simplefish

I interviewed at a company known for consistently asking one of the same four questions in a specific interview round. These questions were widely shared on forums like Blind, Leetcode, and Glassdoor. The recruiters also provided strong guidance on the type of problems to expect.

I prepared thoroughly for all four main questions and any other plausible ones I could think of. I practiced writing solutions to ensure I was fast enough for the interview. Additionally, I pre-prepared ideal answers for each question in case I got stuck.

When the interview came, I got a total curveball: a question that was significantly harder than the usual ones. It didn't fit the round's theme (it was a DSA question, but I'd already aced the DSA round), was obscure enough not to be on LeetCode, and required writing a solver for a hard variant of a known algorithm. I panicked, copied the prompt into ChatGPT (despite being instructed not to use it), transcribed the result, and pretended I had recently studied the relevant algorithm.

I passed the round, nailed the other interviews, got the offer, and accepted. Later, I found out that interviewers are instructed to pick one of four specific questions for that round, and the one I got wasn't in the list.

I'm left wondering if the interviewer was trying to sink me or was just bored with the usual questions. The whole experience raised several questions for me:

Is it cheating if I already had pre-prepared answers for the questions they were supposed to ask? What's the difference between using pre-prepared answers and using Google or ChatGPT during the interview?

If the interview had gone according to plan, what was I actually demonstrating? My ability to use Google?

When the interviewer asked an impossibly difficult question, I would have failed if I answered it legit, even though I'm a good engineer. Failing such an unfair interview round doesn't serve the company's interests.

What is this interview process meant to demonstrate? My true value as an engineer lies in my ability to communicate clearly, think outside the box, identify and address technical tradeoffs, mentor juniors, and propose technical solutions that meet requirements while minimizing risks. Yet, I'm expected to solve a hard variant of the Traveling Salesman Problem in 45 minutes or I don't get the job? Why?

The whole process seems broken, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

I'm confused by the way you say something is "technically" true, then claim you believe it isn not true. Are you really saying that you believe things you know aren't true?

How much is this currency supposed to be worth?

Whatever we agree it to be worth.

According to this argument, any number is potentially valid!

Yep. And the value of US dollars, for example, has changed hugely.

This means that there is absolutely nothing that should hold the value of the currency fixed

Accurate. Note the demise of fixed exchange rate regimes.

Not true! If the exchange rate of the dollar decreases, you'll see the Federal Reserve will start trading some of its goodies from Fort Knox (gold, etc.) for US Dollars, in order to maintain the dollar's exchange rate/value.

That's not how the Federal Reserve works. Nor exchange rates. Nor US dollars. There's so many errors packed into that sentence, I'm not sure where to begin. There was a time when US dollars were backed by gold, including the gold in Fort Knox; this is no longer the case. And while the Fed does intervene in the markets from time to time, that's not how they do it. Further, the mere fact that interventions are necessary underscores just how arbitrary the valuation is. If, as you argue, USD were backed by gold, the aggregate value of all USD would be US gold reserves; no intervention would be possible, and selling gold reserves would actually lower the value of the dollar. Think about the implications of your argument.

My point is that raising people out of poverty should not be used as a measurement of a systems [...] success.

I have no words.

Your arguments are quite flawed as they could be applied in favour of feudalism or plain cattle slavery.

Not at all. I could make some solid suggestions for proven ways of improving on feudalism or slavery. But I don't know of any likely ideas to help Bangladesh beyond what they're already doing. More to the point, RodericDay apparently didn't have any either.

If I say Apple knows a few things about global supply chain management, and thus it might be a good idea not to criticise them as clowns who couldn't run a lemonade stand, it does not follow that I disagree with all criticism of every business everywhere just because my arguments could, in theory, have been made about other companies. Because that particular argument would be wrong applied to almost any other company.

Also, "Communist" China has raised quite a lot of people out of povert as well.

That was the precise process I was referring to, and as I"m sure you're aware (hence your scare quotes), it was via the operations of modern global capitalism, very similar to what is even now beginning to take place in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the Asian periphery.

I can't accept the notion that one has to have a thoughout solution to a complex problem to be able to express ones views.

To be sure. But RodericDay went far further than that. First, he didn't have the faintest suggestion of a solution; he didn't even suggest an avenue to explore. And second, he wasn't just "expressing his views"; he was condemning the system and its supporters in the harshest possible language. There is a difference between suggesting that it would be nice if Bangladesh could improve even faster, and saying that people who are pleased with their progress are pro-slavery.

