MINING billionaire Gina Rinehart has criticised welfare recipients for dragging the country into debt and attacked the political left for spending the “bottomless pit” of revenue generated from mining taxes and royalties. “We are living beyond our means,” Ms Rinehart, worth an estimated $19.89 billion, wrote in an opinion article. “This ‘Age of Entitlement’ and its consequences is creating problems for all of us, our children and our grandchildren.” In her latest column for Australian Resources and Investment magazine, Ms Rinehart echoed Treasurer Joe Hockey’s call for an end to the age of entitlement — albeit with a sharper attack on the $130 billion spent annually on the five million citizens receiving income support. “Australians have to work hard or actually harder and smarter to create the revenue to be able to pay that bill … something has to give, we can’t do it all.” Gina Rinehart She heaped praise…
Welfarism and national debt
These timely,important words from respected Australian banker and economist, Maurice Newman, should serve as an urgent wake-up call to both politicians and the voting public. IN a bright start to the new year we are reading that the global economic outlook is improving. Setbacks are transitory. The fiscal cliff is history and the debt ceiling is bound to be lifted. Stockmarkets everywhere, even those in Europe, are rising. World leaders, after numerous false starts, ask us to believe that this time, their policies are working. All the while their central banks continue to grow their balance sheets, determined to kick the can further down the road and keep investors and households hanging in and hoping. In Australia, Wayne Swan, accentuating the positive, repeatedly reassures us that our economy is strong and the envy of the world. Unemployment is low, the investment pipeline is impressive and the Australian dollar is high,…