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Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

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Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#341

Post by supertimor »

dotnet00 wrote: post #49
egypturnash wrote: post #8

searches for "union" hahaha yep, this word exists in this article but entirely in the context of how Japanese animators have absolutely no union. I ain't saying the US animation union is perfect but at least there is one; if I hear that some big production like Spiderverse2 is at a non-union shop then it's off my list to bother seeing, even via piracy. I trained to be in this industry and burnt right the fuck out fro…

On the other hand, US animation is mostly in a pretty sad state compared to the diversity of content and target audiences in Japanese animation, as well as compared to how US animation used to be.

I mean, large parts of the entertainment industry in the US are under some sort of union or guild, and has been for a quite some time, so I’d hardly blame the animation union for the state of US animation.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#342

Post by itake »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #88
itake wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't hold water when you look at the prestige of tech companies and their compensation packages. It is simply supply and demand. There are many people that can draw the characters, so their employees are fungible.

I don't really think good artist are that common, then again I guess we are talking about anime here (jk, I appreciate the art of much anime).

it really depends on what you mean by 'good artist'. Most of the labor in an anime is animating (copying) another artist's work.

I am sure the creative directors are paid well, but the people drawing each frame are probably a dime a dozen.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#343

Post by lobocinza »

Prickle wrote: post #313
Ferret7446 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one thing, workers can not easily hop from area of expertise to area of expertise like capital can Uh, last I checked, capital is not capable of hopping from area of expertise to area of expertise. A GPU cannot decide to become a burger flipping robot (much to the dismay of some crypto investors).

I thought capital in this context meant investment money. Not finished products. A investor can quickly move capital from one industry to another, but the worker cannot.

He must sell his participation which in this context would be done probably at significant loss.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#344

Post by lotsofpulp »

tomcam wrote: post #337
lotsofpulp wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it “punitive” taxes? If they are performing sufficiently productive work with the giant pickup, then they will be able to pass down the cost to their customers. The purpose of the tax is to dissuade frivolous use that harms society at large. If the use is valuable enough, it will be reflected in the prices of the services it helps provide.

Taxes by their nature tend to inhibit the thing being taxed. This is why every state in the USA has heavy liquor taxes, and it’s why places like New York City and Seattle tax soft drinks extra. The taxes you are proposing are literally designed to inhibit people from buying the vehicles they want.

FYI, NYC does not have a soft drinks or any sweetened drinks tax.

Yes, the tax is supposed to dissuade people, but obviously if you are paying $5 per mile in tax to use the pickup truck, but earn $20 per mile profit from the work accomplished using it, people will still be able to buy and use the truck for a productive purpose.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#345

Post by lobocinza »

sangnoir wrote: post #270
oatmeal1 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! And whether you personally find a business model morally "valid" is not a good reason to make economic changes. People deserve a cost-benefit anal…

> The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?

That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation.

Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many are) is just that free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#346

Post by sangnoir »

lobocinza wrote: post #345
sangnoir wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?

That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation. Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many…

> free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.

I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods?

> It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit

Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#347

Post by jandrese »

jxf wrote: post #183
jandrese wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always like when small business complain that "payroll is the majority of our expenses", but when you look at the expenses it is something like: Income: $100,000/month Expenses: $50,000/month Payroll: Cashier: $290/month Cashier: $290/month Cashier: $290/month Janitor: $290/month Security: $290/month Manager: $1,000/month Owner: $45,000/month "How can I keep my business afloat? We've already cut the staff down to t…

$290/month? If those cashiers are working 100 hours a month they're making about a third of (US federal) minimum wage.

They're working 39.5 hours a week to make sure they aren't in danger of getting benefits.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#348

Post by soulofmischief »

gruez wrote: post #333
soulofmischief wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such thing as a fair wage Bollocks. A fair wage is a wage which is agreed upon by employee and employer, and is livable according to local cost of living. Let's not get into a semantic argument.

That's your definition of a "fair wage". The parent's point is that it's subjective and others might disagree. For instance I've seen people take the marxist position that software engineers earning 6 figures isn't "fair" because the company is making even more money from their labor and that amount is effectively being stolen from them.

It's not just my definition of fair wage, it's the insight that "fair" can only be determined by the parties involved in the transaction, providing they have adequate information such as minimum and market wages for their craft, the value created by their effort, etc.

This is the key insight that OP is missing which makes them incorrectly think that "fair" can never be determined because it is some kind of objective goal post. It's not, it's highly subjective and local.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#349

Post by [deleted] »

neaden wrote: post #113
pcwalton wrote: post #79

The comments here are talking about how that's the entertainment industry for you, and that's true, but it's also Japan, where salaries are much lower in general than in the US or Europe. Per a quick Google search, at current exchange rates, it's not uncommon to see programmers with 2-3 years of experience earning $30K/year USD there, sometimes lower than that. Japan's economy has been stagnating for decades and that…

Labor conditions in Japan in general, in terms of pay and hours, seem so much worse then nations with similar per capita GDP I don't really get why.

[deleted]

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#350

Post by lobocinza »

sangnoir wrote: post #346
lobocinza wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation. Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many…

> free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer. I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods? > It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than…

> I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions?

Maybe not.

> Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods?

I don't think we should base our choice of economical system in the eventuality of an all-out war. Regardless of what I think in the event of an all-out war government will try to appropriate the resources it wants and gear the economy towards its needs because it can. A free market always efficiently allocate resources however I imagine the goals of the economical agents would be closer to preventing the destruction of wealth and human life than winning a war at all costs but this is context dependent.

Ukraine is an example where people from all over the world on their own volition contributed to the war effort in ways beyond what state violence could achieve. And Russia is the opposite example, top-down and dysfunctional.

> Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states.

People should have the freedom to use whatever they want as exchange medium. I don't know what is best but the current system with unsustainable growing debt do more harm than occasional adversarial nation-states could.

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