but having read how the IRS rationalized the Coinbase subpoena to the judge I realize they have no idea to tell if they have compliance or not.

They merely did a search string for 2015 for "bitcoin" in tax filings and found 800 people filed that way. So I checked my 2015 tax filings and saw I had manually entered "LTC" for closing a litecoin trade to US dollars. Hm okay, so one of the most compliant US citizens isn't counted as one of the 800 people, got it.

So then Coinbase's compliance with the subpoena now has them automatically sending Schedule D information to the IRS and to users based on a net value of any holdings in their account. But Coinbase doesn't know what any of the holdings or transactions represent, just like your bank doesn't know what your deposits and transfers represent. A third party is now assuming that its users are on the hook for capital gains, causing a filed accounting discrepancy for everyone.

Fascinatingly incompetent.

<comment><USER48> "Coinbase doesn't know what any of the holdings or transactions represent"

I had a KYC interview with Coinbase wondering where my coins came from. (I mined them in the 2009 to 2010 era when they were worthless, mined before the famous 10000 bitcoin pizza delivery, LOL). So they have a statement from me, which is probably now on file with the IRS.

Now here's a puzzler... I got my 6174-A and so I verified my coinbase register and old tax form reported cap gains from sales match to the penny. Which they do. So now what do I do, just sweat I guess.

<comment><USER12> As always - get a professional to look into your situation. Hopefully you've made enough profit to pay the few hundred $ and forget about it. And if you made it big time - congrats man!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Chuck Rettig, the new IRS commissioner comes from a tax litigation background. He's got a lot of experience and is preparing for one of the next big tax battles which is how to bring crypto under compliance with the current tax regime.

I still think they lack the technical knowledge to understand crypto and as a result, you'll start to see an increase in information being requested.

In any case, I willing to bet that you'll have a couple of court cases that will really bring crypto into compliance in a way that makes sense for 80% of the people.

<comment><USER50> > I still think they lack the technical knowledge to understand crypto and as > a result, you'll start to see an increase in information being requested.

On the contrary, I think that the IRS knows cryptocurrency very well. The reason why the IRS requests information is that they want to prove to a court that they went out of their way to give taxpayers the benefit of the doubt. They want to be able to tell a judge "we gave this person ample opportunity to explain the situation and correct any misunderstandings before taking enforcement action". The IRS will go through the motions of requesting information even if— _especially_ if—they know full well that fraud has occurred, just to strengthen their case.

</comment></comment><comment> matt-attack > The Coinbase customers whose information was turned over bought, sold, sent > or received digital currency worth $20,000 or more between 2013 and 2015.

Is that in today's value or at the time?

<comment><USER51> I believe they valued at time-of-transaction. e.g. if you had no other transactions except for a $100 buy in 2013 that you immediately withdrew to personal cold storage, and then that appreciated to $20k+ today, you shouldn't have been included, assuming they supplied only the minimum amount of info legally required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I got a notice that registered mail failed to deliver from the IRS. Since I have no other dealings/reason for them to send me mail, I'm assuming I'm one of the ones. Will find out Monday.

<comment><USER52> And for the record, all my bitcoin dealings have been this year (late starter) so I have nothing to worry about with unclaimed income. (Thank you flying spaghetti monster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is a question I don't know. And I was wondering if HN could shed some light on this.

The IRS treats bitcoin as an investment property. What happens when one trades investment property for a car, or a boat, say?

<comment><USER54> I'm not an accountant, but based on what I know about stocks you would get taxed on you financial gains (if any) based on the market value of the bitcoin at the time you trade it for the car.

<comment><USER53> So that would probably hold true with bitcoin since the IRS sees bitcoin as an "investment property" more akin to stocks and bonds.

<comment><USER55> It is the same as using anything other than USD to trade for something. Wether that is Stocks, Euros, GBP, goats, if you bought it at one price and traded it for something else based on a different price, you owe taxes for your capital gains from holding that asset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> So under the current laws does a person only pay taxes when converting to and from fiat to crypto, or does it apply to crypto transactions of any kind?

