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It just always seemed ridiculous to me that he said all those things (primarily xenophobic things) and yet he was the governor of TOKYO, one of Japan's most international cities.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:57
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Kenishi posted:It just always seemed ridiculous to me that he said all those things (primarily xenophobic things) and yet he was the governor of TOKYO, one of Japan's most international cities. Remember Japan is run by old men, for old men. so all the stuff that doesn't make sense, just know its to make other old men happy.
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Dec 17, 2014 10:28
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Kenishi posted:It just always seemed ridiculous to me that he said all those things (primarily xenophobic things) and yet he was the governor of TOKYO, one of Japan's most international cities. It's still not very international though.
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Dec 17, 2014 11:31
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mystes posted:It's dumb to have a deduction with no income limit, though. They should just scrap it entirely but I guess that would be unpopular. They definitely shouldn't scrap it; the deduction they are talking about it the exemption for dependents (it just has a different name if it's your spouse's), not some special thing. The "make over 1.03 million and you lose it" applies to children and elderly parents too. As it is it's super wonky though and it could use some changes. Lol about the "deduction without a limit" though. I agree it's dumb, but this is the country where the "standard deduction" (to use US terminology) actually scales UP with income. (To be fair I guess, you can't really itemize your deductions in Japan like you can in the US so  .) One thing that isn't talked about as much as the "1.03 million wall" though is the "1.3 million wall", which is where the spouse can no longer be covered under their spouse's health insurance/pension plan. And that poo poo is expensive. It would be nice to see these caps raised a bit and maybe some scaling implemented as to when the costs are incurred. As is, it's like when Americans refuse a raise "because it would push me to the next tax bracket so I would actually be taking home less," except they're right. (Although I understand there are hard cutoffs for certain forms of welfare benefits in the US so sometimes the Americans are actually right too, I guess.) Also, anecdotally, there are a lot of people who could be making well more than enough money to make it worth "breaking" those walls, who refuse to anyway for various reasons, i.e. the hassle of having to worry about your own taxes (under 1.03M don't have to file at all). So even if they don't actually change it THAT much, just being able to, somewhat convincingly, tell people they don't need to worry about it anymore could have some positive effects.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:21
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z0glin Warchief posted:Also, anecdotally, there are a lot of people who could be making well more than enough money to make it worth "breaking" those walls, who refuse to anyway for various reasons, i.e. the hassle of having to worry about your own taxes (under 1.03M don't have to file at all). So even if they don't actually change it THAT much, just being able to, somewhat convincingly, tell people they don't need to worry about it anymore could have some positive effects. Well, they also run into a social wall of, "wtf are you doing, you shouldn't be working, go home." Oftentimes one of the people enforcing this social wall is their spouse!
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Dec 17, 2014 14:26
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Oh absolutely. I'd imagine that's a bigger problem than the tax side, which is mostly only painful for a relatively small subset of the population, as opposed to about half. Still, glad to see something might be done. (Although looking around it seems like a lot of people are skeptical that any "reform" will be a tax hike in disguise  )
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Dec 17, 2014 17:24
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Protocol 5 posted:The main reason why voter turnout is higher than in the US despite widespread apathy is that voter registration is completely automatic upon eligibility, so the pool of registered voters is automatically a much larger proportion of the population (100% of all people eligible). Sure, people do actually have to drag themselves down to the polling station, but that's pretty much all a voter is required to do. I don't really know why any country doesn't do that. Most sensible system by a long distance.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:04
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CottonWolf posted:I don't really know why any country doesn't do that. Most sensible system by a long distance. Generally? It keeps the poors and minorities from voting. A huge tenant of the GOP 2012 strategy was ID checks and restricted voting hours to keep the "undesirables" from voting democrat.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:57
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Abe to designate special zones for local revival Well, it finally sounds like there is some steam behind Tax Free Zones, though it doesn't exactly sound like they are "tax free" just yet. I guess the big question is whether it'll work and if the zones can be used by international companies.