It's easy to stand on the sidelines and hurl brickbats at a system (global capitalism) which has raised more people out of grinding poverty in a shorter time than everything else we've ever done in all of recorded history combined.

It's harder to offer real suggestions to actually improve the lives of the poor. And I see you don't.

Your outrage may make you feel good, but it helps no one but you. And that makes it selfish.

So let's summarize: The Indian government spends billions of dollars (which are desperately needed for other purposes in a poor country like India) propping up the price of wheat. This causes many farmers to switch from growing vegetables to wheat. The drives up the price of vegetables, and would drive down the price of wheat, except for political reasons the Indian government would rather let the wheat rot than give it away cheaply. As a result, many of the poor can't afford wheat, and the ones who can can't afford anything but wheat, leading to rampant malnutrition.

Or even shorter: India spends billions of dollars on a policy that does nothing except ensure they have a rate of child malnutrition almost twice that of sub-saharan Africa.

tl;dr: Socialism, lol.

(Oh, and as Spodek pointed out, famines are caused by a lack of money, not food. It's been known for DECADES that if you want to stop people starving, you need to give them cash, and cut barriers to trade.)

I...see. Let's recap:

You said that wealth should not be equated with job creation. I said that this was wrong, and it should be. You admit that this is true (and indeed, that it is "trivially obvious"). But your say that other people often simplify this true argument so that, while still correct, it lacks "nuance", and this means that you are justified in making untrue arguments against it.

That certainly clarifies things. I withdraw my criticism and apologize for my ill-considered tone.

There's not much to elaborate on; the argument literally makes no sense as presented. You say "wealth is better thought-of as a measure of how many jobs the owner of a company could have created, but didn't." It isn't.

Apple has $100b in cash. Are you going to seriously tell me that if Apple gives $10b back to shareholders via a dividend that, regardless of what those shareholders do with the money, total employment for the economy as a whole will be lower? And that, further, if those shareholders had never invested in Apple at all total employment for the economy would be the same? In other words, that dividends from an alternate-world Apple would not both be a sign that the possessor had created jobs in the past, as well as a potent mechanism with which to create jobs in the future? Because, that's exactly what you're saying, and there isn't an iota of evidence in your favour.

Or to take another tack, the internet has been all atwitter about asteroid mining recently, funded by, among others, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. You're going to sit here and say that it's clearly the case that, if we care about unemployment, the money they're sinking into the venture should have stayed with Google. That, somehow, if Google had decided to go into asteroid mining, rather than the founders of Google, it will magically create more jobs? Because...what? Again, there is no theoretical basis or empirical evidence for this notion.

I could go on forever. Your argument is lunacy on its face, and when we unpack it, it is based on levels of misunderstanding and mistakes all the way down. I'm sorry, but if you want more than a contemptuous flame, you're going to need to do better.

I'm not sure what you said you be any less true. You seem to have no understanding of how a modern economy works, or how the banking system works, or what a salary represents, or what wealth is, or what the determinates of unemployment are, or what it means for a job to be "created", or, hell, even what a "job" is. There are so many flaws here, it's hard to even figure out where to start.

You will be unable to find a single economist, economics textbook, or economic model which agrees with your premise.

I'm struggling to believe that you really didn't notice the sarcasm in my comment. :) Obviously you can swap all the names on the list for right wing equivalents; it would be just as horrible.

Also, I must reiterate: Companies are not people. No supreme court decision has so held. And Dartmouth College v Woodward does not so hold. (Dartmouth holds that companies have the same right to contract as people. It doesn't hold that they are people. The logic is that only people have rights, but they don't lose those rights just because they organize their affairs along a corporate form. And to protect the real rights which real people have, it is sometimes necessary to allow corporations to exercise those rights.[1])

Oh, and while we're at it, Citizens United doesn't hold that money is speech. (Citizens United holds that money facilitates speech, not that it is speech, and that any restriction on things which facilitate a protected action is a - potentially unconstitutional - burden on that activity.)

Your understanding of these cases seems...lacking.

