The Japanese Mob Is Hiring Homeless People To Clean Up Fukushima 90
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Now, where do you find people willing to work in a fallout zone for minimum wage? According to a Reuters report, hidden within hundreds of contractors working on the cleanup effort are yakuza-controlled companies that pay headhunters to find homeless people willing to work inside the fallout zone. The sheer scale of the cleanup effort is staggering. While decontaminating the Fukushima plant itself will cost tens of billions and take years, there are also the surrounding areas in Fukushima prefecture, where cleanup costs are expected to top $30 billion. With Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the owner of the Fukushima plant, essentially nationalized at this point, Reuters reports that there's some $35 billion in taxpayer funds on the table for contractors."
subcontractors? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Would they be interested in H-1B workers here in the US being sub-contracted to work at Fukushima?
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Just getting out the shackles and whips is discouraged; but there are so many ways of achieving de-facto slave labor...
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They offer to give the homeless food and shelter, but these bills end up costing more than the homeless earn, so they end up in debt. Now the homeless are realizing they are better off on the street that at Fukushima.
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Idealized perhaps, but I picture their homeless very happy, very proud to work there.
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Quite possibly, BUT...you're going to have to have very precisely written, step-by-step instructions on what exactly you want to do!!
Don't leave anything to them using "imagination" or coming up with a unique solution, otherwise, your going to just spend more money having natives come in and re-do everything correctly.
At least they are not being employed by the mobs ! (Score:1)
Would they be interested in H-1B workers here in the US being sub-contracted to work at Fukushima?
You may like to snide at those who work under the H-1B visa as "illegals", but at the very least, they do not work for the mobs, unlike what is happening right now in Japan, the land of the Yakuza !
Where's Zatoichi when you need him? (Score:2)
And what pray tell will the Yakuza do with the radioactive waste?
Re:Where's Zatoichi when you need him? (Score:5, Funny)
Packages of self-cooking noodles will be the next big thing out of Japan!
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I've already had self-cooking noodles in Japan. But they weren't the glow in the dark variety.
Re:Where's Zatoichi when you need him? (Score:4, Funny)
And what pray tell will the Yakuza do with the radioactive waste?
Collect it, mix it with a special blend of herbs, spices, and peppers, and sell it as:
Fukushima "Devil may care, screw tomorrow" Nuclear Total Meltdown Exxxxtra Hot Sauce.
Some people are going to be desperate due to a shortage of their favorite [go.com]. They might make a quick buck in the US, maybe Korea and China too. Or maybe they could just open a store on Amazon. They could compete with this stuff [amazon.com], which has one of the best reviews ever [amazon.com].
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Awwww not YOLO Noodle?
Of course (Score:3)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
"Members of Japanese organized crime were arrested three times this year "on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi Corp's network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project," which in some cases were homeless people hired by recruiters paid bounties on each minimum-wage worker they could sign up."
Wrong.
These are subcontractors hired by Obayashi Construction Corp.
It's taxpayer money, but a private contract and private oversight.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Private exploiters, with private profit.
Socialize the expenses, privatize the revenue.
This is a conservatives wet dream (Score:1)
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People with rich parents don't take the shitty, dangerous jobs. That's why meritocracy is an illusion. Only spoilt brats who don't want to be reminded that they are spoilt brats believe it.
I do not hate beta (Score:1)
I only dislike it. What I hate is the random redirections to it.
Why not make the Yakuza do it themselves ? (Score:1)
I'm sure the Japanse military could make them an offer they ...
couldn't refuse
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If you had to slaughter 100 willing people, why wouldn't you choose the ones who demand the least compensation?
Re:Genocide, prove otherwise. (Score:4, Insightful)
What "class" is that? They're not slaughtering all the homeless people. They're convincing to a small number of them to take high risk jobs for low pay.
Re: Genocide, prove otherwise. (Score:3)
having lived in Japan I can tell you the cost of getting into an apartment in Japanis something like four months rent. one month rent then one month rent realtors fees then two months rent as a gift to the landlord which is a holdover from the era after wwII when massive housing shortages plagued japan due tp large scale housing destruction. if you needed $4000 to get into an apartment you might have trouble getting into one too. also not having an apartmrnt is expensive because you can't cook or do anyt
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Japan is not just one area thou, you make it seem as if it is all the same. Where exactly did you live?
Manhattan is a super expensive place to live but it is not representative of all of the US. You need to provide much details to be creditable.
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"Japan is not just one area you, thou make it seem as if it is all the same."
"Thou" is a completely different word than the one you want. Though. Tip: If English isn't your native language (I suspect you're Japanese), take care to NOT copy what you see on the internet. There are an awful lot of semiliterate people here who will make you look like a moron if you follow their examples. Practice with literature, not the internet.
