Rinehart goes to court over TV show

[Mugwump]

Bill Gates is morally worth billions of Rineharts. He founded his own business and invented something from his own mind. He's created incredibly useful tools that make nearly every workplace hugely more efficient, not least because he set a standard. And now he's using a lot of the money to try and make things better in the worst continent in the world for human development.

I'm sure along the way he offended a few monopoly laws. I don't know the details of whetehr those were good laws or not, or whether the monopoly status helped create standards and economic benefits that far outweighed any price paid. But Rinehart just appropriated vast amounts of the national patrimony, squabbled over the spoils, and condescends to lecture those with none of her privileges on their personal conduct. Give me Bill Gates any day.

[HAL]

I suppose the richest person on earth can do whatever he wants.

[stui magpie]

[Tannin]

[Morrigu]

[stui magpie]

[Mugwump]

[Tannin]

It's shocking, and every penny of it goes overseas. I won't go into detail regarding integration and efficiency and the costs of doing business, though I could bore your arse off for a week about it if I wanted to slip into working mode on this, my day off, which I don't. Suffice to say that there the pace of progress in software development, cost, and ease of use came crashing to a standstill once the dead hand of monopoly grasped the industry by its scrawny neck in the late 1980s/ early 1990s, and it has taken us a very long time indeed to start recovering from that. A little thought experiment for you: what can you do in Word 2013 that you couldn't do in Word 97, 16 years and ... er ... six $750 upgrades later? ($750 is a typical upgrade licence cost for a business, ignoring installation, training and data conversion. Home user upgrade cost was about half to two-thirds of that until the monopoly started breaking up maybe six or so years ago with the arrival of Open Office and Google Docs. Now it's about $130 and still trending down as more and more people switch to one of the alternatives.)

But your underlying point, that not all very wealthy people are barstards, is undoubtedly a fair one. I hesitate to name examples 'coz someone will no doubt find reasons why they ain't as good as I think they are, but off the top of my head I would mention, on the international stage, Warren Buffet, and here at home Dick Smith.

[stui magpie]

Speaking of Gina, she's sold her shares in Faifax. No more can she be blamed for what they do.

[Tannin]

Where are you getting your biased information from, Mr Magpie? In fact, she bought them at a range of prices and has sold out at a small profit (if you just look at the raw dollar values) or at a small loss (if you compare with the standard share-price profit-loss yardstick, which is the ASX All Ordinaries Accumulation Index. (Or the very similar ASX 200 Accumulation Index.) In other words, she lost a bit.

But this was never about money. Rinehart bought into Fairfax in order to sut it down. She all but said so herself. She never cared about the money - whatever else you might say about her, even you would have to grant that she's smart enough not to buy into a dying industry in the hope of a financial miracle. It is to the great credit of the Fairfax board that they resisted her nakedly malign intentions, stuck bravely to their carter of editorial independence, and kept her from claiming a seat. They were forced to grant a board seat to a close political ally of hers, who remains in place and has done the place no favours, but her brute force attempt to shut down the free Australian press and stifle democracy failed. She has given it up now. It has cost her some humiliation (which doubtless rankles) and a few tens of millions (which is neither here nor there to someone of her gross wealth), and it would be nice to say that it has taught her that even her vast unearned wealth and phalanx of hired-gun lawyers is insufficient to shot down independent voices, but that last is probably untrue - as we speak, she will undoubtedly be hatching some other plot.

[The Prototype]

I don't know much about Rinehart, other than her issues in the media I watched a little of the first episode it didn't seem all that bad. I may watch the second or rent it if they release it on DVD which I assume they will.

I read about her taking them to court over it, makes me a little more interested to watch the current form of it to see what's got her upset about it.

[think positive]

Well it was an interesting show.

Will do some googling re her stopping the promised charity payments from her fathers will "because the company couldn't afford it" when I have time.

Be interesting to know what or who the "real Rose" is.

As for her putting off her kids inheritance, well, whatever. Sounds like they have enough to live on, and kids shouldn't expect life on a platter, so not bothered by that.

Also something for the Google list, what and how much, if any, does Gina donate too? None of my business, but before I join the haters, I'd like to know!

[yin-YANG]

She wants to lower the wages of Aussies, comparing Australians to African workers struggling to survive� ultimately to boost her already obscene wealth!

GR attempts to manipulate the media and political system to increase her own power and some nicksters want to hold off on having an opinion because she might be 'donating'� would that be positive thinking or naive thinking? And then there are those like stui who believe anyone with money is doing well - as if it is the ultimate gauge of success in life, mmm must be a raving lunatic right winger praying at the altar of the almighty dollar!

Oh please - the filthy rich are ripping societies apart - the bigger the wealth gap the less social cohesion - the worse off we all are - their exploding bank accounts are at the expense of all of us!

[Tannin]

[Wokko]

"A US study by Merrill Lynch�s private banking arm this year found that, in two out of three cases, family wealth did not outlive the generation following the one that created it. In 90 per cent of cases, it was exhausted by the end of the third generation � illustrating the �clogs to clogs� adage."

edit: Link hit a paywall, the above quote was from it. I'll link something else instead.

https://www.wealthcounsel.com/Free-Resources/Why%20Most-Families-Lose-Their-Wealth-by-the-Third-Generation/

She has done very well to grow an inherited fortune, the majority do not. If she manages to teach any of her children to act in the same way then her family will have done better than 90% of wealthy families and kept their wealth past the 3rd generation. She is an exceptionally astute businesswoman and should be seen as such. Any other value judgements I'll leave to others, I don't know the woman at all.