[1]: If you want an example: I get a second mortgage and sink all my savings into a start-up. You can't now come and seize my company, nor my company's assets, without depriving a real person (me) of real property. But I have the right to due process, and by necessity that extends to my company's assets. On the other hand, you can restrict my company from voting (as is, in fact, done) without impairing the rights of any real person. I would lose everything if you take my company's assets; I lose nothing if you don't let my company vote. Every single right that the courts have extended to companies follows this logic: That companies need this right protected in order to protect the rights of real people. The New York Times has free speech not because the Times is a person, but because real people with free speech rights wish to exercise those rights via the Times, and restricting the free speech rights of the Times would be an unconstitutional burden on the rights of those people.

I agree. Corporations are not people, and should have no rights; in particular they should have no rights to free speech or property. I look forward to a day when the government should be able to censor the speech, compel speech, and take the property of corporations whom it dislikes.

I am especially eager to see this rule applied to corporations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, Greenpeace, the ACLU, and more. These nefarious corporations have damaged the careers of upstanding politicians, leaked vital national security documents, and undermined American prosperity with their treasonous demands for "rule of law" and "protecting the environment". Pah. No doubt President Romney will take the lead in muzzling the ACLU, Greenpeace, and every newspaper and television station in America the moment this amendment is passed.

And then there's Google. And Amazon. Or Apple! I mean, we all know that Apple has more cash on hand than the US government; once this amendment passes there will be no constitutional bar on the government just taking it. Won't that be nice?

(Back in the land of reality, it might be worth noting that according to the decision in Citizens United, corporations are not people. Yeah, I know, some talking head on MSNBC told you that it said they were. How does it feel to realize someone you trusted lied to you? At any rate, any amendment on this topic would either do absolutely nothing, since it would just restate current constitutional law, OR it would be a utter disaster beyond easy comprehension.[1][2])

[1] http://volokh.com/2012/04/26/the-peoples-rights-amendment-an...

[2] http://volokh.com/2012/04/26/the-potential-impact-of-the-peo...

Ridiculous strawmen sure are fun to demolish, aren't they? Who needs logic or accuracy?

Um. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but that proposal isn't going to do anything. Let me explain.

The proposal is to prevent new power plants from producing more than 1,000 pounds of CO2e per MW of power produced. Coal is around 1,600 pounds/MW, natural gas is around 800 pounds/MW. So what happens?

1) We build new natural gas plants, and burn all available natural gas at ~800 pounds/MW. Given newly discovered shale gas reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of gas, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)

2) We keep all the old ones around, and burn all available coal at 1,600 pounds/MW. Given known US coal reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of coal, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)

All the new regulation does is ensure that all available coal is burned in old plants, instead of being burned in a mix of new and old plants. Since coal produces the same 1,600 pounds/MW either way, this is completely pointless. At best we're delaying the rate that we burn coal (with fewer coal plants, it'll take longer to chew through the coal), but the climate, sorry, couldn't care less about that. Either that carbon is in the ground or in the air, and if it's in the air, it's causing damage.

If you want to have some impact on the climate, you need to figure out a path that leaves fossil fuels in the ground unburned. Tinkering with the rules about new power plants doesn't even help.

grins I hope some of the more credulous commenters here on HN[1] like the taste of crow. Especially the ones that attacked other commenters as being closed-minded for pointing out obvious problems with the video.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732385

The policy he advocated can be spun in a way that sounds socialist. Phrased the way he did it though? No, that's not going to get you labeled "socialist" anywhere.

"There's always someone who speaks at great length about finance while being clueless about the subject. [...] And no, Glass-Steagall doesn't have anything to do with offering interest on checking accounts."

snicker Try section 11(b), which was implemented as the infamous "Regulation Q". Normally I'd refrain from mocking someone for an innocent error on a side point, but the irony here is just too delicious. Even if you are completely clueless about Glass-Steagall, this is discussed in detail in the Wikipedia page about it. It takes a special person to know nothing about a subject, not even do the 20 seconds of research needed to confirm a claim, and still feel like insulting other people for their factual claims is a good idea.

(As for your substantive point... No. Countrywide, for example, was not taking risks on the "investment side" under the meaning of Glass-Steagall; they didn't even have an investment side. The core damage there was a pure-play retail bank making crap loans, and Glass-Steagall says that's awesome. You're arguing against the repeal of a regulation which never existed. Might have been a good one though.)

My point is fairly narrow: People love to blame Glass-Steagall, and yet consider the roll call of shame during the GFC: Northern Rock, Bear Stearns, Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merryl Lynch, AIG, Lehman Brothers, HBOS, Fannie Mae, HBOS, Lloyds TSB. Every one of those is on the list for two reasons:

1) Being very large ("too big to fail").

