Working for two dollars a day
Posted: September 22, 2012 Filed under: bitching, douchebaggery, news, politics, weird 8 Comments |
| This is what lawful evil looks like. |
The richest woman in the world, mining company owner Gina Rhinehart, recently stated that African workers who were willing to go to work for around two dollars a day should be considered an ‘inspiration.’ Rhinehart considers the africans ‘inspiring,’ perhaps, because they earn so little. I wonder what she thinks of the South African mineworkers who were ‘inspired’ to strike because their wages were too low and their workplaces too dangerous?
Rhinehart lives in Australia and owns a gigantic company that produces iron ore. She did not build this company; she inherited it. Her complaint is that normal Australians, with their expectations of a life beyond what you can get for 2 dollars a day, are destroying her industry’s ability to compete with Africans who earn 2 dollars a day or less. Yes, she does seem to be serious. She says that in order to get ahead, the poor could work harder and ‘drink and smoke less.’ I’d point out that if she wants to cut wages to two dollars a day, she will have to add ‘food, healthcare, a place to sleep and water’ to luxuries that Australian workers will have to do without in order to get by on 2 dollars a day. And who will buy the items made from the ore that her 2 dollar a day wage slaves will be producing?
I think rather than trying to change Australians, Rhinehart should move herself to somplace in the world where two dollars will buy you 8 hours worth of labor. She also looks a little too hefty for someone who feels she has the right to preach self restraint to those uppity Aussies who won’t settle for her gilded age level wages and give up ‘luxuries’ that make working in a mine more bearable like a can of beer or a smoke.
“I think rather than trying to change Australians, Rhinehart should move herself to somplace in the world where two dollars will buy you 8 hours worth of labor.”
Sadly, that's more or less what happened here in the U.S., packed up and moved to corrupt tinpot dictatorships in the developing world where the workers can be exploited and no one has a say in where you dump your pollution.
And what is the elegant solution of the “job creators” for remedying American unemployment (besides further lowering their taxes)? Why scrapping those “socialist,” ” job destroying” labor and environmental laws that they claim drove them out of the U.S. in the first place.
Either way, we can't win.
The Global Village and the Global Marketplace brings most of us to the same neighborhood where those who can't affors to live in luxury must struggle for a few dollars a day.
I would say she isn't Lawful Evil, as through her statements she rejects the very idea of a society in favor of a so-called “Social Darwinist” existence, i.e., the “Survival of the Fittest,” which is much mkore Chaotic Evil than Lawful Evil.
To her, laws are not to be obeyed, they are to be surmounted or avoided or eliminated altogether. Social protections adn social contracts? To her, a joke. Her wealth, her power, that is all that matters, and everyone else can starve or die in a snarling battle to survive. To her, society is nothing, the individual everything, and most especially her own needs over everyone elses.
Yes, definitely Chaotic Evil.
In the US, violent confrontations and bloody skirmishes started for statements even more demanding!
The whole point of having a career is that you make enough live comfortably and to maintain a family, and when you become more experienced and productive, you earn more. As the middle class gains more in disposable income, so dose the economy improves. And people like her who hoard cash in tax-shelters, pay little in taxes, and undercuts the wages of her employes for her own gain not just contributes little to society, but is actively hindering in the development and economic prosperity of her own country! Its not that complicated, and yet they fail to grasp such a simple concept!
You know whats really “inspiring”? Mining company heiress who looses everything through their own shortsighted greed, and are forced to suck dick for cheap-ass Top Ramen like a common crack whore (although a word like “poetic justice” or “schadenfreude” would be more appropriate).
Malcadon: No way I'm letting a woman like that anywhere near my little soldier. Not even if she was paying me.
If you interpret the Cold War as being a victory of Capitalism, instead Democracy, then of course you'll see people jumping up to strengthen the Plutocratic power base. The only way this will work out well for the majority is if the democratic vanguard steps up to the plate and swings the bat, hard.
Poag: That is the point! Someone that cheap only attracts the cheap, drunk and desperate. In most cases, folks would take pity, and throw a stack of Top Ramen at her or some other handout, just to not have to deal with her anymore, but she is such a high and mighty bitch, she would ether starve to death, or get the AIDS.
Well, I guess that's the part that I just don't get. She seems to be pining for a return to feudalism, where the lower classes are completely dependent upon the nobility for a bare bones existence, but one of the reasons why so much of Sub-Saharan Africa is such a fucked up place is because the power is concentrated in the hands of a very few ruthless people.
I'm pretty sure that by most standards (overall health and welfare), the average US or Australian middle class schmo is better off than a king in 1200 AD.