Well it is nice to know that cruel and unusual people aren't confined to the United States.
In Australia the head of Hancock Prospecting, a mining concern worth thirty billion and change, recently expressed her disdain for those who are "jealous" of the wealthy.
Georgina Hope Hancock Rinehart, known familiarly as Gina Rinehart, has this to say about us slackers who are filled with envy. "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself--spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working." She went on to say, "Become one of those people who work hard, invest, and build and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others."
That's right, put your nose to the grindstone and invest your hard earned money. As an old ad for an oil field service company used to brightly say, "If you don't have an oil well, buy one." You see it is all quite simple. Horatio Alger was right.
Rinehart made these remarks last week and besides the sage advice and motherly scolding she had the usual complaints about, "socialist anti business government policies." She also wanted Australia to reduce taxes and lower the minimum wage. It was your normal run of the mill right wing industrialist horse shit. Let me make more money and everyone will be better off. Right, that has always worked.
Well this week Ms. Rinehart cut a video for something called the Australian Mining Club. During her latest rant she let people know just how much she really wanted to pay her workers in an ideal world. She opened by complaining that the Australian mining industry can't compete in the global market place because of, among other things, the wages she is forced to pay. Then continuing on the previous theme of jealous Aussies not wanting to work she said, "Africans want to work. Its workers are willing to work for less than two dollars per day."
Now I'm not all that familiar with the cost of living statistics in Australia. However, I'm pretty sure that "less than two dollars a day" puts pretty strict limits on where you can live, how much you can eat, and certainly on how much you can "invest and build and at the same time create employment for others."
Of course, Ms. Rinehart's perspective on that whole Horatio Alger thing is a bit skewed. She was the only child of Lang Hancock, the guy who actually started the business. When he went off to that great mine shaft in the sky she inherited $75 million, allowing her to skip the whole $2 per day step in the process of becoming a successful tycoon.
According to Wikipedia her corporation is currently investing heavily in Australian media outlets. Obviously she has learned from our pal Rupert Murdoch that if you control the news a lot of this negativity regarding your personality and politics will disappear, as will government efforts to make your financial records public: something she is fighting tooth and nail to prevent. Unfortunately, no amount of media control will stop her three kids who took her to court last year. They are suing her because she continues to deny them control of their trust funds, which were set up by their grandmother. Hey, business is business and money is money. Let the little shits shovel some ore, it will teach them the real value of an honest day's labor.
I suppose we should feel lucky that this monstrous toad doesn't live here in the U.S. God only knows how much cash she'd be funneling Mitt Romney right now. No doubt he is her type of man.
Yes, Australia, you can have her. We have too many just like her on the premises all ready. There is no need to add yet another entrepreneur who thinks that if everyone else earns less we'll all be better off.
So, good luck in Oz, mates. Just watch out for that minimum wage decrease. Two dollars a day doesn't buy a whole lot of Foster's. Just ask those hard at it, happy, souls in Africa.
9-7-12
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