<comment><USER57> I believe this is where a lot of the confusion comes from. If you use Coinbase to directly trade crypto (e.g. BTC for ETH) this is a taxable event on your BTC even though you never touch fiat in the process.

<comment><USER44> Didn't this recently change? Prior to 2018 was it not considered a "like for like" transaction?

<comment><USER58> Only against the advice of most accountants. Exchanges between different grades of the same precious metal aren't considered like kind transactions, so it seems pretty unlikely this "trick" would work for crypto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wish there's a way to change the regulation to leave crypto alone.

Me watching too much fight club and partying with too much tea..

</comment><comment><USER60> Glad I sold at the peak and made sure that my accountant filed the appropriate gains paperwork.

</comment><comment><USER61> Crypto currencies have properties of a lot of different types of assets. The crypto tax scenario should reflect that it is different than any existing single class of asset and should be treated as uniquely as it is.

</comment><comment><USER62> I am not a tax expert, so I'll spare you my advice.

</comment><comment><USER63> The math behind crypto doesn't magically make you immune to government oversight. All they have to do is ask, and you better not lie.

<comment><USER64> It depends where you do your transactions. If you do it on CoinBase, yes, you are going to be tracked. There are many other options though where you don't have to provide ID.

<comment><USER65> Right now it's pretty hard to live on cryptocurrency alone. Which means at some point you will need dollars (or Euros or whatever), and that transaction is almost always traceable to a person.

<comment><USER64> I don't know a lot of people who only have cryptocurrency income. Most people have a regular job, but then decide to put a % of their savings into crypto. You can use your job income to pay for transactions. If there are any cryptocurrency income, it's then up to you how to manage that. Put that into traditional finance (then declare it), hold (not selling, so there are no capital gains, so no tax), or use crypto to buy products that are outside traditional finance

<comment><USER65> This is true with cash too. You can take part of your income into cash and make anonymous transactions with cash, and maybe even profit from them in an untraceable way.

But you better hope it is truly untraceable, and that no one else involved in that transaction makes it traceable, otherwise the IRS will come for you.

Same with crypto, except it is a lot easier for someone else to make you traceable since all the transactions can be traced to their origin on the blockchain. If someone you transacted with files US taxes, it's not that hard for the IRS to trace that back and ask who the BTC came from. It would only take one person turning on you for you to get caught.

It's really not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> It's not sustainable to tax regular Joe for each and every cryptocurrency transaction due to the nature of cryptocurrencies, especially in the US where people have to do all of their taxes on their own.

I believe Canada has something like 20% tax on the profits you get out of cryptocurrencies for the year, which I think is a much simpler system that makes much more sense.

<comment><USER67> The U.S. works the same way. You are taxed on the net short or long term capital gains not on every transaction. So if you made $1000 on one trade and lost $500 on another you would only be taxes on the net $500 profit.

<comment><USER68> That's actually not true right now. Every time you trade it's a taxable event. So if you went USD --> BTC --> ETH --> BTC --> USD you would need to show 4 transactions to the IRS.

The total tax burden will look a lot like (Final USD - Total USD) * (Short Term Cap Gains Rate) but you can't just report it that way.

In 2017 I mucked around with Crypto and accumulated about 50 transactions over ~5 currencies. Reporting was a monster pain in the ass.

<comment><USER69> Given the libertarian bent of some people who are most attracted to Cryptocurrencies I'm guessing many don't report anything to the IRS voluntarily.

Even regular capital gains are kind of a pain to report, especially when you've inherited the stocks from a deceased relative who kept no records about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Fake money, real problems.

</comment><comment><USER71> Sure, it makes sense to tax earnings from cryptocurrency trading.

But aren't there bigger fish to fry, richer people more flagrantly evading taxes? Let's sort that out first, k

<comment><USER72> There are two separate matters here. Defining the law and enforcing the law. Misreporting capital gains on crypto violates existing law and is illegal today. Tax evasion by legitimate means (401ks, IRAs, writing off losses) is perfectly legal, and if you or I have complaints, this should be taken up with policy makers and at voting booths.