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Dec 19, 2014 11:51
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Drastic steps needed to rework Japan's employment system So looks like they are doing away with the 3 year limit for temp workers, if I'm reading this right. So now you could potentially be employed indefinitely as a temp worker where as before if you stayed on for at least 3 years then the company had to convert you to full time or get rid of you. This is paired off by what sounds to be a major change. quote:as well as doing away with the so-called white-collar exemption, which paves the way for employers to pay white-collar workers by results rather than by hours.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:27
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Those were all hypotheticals, he ain't changin' poo poo.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:51
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Kenishi posted:So it now sounds like if you are a hard worker and good at what you do then you could easily see your salary climb a lot higher than your peers. Would love to hear more clarification on this if anyone knows; like how is the labor written for this at the moment? If what you say is true then it would do away with the seniority-based raises, and you'll see wages stagnate. Workers will not end up being paid more in the aggregate. That is for certain. ErIog fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 12:35
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ErIog posted:If what you say is true then it would do away with the seniority-based raises, and you'll see wages stagnate. Workers will not end up being paid more in the aggregate. That is for certain. Wages have already been pretty stagnate so I don't think it'll hurt the economy any more. I think it brings a more western system to Japan though and I think that could eventually help with many problems in Japan. If there's no longer a guarantee that your salary would go up each year or that it would go up by a lot then it means a couple of things. 1) College and internships will become a valuable resource, unlike their current state. 2) This change might spur even more people to start changing jobs instead of being focused on 1 company. So you can graduate college, get a job at a company and work there 3-5 years in a single career position and then leave and go to another company in the same position and see your pay jump 20-30% yearly. 3) On the same note as college being valuable, it'll force people to consider their skills as an important part of the position they are in. Instead of the current state where you can have 0 skill and expect the company that hires you to train you at it. In other words, the current job hiring setup where a 1000 college-graduates-to-be interview to be hired for some unknown position somewhere in the company; it may turn into a more focused hiring system where college students apply for the exact position they want or can do and interview that way. I've always felt this current system has been one of the biggest hindrances for Japan's economic growth because it doesn't guarantee people will go where they can make the most impact nor does it put an incentive on students to find something they want to do and excel at it. By having the current job hiring system, they are encouraging kids to be wishy washy on deciding what to do and complacent on just sitting around.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:54
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I think that must be a mistake in that article, because they definitely don't seem to be doing away with the exemption, but rather implementing one. Link (Japanese). For those that don't know, a "white collar exemption" is a rule/law that allows employers to not pay overtime to certain white collar jobs (most commonly ones with some sort of management component; some reading here). Labor organizations tend to not like them. It's the cause of the phenomenon where McDonald's or whatever will promote someone to "manager" mostly just so they can have them work more hours for less pay (and no overtime). Kenishi posted:I wasn't aware that paying people was somehow locked to hours and enforced by a law. I knew that it was common for most people to make the same amount in the same position and that pay tended to only go up by age/time at the company, but I guess I always assumed this was just general business practice and not actually legally enforced. It's not really. The age/time raises aren't mandatory (except when part of a union agreement, obviously), and you can already pay people bonuses or what not based on performance (this is not uncommon for sales rep types). You just have to pay overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week, too. Well, in theory anyway; of course many companies don't, through various means. My favorite is when they just put in your employment contract "salary includes 40 hours of overtime pay per month." So you just don't get paid for your first 40 hours of overtime each month. Anyway, what they're trying to do in Japan now is set up a wc exemption that applies to people making over 10,750,000 yen/year and who aren't management (who already have an exemption); they specifically mention finance types (analysts etc.) and IT types (systems engineers etc.). Apparently there only 1,800,000 people in the country who make that much money, and the large majority are already exempted, so honestly I don't know that this will have much of a direct impact. It would, perhaps, make it easier to push through further changes I guess. Cracks in the dam, and all that. There are a few other things being discussed though, regarding overwork. First, requiring people to actually use their vacation days. Second, upping the overtime rate for employees that work over 60 hours/week at SMEs. Also trying to get more flextime implemented, especially for those with children or elderly relatives in need of care.
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Jan 8, 2015 14:01
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z0glin Warchief posted:You just have to pay overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week, too. Well, in theory anyway; of course many companies don't, through various means. My favorite is when they just put in your employment contract "salary includes 40 hours of overtime pay per month." So you just don't get paid for your first 40 hours of overtime each month. Just to point out, aside from the "gotchas" that companies sneak in to get out of paying overtime, there are other problems as well: for one, hour tracking is spotty at best (especially for non-hourly employees), and it's a point of national pride that Japanese people "work so hard" (aka stay late), plus the whole "can't leave before your boss" thing which is well-known - if you were suddenly to start going "so yeah those 14 hours I stayed late last week, are you going to pay me for that?" then you'd be seen as rocking the boat/being ungrateful/etc and it would pretty much tank your career, I'd imagine. So yeah though overtime pay is enshrined in law as usual the law doesn't really have any teeth and is often egregiously violated with no repercussions. As far as I know the labor boards can't do anything other than send a letter asking that the company comply with the law. Sheep fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 16:42
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z0glin Warchief posted:For those that don't know, a "white collar exemption" is a rule/law that allows employers to not pay overtime to certain white collar jobs (most commonly ones with some sort of management component; some reading here). Labor organizations tend to not like them. It's the cause of the phenomenon where McDonald's or whatever will promote someone to "manager" mostly just so they can have them work more hours for less pay (and no overtime).
