Rich and batshit crazy - Aussie style

SYDNEY — The world's richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, urged those "jealous" of the wealthy to "spend less time drinking" in a piece the government described as "insulting" on Thursday.
Rinehart, whose family iron ore prospecting fortune of Aus$29.2 billion (US$30.1 billion) also makes her Australia's wealthiest person, hit out at those who she said were envious of the rich.
"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she wrote in an industry magazine column.
"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."
Rinehart blamed what she described as "socialist", anti-business policies for the plight of Australia's poor, urging the government to lower the minimum wage, as well as taxes, unless it wanted to end up like Greece.
"The terrible millionaires and billionaires can often invest in other countries... maybe their teenagers don't get the cars they wanted, or a better beach house or or maybe the holiday to Europe is cut short, but otherwise life goes on," she wrote.
"The millionaires and billionaires who choose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young. This secret needs to be spread widely."
But senior ministers including Treasurer Wayne Swan -- an outspoken critic of Australia's mining billionaires and their deep-pocketed anti-tax campaigns -- slammed the remarks.
"These sorts of comments are an insult to the millions of Australian workers who go to work and slog it out to feed the kids and pay the bills," Swan said, adding that Rinehart clearly regarded Australians as "lazy workers who drink and socialise too much".
Swan has repeatedly attacked Rinehart, coal magnate Clive Palmer and iron ore baron Andrew Forrest for running "self-interested" campaigns against the centre-left Labor government's taxes on mining profits and pollution.
He penned a lengthy essay for prominent magazine The Monthly earlier this year taking the billionaires to task and ramped up his attack in a speech this month drawing heavily on the lyrics of US working-class rocker Bruce Springsteen.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said it was "pretty easy for Gina Rinehart to say that people on the minimum wage should get paid less".
The left-leaning Greens party noted that Rinehart had "accumulated wealth from her family", while Australia's mining union labelled her remarks "bizarre" and accused her of pursing a "dangerous" agenda.
"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," said mining union president Tony Maher.
"What planet is she living on? She should spend less time ranting and more time sharing."

If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself

FellOnEarth said:
Maybe she should take up drinking and socializing, clearly she works too hard.

METOO said:
read this

So work harder but we're going to pay you less while I make even more money you lazy drunks.

ArtHippo said:

Or you could be like her and inherit everything.

JorgeCartman said:

I know, right? Wtf. Only billionaire I know of who can say something like that without sounding like a total hypocrite is Richard Branson. Although I sincerely doubt he'd actually say it.... at least not in the callous way she did. Unlike Rinehart, Branson actually came up from common roots to build his fortune.

I wonder if Rinehart will tell the masses to "Just eat Cake"...

JorgeCartman said:

I know, right? Wtf. Only billionaire I know of who can say something like that without sounding like a total hypocrite is Richard Branson. Although I sincerely doubt he'd actually say it.... at least not in the callous way she did. Unlike Rinehart, Branson actually came up from common roots to build his fortune.

I wonder if Rinehart will tell the masses to "Just eat Cake"...

ardour said:
But who will clean our pools when we all stop smoking and socializing and become millionaires?

ardour said:
But who will clean our pools when we all stop smoking and socializing and become millionaires?

Thistle said:
This lady obviously sucks but I always hate to see people resort to mocking someone's appearance. Plenty of people who are good and generous look like her too.

Thistle said:
This lady obviously sucks but I always hate to see people resort to mocking someone's appearance. Plenty of people who are good and generous look like her too.

METOO said:

Working? Getting married at 19. Working for her Daddy, then fighting her stepmother over the fortune for 14 years.

Thistle said:

My point is that her appearance isn't relevant and it weakens your position to attack her on her gender or her weight or the fact that she isn't conventionally attractive. It's exactly the same as attacking someone on the basis of not being white. It's something she can't help that has nothing to do with the hateful, horrible ideas coming out of her mouth. And it's a low blow that is not worthy of intelligent discourse.

Your point seems to be that it's okay to be ugly if you are a really good person. My point is that how ugly someone is is irrelevant to their worth as a person.

Your point is further weakened by calling her a cunt, which is insulting her on the basis of her gender and not her politics. Do you think I like that if I piss you off enough you will say my genitals are the worst insult you can offer? This person, this Ms Rhinehart, is a horrible human being and I don't intend to defend her actions or ideas at all. But her femaleness and ugliness have absolutely fuck all to do with why she's a shitty human being and are NOT the basis from which to criticize her.

Thistle said:
It's something she can't help that has nothing to do with the hateful, horrible ideas coming out of her mouth.

cpkz said:

It is something she can help. She could work to lose weight.

She could use less of her money to eat as much as she does.

And those aspects are relevant. She calls lower class people lazy, and suggests that they shouldn't over-consume. Yet pointing out that her weight is most likely due to both over-consumption and an unwillingness to physically strain her body (aka, she's lazy) is pointing out that she's hypocritical, and until she is willing to put the same effort as everyone else, she should shut her mouth.

I do agree that insulting her gender / using gender-insulting words is a bad move.