<comment><USER10> > _Tax evasion by legitimate means_

Tax _avoidance_ is legal. Tax _evasion_ is illegally not paying taxes. (The distinction is purely legal.)

If you don't like someone's tax avoidance, you change the law. If you don't like someone's tax evasion, you prosecute them.

<comment><USER72> Thanks for the correction, totally mixed up the terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> So the real question is, what exchange can I use as an American that doesn't report to the IRS?

<comment><USER74> You could sell your crypto to someone for cash

<comment><USER75> [https://localbitcoins.com/](https://localbitcoins.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> This will be a very unpopular opinion, but it is true: USA is much better than 200 years ago; if 200 years ago you were a slave, 100% of your output belonged to your master. Now your government owns only 40-50% of your output and you feel totally free. The only bad thing is that almost 100% of the population is now a half-slave. You don't chose what to pay, how much and what for, you just have to pay up, or else. Yes, you get some services, whatever the governments wants to, same as slaves got shelter and food, as much as the master wanted to. I see some similarities, tell me they don't exist.

<comment><USER77> This is just foolishness. Are some rich people still exploiting others and rigging the system? Sure. But chattel slavery was an extraordinary evil. It's at best vacuous to put it in the same moral bucket as a democracy where people vote to, say, make sure old people don't starve in the streets.

<comment><USER51> > people vote

The "high taxation is not slavery, because you voted" argument lost all merit once net recipients of the welfare state became able to out-vote its net contributors - which has already happened in the US.

> make sure old people don't starve

If only that were what the extent of what social security actually does. But it's not properly asset tested. So broke millenials are paying a ton of payroll taxes, which are - after substantial adminsitrative overhead - transferred to their elders who almost always have significantly more assets than they do, and often don't even need a transfer at all, let alone as their only way of avoiding starvation.

<comment><USER77> One, your numbers for "already happened in the US" are at best erroneous. The question of who gets what from labor is complicated, but the one thing for sure is that there are no easy answers, because labor itself is deeply social.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


9 Tips to Contact VCs If You Don't Have Friends in VC - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/point-nine-news/9-tips-to-cold-call-vcs-like-a-pro-ffa58f5edd8c <comment><USER2> The principal of respecting junior people that they send you is a big one in business. Being rude to the maid or anyone else is a classic mistake in job interviewing. If you are going for the C-Suite you will need to be smooth and get along with all sorts of people, really leave them with the feeling that you care about them and that you hear them, so you'd better get started now.</comment>


'Alien Megastructure' Star Targeted by $100M SETI Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/34505-alien-megastructure-star-seti-search.html <comment><USER2> Planets are far more common than we thought a little while ago. I assume that makes alien life likely to be far more common too. As our technology improves, such as pattern recognition and signal processing, I also would guess that we can search far faster and more effectively and that our search speed and accuracy will quickly improve.

Per Wikipedia, FWIW:

 _A 2013 study based on results from the Kepler spacecraft estimated that the Milky Way contains at least as many planets as it does stars, resulting in 100–400 billion exoplanets_

When does it become critical, and not an interesting intellectual exercise, to decide whether we want to find alien life and what to do if such a thing happens.

(The discussion is well-worn, that it could be beneficial and that it could be catastrophic, either due to superior technology, disease, or the endless unexpected possibilities.)</comment>


Node.js Has Been Forked - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iojs/io.js#readme

<comment><AUTHOR> For the curious, like me, some more goodies...

Homepage: [http://iojs.org/](http://iojs.org/)

Logos: [https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/37](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/37)

Confusion: [https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/3](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/3)

Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669557)

</comment><comment><USER2> There isn't a single line on that page that suggests any reason why you might want to chose it over nodejs. It would seem before you tell people how to install it that you give them a reason why they should.

<comment><USER3> Unofficial, but relevant - [https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io/issues/2#issuecomment...](https://github.com/iojs/iojs.github.io/issues/2#issuecomment-65451606)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous thread

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669557)

</comment><comment><USER5> I do wonder if this will actually take off and would love to see a bit more content on why they needed to fork node.