2) Having done stupid things which would have been legal under the restrictions of Glass-Steagall. The details of what each did differ, but in every case the stupid actions did not cross a line between retail and investment arms, or retail and insurance arms.

I think that, if you review the list, it's screamingly obvious that size matters hugely, and any regulation reasonably expected to stop the "too big to fail" problem should be looked at very favourably. (Note: No such regulation has been passed, or seriously proposed.) And to a lesser degree, there are some good arguments to be made for bringing regulation of the "shadow banking" sector into line with the rest of the industry, extending deposit insurance to money market accounts[1], and possibly for reducing government involvement in the mortgage industry[2].

What's not obvious is why a regulation that banned something none of the entries on that list were doing would have helped. You say that it had a "chilling effect", but I'm sceptical. If it wasn't for Glass-Steagall, AIG wouldn't have decided to bet the farm on house price stability? Can you articulate any mechanism for how this might have occured?

(If only Citigroup or Wachovia had failed, there'd be an argument that Glass-Steagall repeal helped create "too big to fail" companies by allowing large specialized firms to merge into behomoth diversified firms - but of course, none of those diversified firms failed. If anything, there's a better argument for how Glass-Steagall repeal helped reduce the damage from the crisis.)

[1]: These factors were significantly involved in several of the largest bank failures.

[2]: From the point of view of the taxpayer, the most expensive failures all involved mortgages, most of all Fanny Mae. Abolishing the GSEs and walking back the bi-partisan multi-decade obsession with boosting home ownership rates seems sensible to me. Even today, the idea is highly controversial though.

Heh. First, Commondreams is not necessarily the best source for a citation. Let's turn to Wikipedia, which explains the Citibank/Travelers merger is fairly decent detail[1]. In short, while there was a time limit of five years (the two years is only without Fed approval, which in this case they would have received), that only applied to Travelers, not to Citibank owning the investment bank Salomon Smith Barney. But that's really a minor quibble. Let's step back and think about the overall purpose of those restrictions.

The standard "Glass-Steagall repeal caused the crisis!" meme focuses on the idea that we don't want banks wagering FDIC-insured retail deposits on the financial markets and going bust, taking our savings accounts with them. And maybe we don't - but this did not actually happen. No retail bank went bust due to their investment banking arms getting overextended. Instead we saw retail banks go bust due to their retail banking operations (specifically, mortgages), and we saw investment banks go bust due to their risky bets on markets. Both of those were always legal under Glass-Steagall.

If the standard "Glass-Steagall repeal is evil" meme has any validity at all, it would seem to be in relation to AIG; an insurer who went bust after making risky bets on the financial markets. Surely Glass-Steagall repeal allowed THAT, right? Nope! The one form of intermingling that actually caused problems during the crisis is the one that wasn't banned by Glass-Steagall. It's no wonder that no serious analysts thinks Gramm-Leach-Bliley had any real impact on the crisis.

So yes, as you say, without repeal Citibank would have been forced - eventually - to sell Travelers. And this would have done...precisely nothing, because as it turns out the purchase of Travelers by Citibank was one of the biggest duds of all time. Nobody actually wants to buy insurance at their bank, and giving access to Citibank (who already had a huge pool of retail deposits) access to the huge pool of premiums Travelers had...did, as near as we can tell, nothing whatsoever. And again, other than AIG (who had no retail banking operations), no major insurance company went under during the crisis, nor did any major bank which went under have an insurance arm. So once again, we ask: Did Glass-Steagall actually prevent anything meaningful?

As for MF Global...yes, they've the villain du jour, and very bad people. But they were not a retail bank, and their operations would have been allowed (or, if you prefer, would have been just as illegal) under Glass-Steagall. Again, what purpose do you think the restrictions in Glass-Steagall served? The only answer is "not letting banks gamble with insured deposits on the financial markets", and MF Global did not do that, and so Glass-Steagall repeal did not impact MF Global. (More generally, what MF Global did is illegal, and so any attempt to argue that MF Global proves we need more regulation is inherently flawed.)

