World’s Richest Woman Says People Are Poor Because They’re Lazy Drunks

[RockaFowler]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/30/777271/worlds-richest-woman-poor-drunks/

According to the world’s richest woman, low-income people are only poor because they don’t work hard enough, and because the government has coddled them with a minimum wage that is too high. Australian Gina Rinehart, who inherited her $30 billion fortune, said, “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”:


“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.

[WCGreen]

1. Someone born on home plate and thinks she hit a home run...

[theinquisitivechad]

2. Would love to have seen how far she'd gotten without Daddy's company.

My guess is no further than into the arms of a man who could support her.

Actually, I guess that's descriptive of her current life as well.

[Downwinder]

3. Hey Gina, Come tell me that to my face.

[flakey_foont]

4. That's a rather nasty perspective

[David in Canada]

5. So...

So this asshole who got all her money via inheritance and probably never worked a day in her fucking life is lecturing others?!?!?

I have several points of contention:

1) I can't speak for others, but I am not jealous of her wealth. I *DO* think it is ridiculous to have so much when abject poverty still exists.

2) Some of the hardest workers are the poor. Some rich people do work hard but their labour is less physically demanding than the menial jobs that are serviced by the poor. Many of these working poor individuals barely have time to sleep never mind socialising!

3) The more the poor and middle class make, the more they have to spend. It is the free money people have to spend that makes an economy strong.

4) There is only one life. Life is more than working all the fucking time and living in misery. Money is no good when you're dead so accumulating a shitload of money and useless crap that you'll never use because your working your ass off to the point of exhaustion is insane. Work is a means of supporting ones life, not the end goal of life.

[Cleita]

6. She says as her butler shakes up her martinis. n/t

[arcane1]

7. Because coal miners and fruit pickers don't work hard

[slackmaster]

8. Some of the laziest drunks I have ever met are rich

[spanone]

9. ahh c'mon, i bet some of them are ambitious drunks

dumbfuckistan

[HopeHoops]

10. Well THAT could explain a few things!

[treestar]

11. That's just plain on-its-face stupid

If she inherited it, she didn't work a day for it, and has always been coddled. She should have enough education at least to realize that poorer people do work.

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. She sounds terribly lonely.

[Marr]

13. So all those people who worked in her father's mines-- they were lazy?

The people who did the actual labor-- the ONLY people doing any work all that whole dynamic-- THEY are the lazy ones, and this woman who's sole accomplishment was emerging from a wealthy womb, she's qualified to tell them about hard work?

I swear, it's sickening what happens to a person when they're pampered all their lives.

[joeybee12]

14. What she is can't be spoken here...

Actually quite a few adjectives come to mind.

[Terra Alta]

15. oh, really?

I am probably what most consider to be poor. Yet I bust my butt working eight hours a day five days a week for my meager paycheck. I dare this selfish snob tell me to my face that I am "lazy".

As for being jealous, I can honestly say I'm not jealous of her. Sure, she's filthy rich, but she also sounds very bitter. She is living proof money doesn't buy happiness.