Oh, and creditable isn't the word you're looking for, either. Creditable means (of
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Lol, thank you oh wize (ass) AC! You found a word where I missed letters on and something my spell checker fixed wrong! I bow to your wizdom!
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Actually I lived in Aomori city in Aomori prefecture for 5 years. Are you from Japan? If so, you know it's not a super expensive place to live. But normally they wanted 1 months rent, security deposit, 1 months rent as a real estate agent fee, and 1 or 2 months rent (I forget which) as key money. (A gift to the landlord.)
My apartments base rent was 50,000 yen (`$500) and was not the most expensive place in the city. But worse case scenario that's still almost $3000, or close to 3 months salary for a minimum
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I'm curious if there is some kind of insurance fund that will help these people if they develop cancer or kidney failure in a few years.
I'm also wondering if they are educated enough about the risks to know what they are getting into.
Desperate hungry people doing a high risk job for low pay that may kill them? Sounds like the jobless problem is self correcting in Japan.
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They have a national health care system, coverage cannot be denied, and hospitals are, by law, physician-owned non-profits. The government sets the prices and generally the patient gets a bill for 30%. I'm sure if they can't pay they'll feel very ashamed, and beg for more nuclear cleanup work.
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Considering the lethality of low level radiation, this is quite possibly the most inefficient way to slaughter the entire class of people ever.
Might as well use them at Tepco (Score:5, Insightful)
From the evidence to date, I think that the management of TEPCO would be improved by replacing every C level executive with a homeless person. It could hardly get worse.
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what about some BIG PRISON time for all bribes
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Why stop there? Take it all the way to the top! If they choose people with a general resemblance, they could leave the country and it could buy them weeks. "They've been spotting entering and exiting the meeting room, but nobody has been able to get through on the telephone"
Re:If it works for them... (Score:4, Insightful)
I was once told that an invisible man in the sky loved me and if I did not do exactly what he said no matter what he would show me that love by burning me for eternity.
Don't believe everything you hear...
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lol.
He is invisible because you cannot see him. That whole Jesus thing was a bizarre and very temporary manifestation with many conflicting theories as to what exactly he was even among the faithful.
He is everywhere so in the sky too. Also that was a metaphor as you well know.
You are only forgiven if you ask for it. And what exactly constitutes someone who goes to hell is likewise extremely vague and conflicted. I was told as a child the very strict version of that myth and was not limiting my sentiment to
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I think calling them crazy or crazy-as-shit is a bit uncalled for. Sure, some of them are, but most are not.
Just misguided, gullible, or naive.
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As in most things, deaths (unless they're a substantial fraction of the population) don't matter that much in dollars & cents. Disabilities, however, cost an insane amount of money. And Chernobyl caused a significant number of disabilities, physical and mental, among children born in effected areas or by effected parents.
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Actually, there were a few explosions. Not nuclear, but accumulated Hydrogen gas. They did distribute radio isotopes into the atmosphere, which was deposited in the local environment. That is what fallout is.
Typical Western journalism (Score:1)
The only reason this story, is a story, is that many Westerners do not understand the role of one's work in Japanese culture. Despite the criminal activity of their employers, many of these homeless people must feel some level of satisfaction from having something to do other than beg in a culture that most definitely despises begging of any type. To the Japanese, having something productive to do - kameseru - is as important as breathing.
If the emphasis of this story is that the mob is involved, so be it
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To the Japanese, having something productive to do - kameseru - is as important as breathing.
THANK YOU for adding some interesting vox punctus contra punctum to the steady throb of exploitation exposé. Appreciation of pure kameseru does exist in Western cultures as well, though we try to balance it with a certain measure of laziness that varies with the individual.
Disaster cleanup is noble work what ever the hazards, compensation or conditions.
Here's hoping that with the intense scrutiny that this operation is under, the loosened purse-strings towards refugees (see the October 30 entry [hiroshimasyndrome.com]) and
Plot of Ghost in the Shell 2nd Gig episode (Score:4, Interesting)
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The Japanese miracle was nano-bots that would scrub fallout that resulted from the use of nuclear weaponry but these nanobots had to be deployed prior to a blast to be useful. They're basically a deterrent for the use of nuclear weapons by making the radiation aspects of the weapons pointless.
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The Wallman manga's last 3 or four episodes have been dealing with yakuza exploiting cleanup money in Fukushima also.
Welcome to the Jungle (Score:1)
At the turn of the 20th Century Sinclair Lewis wrote about working conditions and corruption in the Chicago stockyards. Since then the US has allowed 12 million undocumented immigrants to work for minimum real wages, often without benefits or protections for which 'we' have understaffed federal agencies that can't adequately monitor all the businesses that pump out seasonally harvested food crops, let alone mass produced crap like salmonella laden peanut butter. But for some reason, we have to focus on what
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How is this different from... (Score:1)
I'd do the work, but . . . . (Score:2)