</comment><comment><USER6> The one thing I can't tell about io.js or node-forward is whether any attempts will be made for PRs against Node 'proper' in an effort to eventually reunify and improve the entire existing ecosystem.

The vast majority of Node end-users aren't missing major functionality from the existing API, so being able to share improvements with mainline Node will be the only way to show that there actually are better features coming out of the forks. Otherwise features developed in the forks will have much narrower adoption and will likely seem unstable/untested.

</comment><comment><USER7> I know this group includes a lot of prominent Node core developers but they're doing a pretty terrible job of explaining why this is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER8> A competing node.js fork is a good thing! With Node Forward and io.js everybody wins.

If you are curious about node-forward vs io.js take a look at the end of the node-forward page [http://nodeforward.org](http://nodeforward.org) to see how they are related :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's been forked 7,497 times, at least.</comment>


The perfect cybercrime: selling fake followers to fake people - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2111613-the-perfect-cybercrime-selling-fake-followers-to-fake-people/ <comment><USER2> "These zombie followers are available to buy in packs of 1000 (for $2.95) to 50,000 ($249.95)."

Um, _what_? What kind of idiot overpays by 66% to buy a _larger_ quantity?

How does an editor read that and not question it?</comment>


Ask AI: Is Bob Dylan an Author or a Songwriter? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/syncedreview/ask-ai-is-bob-dylan-an-author-or-a-songwriter-ee6875d44950 <comment><USER2> I dunno, but I do know when I was standing in a crowd of 1000s at the Desert Trip concert he couldn't even muster a single "thank you" for those of us who paid and showed up.

Considering the lineup, he appeared to be a giant dick.</comment>


MongoDB Aggregation Framework - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mongodb.org/post/16015854270

<comment><USER2> This looks good and is a natural step to VIEW equivalents.</comment>


Is it time to reimagine the World Wide Web? - <AUTHOR> http://jonovono.github.com/Wpp/

<comment><USER2> One of the things I've been surprised by is the lack of attention given to Namecoin relative to the attention Bitcoin's gotten. Namecoin's .bit addresses are currently incredibly cheap relative to normal domain names. Plus, since Namecoin addresses are just JSON, all sorts of small bits of data can be securely stored by the owner of an address.</comment>


The hard truth about the full stack developer. Myths and lies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alexkatrompas/the-hard-truth-about-the-full-stack-developer-myths-and-lies-945ffadeeb8c <comment><USER2> It's just a label describing a programmer who typically works on both front and backend.

Not all developers want to or can work on both sides.

Why was an essay written about this? seems pointless to me.</comment>


There's a Global Race to Control Batteries–and China Is Winning - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/theres-a-global-race-to-control-batteriesand-china-is-winning-1518374815 <comment><USER2> [https://qz.com/1004330/north-korea-is-sitting-on- trillions-o...](https://qz.com/1004330/north-korea-is-sitting-on-trillions-of- dollars-on-untapped-wealth-and-its-neighbors-want-a-piece-of-it/)

As mentioned in Tom Clancy: Full Force and Effect.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm probably not the only one asking myself whether Cobalt is really necessary for competitive batteries: [http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/race-cobalt- free-recha...](http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/race-cobalt-free- rechargeable-batteries)

</comment><comment><USER4> Free of paywall: [https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/...](https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/theres- a-global-race-to-control-batteriesand-china-is-winning-1518374815)

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like someone inserted a smart apostrophe and attempted to escape it leading to a visible /' in the caption of one of the later pictures.

</comment><comment><USER7> Mr President, we must not allow a battery gap!

<comment><USER8> This is a reference to Dr. Strangelove[1]

Whatever the enemy does (there, Russia building mine shafts) we must do to counter. A humorous classic which explains a mindset and was far closer to the truth than people like to admit.

Worth a view. Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

[1] [https://www.getyarn.io/yarn- clip/c00b94e5-bbb3-4ea9-a078-7a1...](https://www.getyarn.io/yarn- clip/c00b94e5-bbb3-4ea9-a078-7a1a21b87bc5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's with HN's weird obsession with China? Every other day it's a new sensationalized headline about how China is somehow taking over AI, or startups, or the world. Is China just a easy catalyst for American insecurity or is there some other trend that I'm missing here?

