4 ms·

> There's a large population of chinese students in Japan who are very happy to work at such rates. > which in Tokyo barely cover your transport and lunch cost

> There's a large population of chinese students in Japan who are very happy to work at such rates. > which in Tokyo barely cover your transport and lunch costs Is this another of those things where paying a person an non-livable wage is going to be construed as a Good Thing™? How about we raise the prices so the people serving us the food can, you know, live?

ekianjo 9y ago
train is extremely cheap in tokyo and eating is cheap as well. with one hour of this kind of work you can pay for both and you just dont work one hour so the rest is profit.
- 1_2__4 9y ago
  You can eat and commute both ways for under 700 yen?
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Did you even read my comment? You don't just work for one hour usually.
s73ver 9y ago
Cause that's Socialism(TM)!
closeparen 9y ago
Raising prices destroys demand. It's not immediately clear that 5 well employed people and 5 unemployed people are preferably to 10 poorly employed people. If the 5 who would be unemployed have some superior alternative, why aren't they doing it already? Or would you say they should be forcibly unemployed to combat their laziness in looking for better work (which you apparently think exists)?
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  Then maybe demand should be lower? If your business can't operate without paying people slave wages, you have no business being in business. Or, far more likely, the CEO needs to make a few million less so the people who operate his business can EAT.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    I'm start from the (perhaps naive) assumption that our intention here is to make people better off. Whose life is better if the business doesn't exist?
    - FussyZeus 9y ago
      Business that make their money by exploiting people should not exist, because they create the illusion illustrated here: that somehow earning less money than is livable is better than earning none at all. If you don't have enough money to pay your rent and eat, what is the point exactly? You're still screwed, it's just going to take slightly longer. And from this we then go the side hustles and the app workers and all the rest of the stuff that let us pretend someone working 120 hours a week for pennies is "doing good."
      - closeparen 9y ago
        >If you don't have enough money to pay your rent and eat, what is the point exactly? You're still screwed If this were true, why would people in bad jobs continue to show up for work? Okay, you've identified that shifting people from precarious existence to outright starvation and homelessness will make others more aware of their plight. How will that help, exactly? Are they going to somehow turn around public opinion on the welfare state? Start a Communist Revolution? Because it seems like they will just be worse off, and we will be more aware, and nothing else will happen.

ekianjo 9y ago

train is extremely cheap in tokyo and eating is cheap as well. with one hour of this kind of work you can pay for both and you just dont work one hour so the rest is profit.

1_2__4 9y ago
You can eat and commute both ways for under 700 yen?
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Did you even read my comment? You don't just work for one hour usually.

s73ver 9y ago

Cause that's Socialism(TM)!

closeparen 9y ago

Raising prices destroys demand. It's not immediately clear that 5 well employed people and 5 unemployed people are preferably to 10 poorly employed people. If the 5 who would be unemployed have some superior alternative, why aren't they doing it already? Or would you say they should be forcibly unemployed to combat their laziness in looking for better work (which you apparently think exists)?

FussyZeus 9y ago
Then maybe demand should be lower? If your business can't operate without paying people slave wages, you have no business being in business. Or, far more likely, the CEO needs to make a few million less so the people who operate his business can EAT.
- closeparen 9y ago
  I'm start from the (perhaps naive) assumption that our intention here is to make people better off. Whose life is better if the business doesn't exist?
  - FussyZeus 9y ago
    Business that make their money by exploiting people should not exist, because they create the illusion illustrated here: that somehow earning less money than is livable is better than earning none at all. If you don't have enough money to pay your rent and eat, what is the point exactly? You're still screwed, it's just going to take slightly longer. And from this we then go the side hustles and the app workers and all the rest of the stuff that let us pretend someone working 120 hours a week for pennies is "doing good."
    - closeparen 9y ago
      >If you don't have enough money to pay your rent and eat, what is the point exactly? You're still screwed If this were true, why would people in bad jobs continue to show up for work? Okay, you've identified that shifting people from precarious existence to outright starvation and homelessness will make others more aware of their plight. How will that help, exactly? Are they going to somehow turn around public opinion on the welfare state? Start a Communist Revolution? Because it seems like they will just be worse off, and we will be more aware, and nothing else will happen.