Gina is no single-digit billionaire like Donald Trump who told Forbes Magazine he is worth a solid $7-billion. If you multiplied Donald Trump by ten you would still miss the mark. BRW, an Australian business magazine has predicted that her wealth will surge to $100-billion US. She is so powerful a woman in Australia that she actually has a mountain range named after her in the western part of the continent.
When you are a billionaire you have to measure your words but Gina Rinehart is not that kind of gal! She recently got into some hot water when she compared the Australian Olympic team; (an obvious reference to the swimming portion), to the economic competitiveness of Australian business:
Her quote:
"...23 August 2012, Rinehart expressed concern for Australia's economic competitiveness noting how "Indeed if we competed in the Olympic Games as sluggishly as we compete economically, there would be an outcry." ... "Furthermore, Africans want to work and its workers are willing to work for less than two dollars a day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future. ..."
To be fair to Rinehart she was not suggesting that Australian miners get paid $2.00 a day but rather that the government should consider what high wages would mean for resource exports.
Now, what about that Australian Olympic team she referenced? Enter her new Australian Swimming friends - From AFP News:
"... Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart on Friday said she would splash out Aus$10 million (US$10.4 million) to support the country's leading swimmers, who are reeling from a poor Olympic campaign.
The announcement by Rinehart's Georgina Hope Foundation comes a day after Swimming Australia chief Kevin Neil quit his post in the wake of the team's disappointing showing in London -- it's worst Olympic meet in two decades.
"The foundation will focus on providing subsistence funding, squad funding, scholarship funding and performance funding," foundation chairman Rinehart said in a statement issued by Swimming Australia. ..."
[Link]
Australian swimming has a very good friend right now, a friend who makes about $2-million-bucks-an-hour each and every hour of the day. (No really, she makes that much!) This is very good news for Swimming Australia but very sad for Australia itself.
In a country that owns a complete continent, so large that if "terraformed" it could feed the entire bottom hemisphere of this planet, it makes no logical sense for Australia to allow that much mining product to be exported. It's a sad day for Australia when the continent produces the richest person on earth but that woman got that rich by selling minerals beneath the citizens feet and the feet of their future generations as well.
Japan is a small nation on an island that probably has the same or less land mass than California yet it is the number two economy in the world. They got that way by selling ideas not resources.
Ideas are infinite resources are not.
4 comments:
"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you're jealous of those with more money don't just sit there and complain, do something to make more money yourself," she wrote in Australian Resources and Investment magazine. "Spend less time drinking, smoking and socialising and more time working."
Her words. Consider that against her $2 per day being adequate pay for hazardous mining work. She inherited the majority of her holdings - so much for picking herself up by the bootstraps. I'm not sure that's who I would want supporting my organization. John DuPont anyone?
I deleted half this article because I thought people would misunderstand me.
She is literally profitting and exporting the public's resources from beneath their feet and complains how badly Australia will do if they raise wages.
Now, Swimming Australia athletes are being used like a corsage to make her she look patriotic and SA will gladly pimp them out.
Money is not Swimming Australi's problem. Leadership is
They definitely have some great coaches there.
Post a Comment