Who is Gina Rinehart?

Have to admit Australia is pretty much off my radar.

It did cause a bit of a twitch when I read that they'd entered into some sort of "mutual defense" agreement with the US that allows American troops to be stationed there.

I hadn't realized that they were facing threats that required American protection.

Then I read about Gina Rinehart and suddenly everything fell into place.

They need the US Army to protect the world's richest woman. If the stories are to be believed, she's well on her way to being just plain "the world's richest."

Odd how the super-rich like to pass themselves off as "populists." They're just like you and me, except they're got 20 billion instead of twenty bucks.

And it's so ironic how the rich seem to have pretty much the same views on politics as all those regular folks in the Tea Party.

Government is bad.

Taxes are a plague invented by Satan.

Workers are inherently lazy shirkers who need, more than anything, the stiff prod of competition from half-starved immigrants who appreciate the fact that a good day's work in return for a bowl of rice is an eminently fair deal.

Of course, when you gather those lazy workers under some cozy union umbrella you might as well just throw in the towel altogether.

That's why the world's richest woman is lobbying hard to have cheap foreign workers brought en masse into Australia to work her vast mining interests.

Her fortune is growing at the rate of 30 million dollars a day. Think of how much faster it could grow if she didn't have to pay those spoiled Aussies a decent wage.

After all, there's plenty of people in Bangladesh and Somalia and Pakistan who would be thrilled to work for a mere fraction of what she's paying the help now.