Gina Rinehart

Gina Rinehart is by some accounts the richest woman in the world. The daughter of an australian mining tycoon, she made her money the old fashioned way, she inherited it.

But she is still willing and never too busy to pass on helpful hints to those beneath her lofty economic perch. For one, time to stop drinking, smoking and socializing. I notice that we still must make time to eat.

In a column published last week in a mining magazine, Rinehart said Australians needed to complain less and to work more if they wanted to be rich.

"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you're jealous of those with more money don't just sit there and complain, do something to make more money yourself," she wrote in Australian Resources and Investment magazine. "Spend less time drinking, smoking and socialising and more time working."

I admire this nose to the grindstone approach. Of course it is a bit easier when daddy leaves you $75 million. She has now increased the amount 386 times to $29 billion and earns over $50 million per day. Good for her. She is poised to become the richest person in the world, not to mention quite the fashion trendsetter. Pearls and khaki, who knew? Hope that she can outrun the myocardial infarction...

Wednesday, Gina got herself into a bit of hot vegamite. In an appearance before a group of Sydney industrialists she complained that it was getting too expensive to do business in Australia since African miners will work for two dollars a day.

"The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business. Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day," she said in the video. "Such statistics make me worry for this country's future.

"We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment."

Tough for a poor woman to have to pay over $2 dollars a day for help. I assume that that is a lump of coal in her hand and not a fudge brownie.