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Jan 8, 2015 21:41
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Sheep posted:Just to point out, aside from the "gotchas" that companies sneak in to get out of paying overtime, there are other problems as well: for one, hour tracking is spotty at best (especially for non-hourly employees), and it's a point of national pride that Japanese people "work so hard" (aka stay late), plus the whole "can't leave before your boss" thing which is well-known - if you were suddenly to start going "so yeah those 14 hours I stayed late last week, are you going to pay me for that?" then you'd be seen as rocking the boat/being ungrateful/etc and it would pretty much tank your career, I'd imagine. That's only somewhat true. Many companies don't, but there are also plenty of big companies that specifically stipulate that all overtime is paid, and you can confirm this on third party review sites (basically japanese versions of glassdoor). Another big one that depends on the company is percentage of paid leave that people use, and is also tracked on review sites. It's not always a good thing though. I've been sort of job hunting on the side and the ones that pay overtime also tend to have pitiful salary. As a comparison, my last job had unpaid overtime but my base salary was so much higher than some of these paid overtime jobs that I wouldn't make as much even if I worked literally 16 hours a day. So, personally I don't care whether I get paid overtime or not, I just evaluate whether my total salary is worth the total hours I'm working
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Jan 9, 2015 01:22
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Zo posted:basically japanese versions of glassdoor What are the Japanese versions of Glassdoor? I've looked in the past, albeit not very thoroughly, are there any that are as well used as Glassdoor is? I'd love to get the good ones bookmarked; a good resource.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:40
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Kenishi posted:What are the Japanese versions of Glassdoor? I've looked in the past, albeit not very thoroughly, are there any that are as well used as Glassdoor is? Unfortunately there is no clear winner and they are all a pain in the rear end with contribution requirements. I usually end up at vorkers, job talk, or careerconnection. Sometimes there are 2channel threads for certain companies but you wade through a lot of garbage there. Edit: 2channel ranked my last company as top 3 black kaisha in its field in kansai which is pretty accurate for jp staff, for what it's worth. Zo fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 01:46
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Thanks. I don't get why there are always hurdles for some of these sites in order to use them. Its a pretty common theme with Japan sites. Its kind of amusing though that one of the rating categories on the 'job talk' site is: 美女・美男が多い
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Jan 9, 2015 06:11
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Considering how many people get hitched to coworkers, it sort of makes sense, but yeah.
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Jan 9, 2015 09:14
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Plus, more than in the west in general, your coworkers are going to be one of your major social circles for as long as you work there, which could very well be the majority of your life.
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Jan 9, 2015 11:25
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Well don't hold out on me, dudes. Do I go to Sony, Kawasaki or Yamaha for the hotties???
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Jan 9, 2015 12:22
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Fortunately the research has been done: http://r25.yahoo.co.jp/fushigi/wxr_detail/?id=20140122-00033634-r25
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Jan 9, 2015 12:44
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So umm, what the hell's going on with Kenji Goto? They're saying now that they're gonna murder him if the Japanese government can't force the government of Jordan to agree to a 2 for 1 prisoner swap before sundown today. edit: this post has out of date info ErIog fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 07:19
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ErIog posted:So umm, what the hell's going on with Kenji Goto? They're saying now that they're gonna murder him if the Japanese government can't force the government of Jordan to agree to a 2 for 1 prisoner swap before sundown today (about 3 hours from now). Jordan seems like they're going for the swap, but they're really only focused on their pilot, I'm a little afraid Goto might fall through the cracks if the Jordanians are handling the details of the exchange.
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Jan 29, 2015 07:21
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Ah, you're right. It would be up to Islamic State, I guess, if they wanted to do 2 for 1.
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Jan 29, 2015 07:23
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:Jordan seems like they're going for the swap, but they're really only focused on their pilot, I'm a little afraid Goto might fall through the cracks if the Jordanians are handling the details of the exchange. Depends on the money. The swap isn't about the female the Jordanians are holding, its about precisely how many millions the Japanese are willing to pay to ISIS.
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Jan 29, 2015 07:23
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:Jordan seems like they're going for the swap, but they're really only focused on their pilot, I'm a little afraid Goto might fall through the cracks if the Jordanians are handling the details of the exchange. Well the newest message says IS wants to swap Goto for the female the Jordanians are holding. So the one that might fall through the cracks in this case if there's no 2 for 1 deal is the pilot. His death is mentioned as a consequence of noncompliance, but the current trade offer from IS is 1 for 1 the female prisoner for Goto.
