Gina Rinehart:

Australia’s National Tub of Shite

and the US Minimum Wage

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

When the world’s wealthiest woman speaks, people listen. When she walks, the ground quakes - literally.

Rinehart: The incontrovertible face of Greed

A poster child for greed, sloth, and suppression of the working poor, Ms. Rinehart is an inspiration to the world’s fabulously wealthy who insist that $2 per day in wages (USD) ought to serve as an “inspiration” to all working poor throughout the world. Her statements are often dumbfounding and counterintuitive, frequently dismissed by Australia’s masses as enfeebled gibberish intended to do nothing more than increase her financial foundation. Apparently the fat has gone to her brain.

Of course, she didn’t amass her extreme wealth by her own doing, rather through the efforts of those who preceded her. It’s a story we’ve come to expect today: An heir or heirs who control a vast mechanism of Capitalism today whose success was assured by a predecessor.

Take the Walton family, as an example: All four heirs sit on Forbe’s wealthiest Top 10 list with a minimum personal wealth each of far more than $30 billion per Walton child. Gluttonous, uncontrollable, dour, vicious in their attitude toward their workers, they exploit today’s dire economic situation to the greatest advantage to amass further wealth.

Today’s Walmart was founded on the premise of fair wages and American made products. That’s what Sam Walton had envisioned, and that’s what we, as a consuming populace, had quite literally bought into boosting them to success. Today, of course, nothing could be more to the contrary: There is no living wage at Walmart; Women are generally trodden upon and held at lower wages and given far fewer opportunities; American made product is non-existent. An abrupt, sudden, schizophrenic turnabout; traitorous, even.

While their wealth continues to grow...and you continue to shop there.

Yet, there are those like John Aziz who writes for The Week who believes that there ought not be a minimum wage in America today. Whether trying to be controversial or plainly an idiot, it’s tough to say, but Mr. Aziz invokes Thomas Paine and surmises that, “Individuals would be able to work for whatever wage they can secure, meaning that low-skilled individuals -- especially the young, who currently face a particularly high rate of employment -- would have an easier time finding work. And the level of basic income could be tied to the level of productivity, to reduce inequality.” Aziz believes in the inherent Good of today’s Capitalist, and in Santa Claus.

Gina Rinehart feels the same way, and she’s a jolly-looking sort.

Is this where America is going? Have we moved this far toward complete institution of our New Slavery? Are the majority of Americans who are being figuratively (and perhaps literally) held hostage by today’s rampant disregard for basic human dignity so becalmed by gadgetry and television that they are immune to the direction our country has taken?

Is anyone else awake other than the handful of those whose voices are lost in the drivel of Facebook, Twitter and diversionary political maneuvers?