<comment><USER10> China is the second largest economy in the world and will likely be the largest one in within one or two decades. Is it really that strange that it's often in the news?

In Europe, the USA still makes the news far more often than China, so here we all have a "weird obsession" with the USA.

<comment> dis-sys > China is the second largest economy in the world and will likely be the > largest one in within one or two decades.

No, China is just a poor developing country with a per capita GDP of around $8k USD. That is just a small fraction of what US/EU achieved. Everything is just because of the huge population, but again that is not an advantage when the population is rapidly ageing.

Chinese communist party recently announced the goal to reach $12k USD gdp per capita in 2020, basically they want 1.4 billion people to work damn hard for the next 3-4 years to reach 20% of today's American GDP per capita level! To give you better understanding on this matter - US economy is growing 2.5%-3% annually in the last few quarters, with that kind of growth, in the same 2018-2020 period, US GDP per capita is going to add up to 9% and that new volume expected to be added is comparable to the entire Chinese per capita GDP figure.

Focusing on the total GDP and intentionally downplaying China's extremely poor per capita figure is not even politically correct - what can be individually achieved & enjoyed by those 1.4 billion regular Chinese are clearly far more important than a meaningless national GDP figure.

<comment><USER11> > Focusing on the total GDP and intentionally downplaying China's extremely > poor per capita figure is not even politically correct - what can be > individually achieved & enjoyed by those 1.4 billion regular Chinese are > clearly far more important than a meaningless national GDP figure.

Depends what you're evaluating. If you're evaluating standard of living, yes. If OTOH you're evaluating the power potential of a country's government, then total GDP is more important than GDP/capita.

<comment> dis-sys power potential of a country's government? what is the point of having/backing it when regular citizens couldn't have a fair share of that power?

telling 1.4 billion Chinese to work their ass off for the next 3-4 years so China's GDP per capita figure can reach 20% of today's US GDP per capita is not impressive at any level. it is a solid proof that China is still damn poor after 40 years of economic reform.

there is no competition whatsoever - when Japan challenged America's economy in the early 80s, the GDP per capita figure of Japan was on par with the American one. We are now talking about an economy that is working day & night trying to reach 20% of America's GDP per capita.

<comment><USER12> It is certainly impressive.

A market bigger than US governed by a single political entity, that has the ability to control its citizen beyond the imagination of any western governments.

That is enormous power, and it comes in aggregate. US has been the biggest/smartest country to turn its internal market into a weapon. Now that China has it, it will surely use to same, if not greater extent, and that is what makes it intimidating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dis-sys the article is pay walled.

<comment><USER13> Click on the web link at the top of this page then the article

<comment><USER14> None of the google links escape the paywall.

<comment><USER15> There are a couple of fully scraped options there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Returning to America and the (Un)Affordable Care Act - <AUTHOR> http://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-the-unaffordable-care-act/ <comment><USER2> _The absolute poor have always had coverage in America, simply because they cannot afford any doctors bills that are issued to them_

That is patently false. I have seen people die due to a lack of insurance. Die. Dead. In America, because they couldn't get the treatment they needed.

I've also seen the difference in care provided to those with insurance and those without. My own mother is a primary example. She fell down a set of stairs at work and busted up her ankle really bad. This happened just after my father had passed away and she wasn't yet eligible for Medicare. She couldn't walk, there was an obvious infection setting in and she was in extreme pain. The hospital's plan was to provide her a set of crutches, some pain killers and send her on her way. Then they caught word it was going to be covered by Workman's Comp. Once they verified the Workman's Comp claim number everything changed. Suddenly they were treating the infection. Suddenly they realized they needed to do surgery on the ankle or she'd likely never walk again (when I said it was busted, it was really, really busted). So after the whole ordeal was over my mom was asking a nurse about the difference in care when she didn't have insurance and when she had a Workman's Comp claim to bill to. The nurse told her point blank that by law they have to do the minimal treatment for what's likely to kill you within 48 hours. The infection? Would have likely turned to gangrene. They would have done an emergency amputation to save her life (cheap and easy). The surgery? She likely would have never walked again. Now she's fine like nothing ever happened.

