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YMMV / Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 04 E 16 Bar Association

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  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Is the Bajoran cleansing ritual really cutting into Quark's profits as he claims, or is he just making shit up as an excuse to maximize his profits at his employees' expense? Both are possible - immediate business is clearly slow and it's not an excuse that's plainly incredible to the crew, but Quark would surely know what happens this way annually and would surely use an excuse that's merely so-so as good enough to squeeze profit out of wages.
  • Strawman Has a Point: While the episode is strongly pro-union, it's hard not to sympathize a little with Quark. With almost no revenue coming in for a month, most businesses would need to find a way to cut expenses, and he does say that it's a choice of either cutting everyone's salaries or firing half the staff. Although, a third option that is also almost always ignored in real life as well is that Quark can take a cut in his profits to retain his staff at full pay. Just like higher-ups in real-life businesses, we've seen Quark takes an inordinately large share of the profits, so he could handle taking a smaller amount so that his employees don't lose their own pay, especially considering that it's established in this episode that he pays nothing to the Federation for rent or upkeep. Of course, given how greedy Quark is, he would never consider it. Note also that Rom specifically asks if the pay cut will just be temporary until the Cleansing Ritual is over (which would indeed make it an even better option than firing a bunch of workers), and Quark just smirks and says it'll depend on what the profit margin looks like next quarter.


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