Treasurer Wayne Swan has slammed mining magnate Gina Rinehart for insulting Australian workers after she accused people of being jealous of the wealthy.

Mrs Rinehart, Australia's richest person, says those who are jealous of the wealthy should start working harder and cut down on drinking, smoking and socialising.

In her regular column in Australian Resources and Investment magazine, she wrote it was billionaires like herself who were doing more than anyone to help the poor by investing their money and creating jobs.

"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 socialising, and more time working.

"Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others."

She also suggested the government should lower the minimum wage of $606.40 a week and cut taxes to stimulate employment.

But Mr Swan said the comments were "an insult to the millions of Australian workers who go to work and slog it out to feed the kids and pay the bills".

"The big question is whether [Opposition Leader] Tony Abbott will endorse Gina Rinehart's social policies as he's endorsed her tax, industrial relations and environmental policies," the Treasurer said in a statement.

"Tony Abbott is Gina's knight in shining armour when it comes to fighting for tax cuts for her and Clive Palmer."

Mr Swan added: "The question for Tony Abbott today is does he agree with Gina Rinehart that Aussies are lazy workers who drink and socialise too much?

"Will he do her bidding and slash the minimum wage as Gina wants him to?"

Mr Abbott has yet to respond.

But Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt has joined a chorus of criticism of Ms Rinehart for insulting workers.

Mr Bandt said he was continually amazed at people like Ms Rinehart, who did not see the mining boom as belonging to everyone.

"They want to take all of the benefits for themselves and distribute none of it to the rest of the country," he told journalists.

"A lot of people work very hard and work a lot harder than Gina Rinehart does and take home less each week than her."

Earlier today, federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said Ms Rinehart was out of line attacking those on the lowest wages.

"I think it's pretty easy for Gina Rinehart to say that people on the minimum wage should get paid less," she told the Seven network today.

"I think she should try living on the minimum wage."

Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, told Seven she respected success but Ms Rinehart was not self-made.

"She's accumulated wealth from her family."

Senator Rhiannon said workers were out there creating the wealth.

Building union chief Tony Maher said Mrs Rinehart's comments showed why Australia's mining billionaires should not lead Australia's economic debate.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union national president said in a statement today that Mrs Rinehart's comments revealed her "twisted logic".

"At the same time as trying to import cheap foreign labour and avoid paying tax, Rinehart claims it's millionaires and billionaires who are the greatest for social good. What planet is she living on?"

Mr Maher said Mrs Rinehart was born into a mining fortune and once you had such a fortune it was not hard to build on it, especially in an era of record prices for Australian resources.

Mrs Rinehart should not employ foreign workers if she genuinely wants Australians to be richer, north Queensland MP Bob Katter said.

Mr Katter said Ms Rinehart would be more believable if she did not want to import foreign workers for coalmines in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

"So thank you for your advice, Gina, but this demonstrates the most burning question before the Australian people today," he said.

"Are we going to give the 200,000 jobs that are coming with the coal expansion in the Galilee Basin ... and in iron ore to foreign workers as Gina Rinehart wants?

"Bringing in the foreign workers is not about her being unable to get Australians to do those jobs, it's about cutting back pays."

Rinehart's Welfare Comments An 'Insult To Millions': Treasurer

Poor old Gina …

If a girl waves her big fat arse & says what she thinks in awstrayla, the whole place lines-up against her …

But if Labor’s ‘man of the people’, Bill Shorten, has a go at the disadvantaged, not a peep from anyone!!

What a bunch of hypocritical misogynists they all are.

Buy Fairfax & stick it up the lost of them Gina!!   

 

Can we save American capitalism?

By Steven Pearlstein, Published: September 1

A dozen Labor Days — and three presidential elections — ago, the world was in the thrall of American-style capitalism. Not only had it vanquished communism, but it was widening its lead over Japan Inc. and European-style socialism.

Today, that economic hegemony seems a distant memory. We have watched the bursting of two giant financial bubbles, wiping out the paper wealth many of us thought we had in our homes and retirement accounts. We have suffered through two long recessions and a lost decade of income growth for the average family. We continue to rack up large trade and budget deficits. Virtually all of the country’s economic growth and productivity gains have been captured by the top 10 percent of households, while moving up the economic ladder has become more difficult. And other countries are beginning to turn to China, Germany, Sweden and even Israel for lessons in how to organize their capitalist economies.

It’s no wonder, then, that large numbers of Americans have begun to question the superiority of our brand of free-market capitalism. This disillusionment is reflected not only in public opinion polls but on the shelves of American bookstores, where the subject has attracted many of the best economists in the country. Retooling American capitalism has become something of an national — and even international — obsession.

“Capitalism has always changed in order to survive and thrive. It needs to change again,” writes Martin Wolf, the uncompromisingly pro-market columnist for the Financial Times, in an essay in “The Occupy Handbook.”