As for the comments about brokers... we're talking past each other. However, since you mention it: There's a lot less than meets the eye to the ABACUS deal. At core, GS's wrongdoing was misrepresenting who picked the CDOs. That's illegal and serious, but they weren't on either end of the trade, much less both. They were more like a sporting goods store selling both AP bullets and body armor to both sides of a gang war. They profited on both ends of the deal, but they couldn't care less which side won. Mind you, GS has often managed to find themselves on both ends of a deal. Check out the deal where GS "helped" El Paso Corp sell itself - suspiciously cheaply - to Kinder Morgan, which GS had a big stake in[2]. Dodgy as fuck. And the deal where GS "helped" Burlington Northern sell itself - suspiciously cheaply - to Warren Buffet (a very big investor in GS) wasn't much better... (Mind you, neither had anything to do with Glass-Steagall.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act#Fail...

[2] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/advising-deal-goldman...

Actually, no, most people are NOT familiar with the repeal of Glass-Steagall (not Glass-Steagal, incidentally). Including you; if you were you'd realize that there's no coherent argument for how the so-called "repeal" of Glass-Steagall[1] actually led to the financial crisis or to increased profits for GS. Lessig didn't name an actual regulation that might have caused this, and neither have you. There's a reason.

Further, you fundamentally misunderstand how markets work, what GS is doing in these cases, and even what a conflict of interest is. What GS is doing is called "being a broker"[2]. If you don't understand what a broker is, then you may not be well placed to pontificate on financial markets.

[1]: Everyone and their dog likes to trot out the "repeal of Glass-Steagall" and feel clever. If pressed, a few of them will even stammer out something about it being a law that seperated investment and commercial banking. In actuality, the main function of Glass-Steagall was setting up the FDIC, and it's never been repealed. It did contain a lot of other rule changes and regulations, most of which have been repealed decades ago - and good riddance. Do you think it should be illegal to offer interest on a checking account? No? Great, you too are a supporter of the "repeal" of Glass-Steagall. As for the restriction on retail and investment banking...god only knows how that's supposed to have prevented any problems. Not only did it not do what it claimed to do (Citibank merged with Saloman Smith Barney while the rules were nominally still in effect), nobody can explain how the rules intention would have done anything worthwhile. None of the competing theories of "what went wrong" and "how to stop it" have anything to do with seperating commercial and investment banking (and none of the large merged banks failed while several large banks with only commercial or only investment banking operations did fail). So...

[2]: Of course, maybe you want to argue that being a broker is illegal? Or should be illegal? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

The point of the article is that observational studies are terrible and non-scientific, but people seize on them anyhow if they like the conclusions. You reply by saying, in essence, "this article must be wrong, because it disagrees with some observational studies which must be right because I like their conclusions".

Ironic.

(As the article points out, the very limited hard data we have - ie, not from observational studies - indicates that meat-rich diets are, if anything, good for the heart. And that observational studies such as the one under discussion ALWAYS show that the people who comply with advice (even if it's to take a placebo) are healthier. So your blithe "this study must be right, because we already know eating meat is bad, and what else could explain these people being healthy?" is just magical thinking. And thoroughly debunked by the very article you're commenting on.)

This stuff is actually not as hard as you seem to be making it. We don't need all these "some believe" or "seem like" qualifirs.

First, what do we mean by "global inequality"? Well, let's break that down. We're talking about a metric measuring income dispersion, which is, yes, a measure of the gap between rich and poor. A common metric is the Gini Coefficient[1]. And instead of looking at the coefficient of a single country, if we look at the entire population, we get a metric of global inequality. Not hard, right?

Second, what have metrics of global inequality been doing since 1980? Why, they've been falling[2]!

So, yes, the "gap between the rich and poor [has] lessened". I have no idea why you or anyone else might think that it seems otherwise. Find an op-ed or column about the global economy from anytime in the past decade, and you've got a good chance of it either talking about how real incomes in the West (ie, the global 1%) are stagnating, or how real wages in China (ie, the global 99%) are booming. There's really no way this could happen and not result in a significant reduction in the gap between the rich and poor. And indeed, that's exactly what's resulted. (And to tie it back to a perennial HN favourite, the mechanism by which this has happened - an unprecedented reduction in global inequality and a massive reduction in absolute poverty - is exemplified by Apple and Foxconn.)

(You're also right that we could have a reduction in absolute poverty even as global inequality increased. But that's now what is happening.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

[2]: I'm resisting supplying citations because a quick Google search will turn up, literally, pages of results. Still, if you want one image, this one[3] isn't bad.