While Obamacare certainly has its warts and we can debate what's needed to replace it, please stop saying the poor have healthcare in America. The sad reality is they don't.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been lucky to have insurance since my first job out of college. I've been lucky to have good health and have maybe visited the doctor five times in the past five years.

Still, even in this best-case scenario, I've had three instances where I had to fight my insurance or the care provider over whether or not they'll pay.

Case 1: I didn't use my insurance provider's confusing clinic finder correctly (I entered the wrong group number) and was billed for being out of network.

Case 2: The clinic didn't submit my insurance information to a lab testing vendor, and I was hit with a $900 bill for a simple blood test.

Case 3: My employer accidentally canceled my insurance when I was promoted to a new role. I received a $1200 bill for doctor's visit.

Point being, this is the experience in a best-case scenario. I can't see a better healthcare experience in the US that doesn't involve taking the insurance and medical billing industries out of the picture.

Even if we don't go single payer for another three decades, I'd still like to see price uniformity/transparency laws enacted that ensure medical providers charge clearly advertised rates.

It's absurd that I can walk into a doctor's office, and not a single person will be able to tell me what I'm about to pay up-front. It could by anything from a $30 copay, to $1000+.

<comment><USER4> I recently had trouble getting a ~$250/month asthma medication covered (you can thank the EPA for making asthma medications unaffordable). I had to basically act as the liason between my insurance company, the prescribing doctor, and the pharmacy in order to get everyone in sync so the claim would go through.

Oh, and there was one time when an ER visit for anaphylaxis turned into an expensive lesson in medical claim coding. Apparently when an ER doc codes a claim as 'allergic reaction' rather than the more specific 'anaphylaxis' it no longer qualifies as an 'emergency' and my insurance company at the time only fully covered ER visits that were bona-fide emergencies. Good luck tracking down an ER doc at a hospital 2 months later and convincing him to resubmit some paperwork (because doctors don't make mistakes) :(

<comment><USER5> Not sure of what asthma drug you're talking about specifically, but many medications that also changed the propellant have replacements with the same or lower cost. So actually you can blame the drug manufacturer for gouging on a simple reformulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Simply put, the US health care system has become a rent seeking system to funnel wealth to the top 1%. When viewed in that way, Ryan's plan makes perfect sense.

<comment><USER7> As GW Bush said, "it's an ownership society". Just that we're not the owners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Health insurance costs are insanely high. I as a self employed am currently paying 1200$ per month, for me, my wife and two little kids. And we have bronze/silver plans so we still have to pay everytime we see a doctor and have a high deductible.

<comment><USER9> Mine went from $1,200 last year to $1,679 this year for me, my wife and 3 kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apparently, if you have Taiwanese ancestry and a relative who owns property there, you can apply for dual citizenship. Once you have that you are covered under their national healthcare system. You still have to fly there to get treatment, but if you have predictable medical expenses doing so makes economic sense given our current fucked-up system.

Also, Taiwan's national healthcare system is modeled on the US's Medicare system, it just covers the entire country.

</comment><comment><USER11> _The number of bugs I encountered makes me question the security of the Health Plan Finder website and whether it should even be trusted with my personal information._

As a WA resident who used the site when it first opened, let me answer that quandary for you: no, you should not trust the site with your information. If for no other reason, because they'll mail you your password in plain text.

In addition to some of the most screwed password requirements I've ever seen, there was also an off-by-one error in their password code. Meaning it would take a (let's say) 21 char password, but would reject it when you tried to log in. Because the password input was limited to 20 chars (or maybe they just stored only 20 chars; remember, storing in plain text).

All of this is from when the site first went up, so maybe (hopefully) it's been fixed.

 _The absolute poor have always had coverage in America, simply because they cannot afford any doctors bills that are issued to them. Their debt is often written off by hospitals._

Ignore this person, they speak from their anus on topics outside their personal experience. It's not even worth rebutting.</comment>