Gina Rinehart calls for Australian wage cut

[Azza]

I don't know about salary, but she earned $18.87 billion in 2011. That's a pretty good wicket.

You dare think about what her wicket might be like?!?

 

[Woden]

You dare think about what her wicket might be like?!?

Shes australian. There all cricket mad.

 

[dante6491]

I don't know about salary, but she earned $18.87 billion in 2011. That's a pretty good wicket.

Earned is a dodgy concept. I would imagine it was the mineral/commodity rights she owned, and various shares, increased in value. Just as likely to lose that much if aluminium prices go down for example.

 

[realBabelfish]

She looks like a deep-fried Kathy Bates.

haha....

 

[realBabelfish]

 

[Sankari]

Gave me a chuckle, but her father made his money in iron ore, not coal. Lang Hancock was the greatest iron ore magnate in Australian history.

 

[WingZero30]

A sow?

That's it!!

Besides all she has done is inherited the business from her father. It's not as she built all this business herself from scratch.

 

[D.P.]

£77k+ in Aus is not really that much - especially for a job that is as dangerous as the mining industry - and probably has shift/anti-social hours.
People seem to forget the cost of living is probably one of the highest in the world over there - your eyes would literally water at the monthly bills people have to pay in Australia (most I know pay $5000-6000 is common and not for any sort of fancy house). I know a guy who earned just over $100,000 who claimed he just couldn't survive - until his wife also went out to work (which wasn't in there original Australia emigration plans)


The average wage in Aus in 2009 was around $62,000 (it's $80,000 now for Western Australia). Even jobs as normal as Electrical Engineers were on average $120,000 a couple of years ago. It just depends really on how much the job is in demand. Just so happens that Mining is the best paid average wage in Australia at the moment (around $120,000 a year)

Indeed, my aunt is coming back to Europe after spending 15 years in Oz, it is just far too expensive for her. Her partner and her each earn well over $120-150kAUS each (something like 300K total), but they only live out a basic living. The isolation is also huge, they end up spending huge amounts of time traveling including endless 20hr flights to Europe and the US.


I know several graduate friends that moved to OZ and left within a few years.

 

[D.P.]

That's it!!

Besides all she has done is inherited the business from her father. It's not as she built all this business herself from scratch.

I don't know much about her but believe she does take an active part in the business. What effect she really has I have no clue but conceivable she does make some important and profitable decisions.

 

[hurfdurf]

This is what rich people really think of us non billionairs. She is the modern day "let them eat cake" and believes with a bit of effort anyone can be born into wealth or work their way into it. It is ridiculous and as ugly in sentiment as she is physically.

 

[Meridian]

I don't know about salary, but she earned $18.87 billion in 2011. That's a pretty good wicket.

Strictly speaking she was paid $18.87 million (Aus$ I assume).

 

[mmj_uk]

She's hoping to make the rich list once the slave ship from Africa arrives, or preferably Aussies become slaves so she won't have to spend any money on training.

 

[Biohazard]

People act suprised?

How do you think individuals, generally speaking, amass so much wealth?

It isn't by being generous to people lower down in society.

Although an appeal to conform to African economic realities is quite extreme for the right.

 

[The Funktopus]

Her confusion about de-facto slavery is understandable really, I mean most Aussies did arrive in shackles after all didn't they?

 

[semi-pro waster]

So why, when they suggest a wage cut, do they never suggest cutting their own wages, or those of the senior staff, only the junior ones? Why do the wages of the people who actually do the work have to "compete" with Third World wages to be as low as possible, but the wages of senior managers and execs need to "compete" with the huge wages of their US equivalents to be as high as possible? If she was to halve her own salary, she would still be vastly better off than all or almost all of her employees, but the company would be more competitive because of reduced overheads. But anyone want to suggest the odds of that happening?

But just halving salary or even the amount she was paid in total would have no appreciable impact on her own lifestyle comparable to what might happen to someone in her mine who had it changed so they only earned AUD $2 a day. She'd actually have to donate XX% of her wealth as well to get anywhere close to the same level of effect. I take the point about reduced overheads and that could even go to give a payrise to everyone else yet still make the mine more competitive.

However you're right, my estimate of the odds on her doing so would be about the same as the odds of you winning the lottery without ever being the owner of a ticket.

Indeed I do agree. However a lot of the time the super wealthy don't draw that much of a salary. Buffet takes home $150k from Berkshire Hathaway. The extra $bn he earns are from shares and other financial products. I can't comment on Rinehart's salary as I have no idea what it is.

Does it matter all that much in a basic sense how the money is paid if by doing so the individual is enriched by a certain amount? I'm not talking about for tax purposes or in a technical sense but the net effect here is that the individual is richer by £Xm whether it's a salary or a dividend - the structuring of it is perhaps most important for tax liabilities.

Warren Buffett is a bit of an exception anyway in that he's already pledged to give away 99% of his fortune and has persuaded a number of other billionaires to do the same.

 

[Biohazard]

Does it matter all that much in a basic sense how the money is paid if by doing so the individual is enriched by a certain amount?

I'm not talking about for tax purposes or in a technical sense but the net effect here is that the individual is richer by £Xm whether it's a salary or a dividend - the structuring of it is perhaps most important for tax liabilities.

No, you are wealthy irrespective of the mode into which you are enriched, but in context.. yes it does matter - depending on the type of evasion that is aimed for. Structuring into arrangements is vital. That's what the whole evasion industry works on. Within the letter of the law, but very rarely within the spirit.

Imo, if I may interject.

 

[Basher]

So why, when they suggest a wage cut, do they never suggest cutting their own wages, or those of the senior staff, only the junior ones? Why do the wages of the people who actually do the work have to "compete" with Third World wages to be as low as possible, but the wages of senior managers and execs need to "compete" with the huge wages of their US equivalents to be as high as possible? If she was to halve her own salary, she would still be vastly better off than all or almost all of her employees, but the company would be more competitive because of reduced overheads. But anyone want to suggest the odds of that happening?

Because people at the bottom are more replaceable, much more commoditised.

 

[StriderX]

Because people at the bottom are more replaceable, much more commoditised.

Everyone is a commodity, if you aren't a controlling entity of the world, you are nothing more than a machine created from the vast industrialised education system.

 

[semi-pro waster]

No, you are wealthy irrespective of the mode into which you are enriched, but in context.. yes it does matter - depending on the type of evasion that is aimed for. Structuring into arrangements is vital. That's what the whole evasion industry works on. Within the letter of the law, but very rarely within the spirit.

Imo, if I may interject.

By all means. My point being simply that outside of tax liabilities if you're enriched by a certain amount over a given period of time then you've got that much more money, how it comes to you isn't all that important except for the purposes of tax liabilities or evasion/avoidance if you want to put it in those terms. You can divide it up into 34 different payment streams and types if you want but if it's all adding to net wealth then it's a bit of a semantic distinction to draw except for the purpose outlined above.

 

[Basher]

Everyone is a commodity, if you aren't a controlling entity of the world, you are nothing more than a machine created from the vast industrialised education system.

There are more people on the world capable of shovelling coal than can grow an international business though, for example.

Some jobs are more commoditised than others.