[3] http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/200...

This is not true.

Your ideal universal system may ration on medical need. There might even be one in existence that does so...

...but I really doubt it.

"I don't think we are conquering global inequality. I think it's getting worse."

I'm sure you think that, but the numbers are clear, and not really under any dispute. Global inequality has been falling steadily and rapidly since 1980; it's the biggest reduction in absolute poverty the world has ever seen. You can interpret those numbers however you like, but those are the numbers.

"And the environment might not recover eventually; it might go into runaway heating and boil off the atmosphere."

Not according to the IPCC and the "scientific consensus". :)

I'm not sure why you seem surprised; this is a very long standing trend. It's also pretty obvious. You aren't the only one to value quality of life over quantity; in fact everyone else does too. The only problem is that if you're very poor you don't have a choice. Wherever and whenever the human race manages to claw its way out of poverty, we immediately stop having so many kids. It's not magic.

That being said...

1) What upcoming food shortage? Food production is largely a solved problem. We know how to sustainably produce large amounts of food from a given amount of arable land, and we have plenty of arable land to feed not just the current global population, but the projected maximum global population. It's true! We already have the ability to feed the largest population we'll ever have. True, Africa currently has food shortages, but as soon as Africa stops relying on peasant farming, that problem goes away. We can argue about when (or if) Africa is going to finally have their own Green Revolution[0], but...upcoming shortages? Do you know something the rest of us don't? :)

2) I might ask what upcoming resource shortage, but that's a more complicated question, and probably not worth arguing about. Still, you might want to consider the outcome of the Simon-Erlich wager[1], look at commodity price trends over the last couple decade, and then look at futures prices. Would you take Erlich's side in a repeat of the original wager? I wouldn't, and it's worth noting that Erlich and his ideological allies have repeatedly refused to do so. Again, what do you know that they don't?

3) Also, this is wonderful news for "investors" too (why beat around the bush? Call them "capitalists"; you know you want to...). Trust me, the slavering capitalist dogs are VASTLY more interested in having a rich China full of consumers than in having a poor China full of workers. It might be nice to have cheap Chinese labour making iPods to sell to 300m rich Americans, but it will be FANTASTIC to have cheap robot labour making iPods to sell to 1.3b rich Chinese. (And that's precisely the scenario you're envisioning.) Lower costs and higher sales is how capitalists make their money in the real world.

4) Finally, it remains to be seen how good it will be environmentally. In the short run (say, the next 50 years), it probably won't be. Much as with population growth, we see an inverted curve. Very poor countries can't afford to pollute, and very rich ones can afford not to - but right in the middle you end up polluting a bunch. We went through that period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; now it's China's turn. They're producing less pollution for every dollar of GDP each year, but their GDP is climbing much faster. The environment is likely to get worse before it gets better. (Of course, look on the bright side: We are conquering global inequality, and the environment will recover eventually. Those are both GREAT. But let's not get carried away.)

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager

To be fair, SimCity Societies was an excellent game. But it was very much a spiritual decendent of Ceasar III and Pharaoh. I think the branding did it more harm than good; the people who love Maxis-style city games disliked Societies, and the people who love Impressions-style city games never bothered to pick it up assuming they would dislike it.

Okay, first, a minor point: Unemployment has continued to fall in Singapore; your link is for 2010, but it's lower now[1].

Next, let's assume you're correct about health care costs. There are still two logical errors in your argument:

1) There are a lot of differences between the US and Singapore. Health care is only one of them; the original article listed several more. Even if you're right that health care costs alone only lead to a 16% advantage (which is probably off by a factor of 3-4, given overall health care spending in each country), don't forget all the other areas.

2) Not everywhere is the Bay Area. Perhaps the Bay Area can compete with Singapore, but the Bay Area has a lot of unique advantages. Are we writing off everyone not in the Bay Area? And don't say "oh, they can just move here"; the infrastructure won't support it.

The original author wants to talk about Singapore and high tech jobs; you picked only one of several differences which made Singapore attractive, and then compared it to the most attractive region in the US. And even on that basis, it looks a bit like a toss up.

Let's close by turning back to Singapore. As you admit, Singapore is much more business friendly. And it has very enviable economic statistics. I already mentioned the 2% unemployment, so let's look at GDP per capita. Using PPP, Singapore comes in 3rd worldwide in 2011 according to the IMF[2], with a per capita GDP of $60k - 24% higher than the US.