It would be giving the current presidential campaign too much credit to say that it has become the forum in which Americans will decide what kind of capitalism they want, unless you count the “na-na na-na na-na” mudslinging over Mitt Romney’s outsourcing and President Obama’s welfare regulations. The closest it has come has been the discussion over the president’s inartful comment about business owners who did or didn’t “build” their success.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-we-save-american-capitalism/2012/08/31/800de6be-f04e-11e1-ba17-c7bb037a1d5b_print.html

 

Unless the value of this planet and its precious natural environment are written to be preserved in the system of capitalism, then capitalism won't be worth the toilet paper necessary to wipe its arse off... Sorry I could have written this more elegantly for posterity but immediacy is the key here...

 

The Prime Minister has shrugged off Gina Rinehart's latest attack on the mining and carbon taxes, wondering "where's the news in that?"
Yesterday, Mrs Rinehart posted a 10-minute video on the Sydney Mining Club's website in which she said that Australia "simply can't afford" the two taxes.
The mining magnate said the evidence was "unarguable" that Australia was becoming too expensive to do export-oriented business.
"We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment," Mrs Rinehart said.

Today, Julia Gillard told ABC Radio that she had a "different view" from the richest woman in the world. She said the mining industry would keep growing and that there were billions of dollars of investment in the pipeline.
The Prime Minister added that Mrs Rinehart had always been opposed to the mining tax and carbon pricing.
"She's still opposed,” Ms Gillard said.“Where's the news in that?"
Mrs Rinehart also warned that Africa is a cheaper investment option, with workers willing to take jobs for less than $2 per day.
But Ms Gillard's said Australia would not be competing on wage rates with Africa.
"We are not going to have wage rates the same as the wage rates in Africa," she said. "We mine differently than in other countries."
Ms Gillard also told reporters in Perth that her government supported "proper Australian wages and decent working conditions for Australian people." 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-dismisses-rineharts-tax-tirade-20120905-25do5.html#ixzz25ZKPlb85

 

Is the notion of loyalty at work dying? Yes, according to academic Dr Michael Rafferty, who believes the falling loyalty of employers to their staff is making more people switch jobs.
"We used to think that the precariousness of short-term employment was something that happened to people at the bottom end of the labour market. But I think precarious is now in some ways the definition of modern employment," Dr Rafferty, who is based at the University of Sydney's Workplace Research Centre, said.

The risks of employment security are being transferred on to workers, whereas in the past they were being shared between workers and employers 

"We are all only a couple of months away from potentially being restructured out of work ... The risks of employment security are being transferred on to workers, whereas in the past they were being shared between workers and employers."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/loyalty-at-work-look-whos-lost-it-20120905-25ecb.html#ixzz25ZvmNA9i

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/rinehart-says-aussie-workers-overpaid-unproductive/4243866

And let me tell you, Gina works her BIG arse off... so there...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/rinehart-accused-of-inciting-moral-panic/4245100?WT.svl=news0

how is she going to make her next yearly 4 billion if you slack off?

"And don't think for second that the politicians and news agencies giving her air time aren't enjoying every second of it."
The BBC estimated that, while Mrs Rinehart was talking about pay rates for African workers, she was earning $600 a second.
The Los Angeles Times reported Mrs Rinehart was "back with some more helpful advice" a week after she told poor Australians to work harder and drink and smoke less.
"Yep, it's getting harder and harder to be a job creator," the article said.
"Rinehart knows what it means to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. She inherited a fortune now estimated to be worth about $18 billion. That's a heavy burden to bear."
Newser covered Mrs Rinehart's speech under the headline "World's Richest Woman's New Idea: Wages of $2 a Day".
"Gina Rinehart, that charming Australian billionaire who last week advised the world's 'jealous' poor to stop whining and drinking so much, is back with more priceless advice.

"The world's richest woman, who amassed her family fortune via iron-ore mining, thinks Australia's struggling mining industry should look to Africa for inspiration."
Mrs Rinehart's speech was widely covered by outlets including The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Britain's Daily Mail and America's National Public Radio.

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/business/worlds-media-pan-rineharts-2-a-day-african-miner-comments-20120906-25fpq.html#ixzz25eeEcw3G

The world's richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, drew international scorn recently after saying that people who are jealous of the wealthy should drink less and work harder.

And now she's back with some more helpful advice.

Speaking at the Sydney Mining Club, Rinehart said her country's mining industry couldn't compete with nations that are willing to pay workers less than $2 a day for their sweat and labor.

The implicit suggestion: Employers should be free to pay workers whatever they please.

This echoes Rinehart's earlier to-do list, in which she urged Aussie lawmakers to cut the minimum wage so that, well, she wouldn't have to spend so much money on things like workers' salaries and benefits.

"The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business," Rinehart said at the Sydney Mining Club. "Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future."

Yep, it's getting harder and harder to be a job creator.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-woman-pay-20120905,0,6971046.story

More than two million workers in Indonesia have gone on strike in one of the biggest demonstrations in years, bringing the capital, Jakarta, to a halt.

They have taken to the streets to express their frustration with what they call the government’s cheap-labour policy.

Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reports from Cikarang, West Java,,,,

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2012/10/2012103195350523187.html