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Jan 29, 2015 07:31
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So the Japanese freelance journalist being held hostage by Islamic State, Kenji Goto, was reportedly killed. Abe stressed, "Terrorists committing these atrocities can never be tolerated. The guilty will be brought to justice, and we will continue to coordinate with the world community." Also, "If we cower in the fear of this kind of terrorism.. if we, as the country of Japan, break our stride, that will be just what the terrorists had hoped."(JPN Kyodo News Link) Anyone know what Abe's likely to do in response to this thing completely going tits up? I figure he either resigns or he continues his steady drum beat toward Japan having a more proactive military role in the world. I figure the latter option is more likely, but only because Abe has a huge war boner. I'm not real deep on the LDP backroom dealings stuff, though.
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Feb 2, 2015 01:43
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Why would he resign? Is this some kind of Japanese thing with losing face or whatever? This shouldn't have to affect relations with China at all, in fact it might even be positive because it could redirect nationalist anger towards a third party who China also doesn't like
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Feb 2, 2015 02:28
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Are there Japanese people who actually like their government and would be shocked if they hosed something up? To the few Japanese people I know who care about their politics at all, it's all just the same poo poo with sometimes different names and faces attached to it.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:42
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Abe hosed up big time, and Japanese PM's have resigned over less. The Japanese press caught Abe using the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the kidnappings to showboat and plug his reinterpretation of the constitution: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...&source=twitter Then he also accidentally said he was going to pledge monetary support for fighting ISIS directly: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/25/japanese-government-error-may-have-two-hostages-lost-in-translation.html After all of those mistakes, he was unable to salvage the situation by getting either hostage out safely. Abe's government is also party responsible for the first hostage to begin with as they detained the person that was supposed to be going to help the first hostage get released.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:50
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ErIog posted:Abe hosed up big time, and Japanese PM's have resigned over less. The Japanese press caught Abe using the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the kidnappings to showboat and plug his reinterpretation of the constitution: You don't seriously think there was ever any possible outcome other than "dude gets his head chopped off after months of horrifying torture", right? All the stuff about getting him out or ransoms or whatever was a bad joke at best. There was never a point when the Japanese government could affect that outcome icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 02:53
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The odds of him surviving were incredibly low. People didn't seem to give a poo poo about Yukawa being killed but they seem upset about Goto.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:04
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icantfindaname posted:You don't seriously think there was ever any possible outcome other than "dude gets his head chopped off after months of horrifying torture", right? All the stuff about getting him out or ransoms or whatever was a bad joke at best. There was never a point when the Japanese government could affect that outcome If Jordan had handed over the woman they wanted I'm quite sure that ISIS would've handed over Goto. Why would they want to sacrifice any opportunity at collecting future ransom just for a random Japanese journalist? But also, LOL at Abe resigning over this. This was not at all a stroke against him and can easily be spun into "we need a more proactive presence and representation out there" since they had no one to negotiate with ISIS directly.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:31
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CronoGamer posted:If Jordan had handed over the woman they wanted I'm quite sure that ISIS would've handed over Goto. Why would they want to sacrifice any opportunity at collecting future ransom just for a random Japanese journalist? Yeah, this is just going to be spun into "We need a 'real' armed forces". The interesting part will be whether the DPJ will (rightly) seize on the fact that'd lead to more Japanese nationals dying overseas and fight it tooth and nail, or if they'll cave and suffer the same fate as the socialists in the 90s.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:41
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CronoGamer posted:But also, LOL at Abe resigning over this. This was not at all a stroke against him and can easily be spun into "we need a more proactive presence and representation out there" since they had no one to negotiate with ISIS directly. Them having no one to negotiate with ISIS was directly the fault of Abe, though. I'll buy that it's unlikely he would step down, but what's posted in the articles I linked is pretty damning. Here's a 3rd one to go on the pile of, "Abe sure hosed this whole thing up." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/22/did-japan-botch-isis-hostage-deal.html
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Feb 2, 2015 04:47
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ErIog posted:Them having no one to negotiate with ISIS was directly the fault of Abe, though. I'll buy that it's unlikely he would step down, but what's posted in the articles I linked is pretty damning. Not that I hold it against him, but Jake Adelstein has a raging hate-hard-on for Abe. You can pretty safely ignore his takes on stuff until you see other outlets picking up his narrative.
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Feb 2, 2015 05:02
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Yeah I dislike Abe a whole loving bunch, but Adelstein is basically just making some lovely purple-rear end polemics without actually going into depth about the issues. gently caress I hate that guys' writing.
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Feb 2, 2015 15:47
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