Remember that per capita GDP is a measure of the value added in an economy. In concrete terms, those numbers mean that the average person in Singapore is so productive that they can afford a lifestyle 24% nicer than the average person in America. Your example tried to argue that Americans are so much more productive than Singaporeans that you can cover the health care costs and still come out ahead. The statistics say that on average, it actually the Singaporeans who are more productive.

(Mind you: Singapore is small, and in many ways unique. I'm not suggesting that it's possible or desirable to copy their model on the scale of the US. Also, they have high inequality, and poor protection of civil liberties. I suspect many Americans value their relatively low inequality and strong civil liberties. And yet...repealing Obamacare and properly reforming American health care to be along more Singaporean lines would not obviously lead to higher inequality or weaker civil liberties, and it is clear that it could lead to a wealthier society and higher job growth. Something to keep in mind...)

[1] http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STI... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

I stopped reading when he discussed Joel's software pricing model, and then proceeded to make a crack about how Joel's model was more correct than "some mythical supply and demand model."

If you don't know enough about economics to recognize that Joel's pricing model is a supply and demand model, you probably shouldn't try writing about the subject.

(Disclaimer: Yes, of course this post is tongue in cheek. If you had any doubts, you may need to get your sarcasm detector calibrated.)

The point being made is that the health care costs in the US are very high. The author editorializes that this is "due to Obamacare". Costs were high before Obamacare, and they're higher now, and non-partisan projections (CBO, etc.) indicate they're going higher still. How you want to apportion blame is up to you - the fact that costs are high is inarguable. So is the fact that it costs jobs.

Also, you apparently don't know much about Singapore. Their (quite excellent) health care system works by forced savings - it's not, in any way, "socialized medicine" as the term is used in the US.

In fact, government spending on health care in Singapore is around 3-4% of GDP. Government spending on health care in the US is approximately twice that, as a share of GDP. So yeah, moving from the US system to the Singapore system would be "offloading your corporate health care costs onto the government" if by that you mean "transferring health care costs from the government to the private sector".

But please, don't let me get in the way of a good partisan food fight.

(And as for the "meme" that high taxes in the US aren't really killing jobs... Let's see, unemployment in Singapore these days is around 2%. What's your explanation?)

So if we go up...six levels of comments, we reach batista saying: "And, no, the reason US has a slightly more advanced economy than, say, Sweden, is not due to harsh working conditions. It's has more to do with human capital, a large unified market PLUS tons of military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources."

Now you say "I wasn't suggesting that this was about American prosperity." Which I think means you agree with everyone in this branch of the discussion except batista (who's the only one who asserted that it was about American prosperity). shrug In any case, I agree with you. Just another textbook example of public choice theory, of the sort you'll hear about endlessly if you hang out at Ron Paul rallies.

It's not about the price of oil? This chain of comments was sparked by yummyfajitas asking "does the US pay less to import oil or steel than Sweden or something?", which seems fairly focused on price. And he was replying to a comment that claimed that American prosperity was due, in part, to "military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources". Which, again, seems awfully focused on price.

Now, you might want to change the subject to talk about oil company profits, but I'm not sure why you'd want to, because that makes even less sense. It's frankly ludicrous to suggest that American prosperity is in some way linked to the fact that ExxonMobil is headquartered in Texas rather than Canada or Europe. It's a publicly traded multinational corporation!

Sure it paid $15 billion in income tax in 2009, but none of it was in the US. Think that number would be higher if they were incorporated offshore? (Hint: No.) Yes, it pays dividends, but it does so regardless of whether those shareholders are citizens of the country it is headquartered in. Think the ratio of dividends paid to Americans versus Swedes would change if ExxonMobil moved offshore? (Hint: No.) And since this "isn't about the price of oil", we don't need to even ask if prices at the pump in the US would change if they moved offshore. (Although, obviously, they wouldn't.)

So I'm curious: The original post was talking about how America is richer than Sweden 'cause the American military is used to do something relating to oil. You say it's not about the price, but about oil company profits. Okay. Even if we accept that the US military has done wonders for the bottom line of ExxonMobil...how does Joe Bloggs become better off because a nominally American oil company is making a higher profit this year? Answer: He doesn't. So maybe we need to look a little further.

(And that's not even touching on the idea that military might is exogenous - this thing that some lucky countries have, and others don't.)