The world's richest woman, Australian heiress Gina Rinehart,
said her country's mining industry couldn't compete in global trade because workers take too much of the pie.
She urged lawmakers to cut the minimum wage.
She said, "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."
Meanwhile striking African miners continue to demand higher wages at the platinum mine in Marikana where 34 were gunned down recently by forces representing Rinehart's owner class. These Africans are demanding their monthly $480 be raised threefold. Which African miners was she speaking of that are happy with less than two dollars a day?
Born to wealth, she wrote: "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 - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working."
A discontinuity exists between this class and reality. It warps them and their perceptions in a fundamental way. It destroys the normal sense of community with others and erodes their connection to the earth. How else do we explain hunger, nuclear energy and GMOs? Isnt it just too dangerous to let them call the shots?