Tuesday, April 19, 2011

JAPAN MULLS ELECTRICITY HIKES

From Kyodo News


The government is considering increasing electricity charges to help cover damages payments to people who have suffered losses on the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co., government sources said Tuesday.
It is planning to increase the tax on electricity source development, which is collected from consumers as part of electricity charges, and use the hike for providing a portion of the damages payments that TEPCO may not be able to shoulder, they said.
Within the government and the electric utility industry, however, there are some cautious views about the planned measure that will effectively force all the Japanese people to share the burden of damages payments.
Nearly all of anime, including 2D has a digital component to it (what do you think powers all of those computers they use at the studios). If the cost to power anime studios equipment rises then that can add significantly to production costs. If the cost of electricity rises it also hits the artists as well as they still have to pay their own electricity bills. So in many ways its a double whammy.

- The cost to make anime goes up.
- Workers at he studios get hit with what looks like a "tax" that lowers their disposable income.

That is not a good thing.

No comments:

Post a Comment