Apartments So Small They Can Only Be Photographed From Above

Post by bearmf » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

wilfra wrote: post #185

bearmf wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely rich people in Manhattan never travel?

Sure they do but on average a millionaire from HK is going to travel internationally a lot more - especially to poor countries - than a millionaire from New York, simply due to geography and living on a small island. All they have to do is walk over the border into Shenzhen to get a sense of just how rich they are. One could conceivably grow up in NYC and never grow to truly appreciate how much their life differs fro…

There are plenty of poor people in Manhattan, inequality is very high. But maybe you are right and rich people in Manhattan have more opportunity and desire to insulate themselves. I wouldn't know.

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Tue, Mar 12, 2013, 3:07 AM UTC

Evbn wrote: post #201

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem in HK is the number of undocumented immigrants. No papers, no open borders, surrounded mostly by water, these people are easy to exploit. I was told that many of the construction workers' (building skyscrapers) wages barely amount to the cost of the day's food.

It's sort of amazing the people in these conditions care enough about quality of work to build buildings that don't fall down.

Cough, ahem, well, it was also explained to me that there may be some systematic labor-related problems with construction quality in those buildings. Not exactly related to worker pay-rate, but the gist is that they tend to pour the concrete too wet (because it is easier/faster to work). This is probably because of productivity-based bonus pay for foremen. The difference in strength isn't enough to cause a building to fail under nominal conditions, but catastrophic failure is more probable in some destructive event (weather, earthquake, explosion, etc).

Re: Apartments So Small They Can Only Be Photographed From Above

Re: Apartments So Small They Can Only Be Photographed From Above