World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

[Lobotroth]

Next time this woman/thing wants to give "advice" someone should shove a cake in her mouth and shut her up.

[troutman]

The shared characteristics of the really rich
Forbes takes a look at common threads in the lives of America’s wealthiest

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33110048...s-really-rich/

Top 10 characteristics of successful people

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_1...essful-people/

[opendoor]

There's just so much irony in this woman's advice. She's telling the poor to spend less time socializing while in her own life she has strained relationships with her children who are all currently suing her. Then she talks about how the poor need to spend more hours working while she's simultaneously petitioning the Australian government to lower the minimum wage.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by troutman

The shared characteristics of the really rich
Forbes takes a look at common threads in the lives of America’s wealthiest

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33110048...s-really-rich/

Top 10 characteristics of successful people

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_1...essful-people/

Neither of those have any info from properly done studies. This, however, must be great science, because it agrees with my pre-conceptions:

Wealthy More Likely to Cheat

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...greed-20120228

[THowie]

Originally Posted by opendoor

There's just so much irony in this woman's advice. She's telling the poor to spend less time socializing while in her own life she has strained relationships with her children who are all currently suing her. Then she talks about how the poor need to spend more hours working while she's simultaneously petitioning the Australian government to lower the minimum wage.

Good point. She annoys me. I work 2 jobs, don't drink, don't smoke and having fun stopped when the second job started, so hmm... what advise would she have for that?

[blankall]

To be fair to this woman, she proably one of the hardest working and intelligent business minds the world has ever seen. It's in no way fair to characterize her as a lazy socialite.

She inherited a company worth a few hundred million and turned it into a company worth about 20 billion within a decade. In 2007 she was worth 1 billion, and she is currently on track to become the richest person in the world ever, with a networth of 20-30 billion. She probably works 100+ hour weeks every week, which is why her looks and personal relationships are suffering.

She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but turned that into a platinum diamond encrusted spoon through years of hard work. Is she a jerk? probably. Is she lazy? absolutely not.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by blankall

To be fair to this woman, she proably one of the hardest working and intelligent business minds the world has ever seen. It's in no way fair to characterize her as a lazy socialite.

She inherited a company worth a few hundred million and turned it into a company worth about 20 billion within a decade. In 2007 she was worth 1 billion, and she is currently on track to become the richest person in the world ever, with a networth of 20-30 billion. She probably works 100+ hour weeks every week, which is why her looks and personal relationships are suffering.

She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but turned that into a platinum diamond encrusted spoon through years of hard work. Is she a jerk? probably. Is she lazy? absolutely not.

I'm thinking rising commodity prices played more of a role than her intelligent business mind. The price of iron ore in 1990 when she inherited her fathers company was roughly 15 dollars a metric tonne at the current time it is roughly 130 dollars a metric tonne with it having reached a peak of roughly 185.

Her spoon would have evolved into a diamond encrusted scoop regardless.

[saskflames69]

The only whale I'm feeling sorry for right now is the one on today's episode of Jerry Springer.

I assume this is BHP Billiton, right?

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by opendoor

There's just so much irony in this woman's advice. She's telling the poor to spend less time socializing while in her own life she has strained relationships with her children who are all currently suing her. Then she talks about how the poor need to spend more hours working while she's simultaneously petitioning the Australian government to lower the minimum wage.

Unfortunately it's true for many that, without attaining some semblance of balance in their lives, the price of success can often lead to strained relationships.

Money certainly isn't everything. I recall my wife saying, "We don't need millions...just hundreds of thousands".

[Jiggyiggy]

Originally Posted by jammies

Neither of those have any info from properly done studies. This, however, must be great science, because it agrees with my pre-conceptions:

Wealthy More Likely to Cheat

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb...greed-20120228

If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying!!!

[Slava]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The "if you want to be successful, you just need to work hard" argument always rings hollow to me. I'm reasonably successful in my business career. I'm not fabulously wealthy, by any means, but my wife and I enjoy a comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle. I don't think I've worked particularly hard to achieve my success. I lucked into being born to parents who stressed the importance of education, ensured I took my schooling seriously, had business connections that opened doors for me, and had enough available time to help me with my homework, shuttle me around between extra curricular activities, read to me as a child, etc.

Now contrast that with a child growing up in a low-income single-parent household. Just so that kid can have food, clothing, and shelter, the mother or father has to work two menial wage jobs. He or she doesn't have time to read to the kid or help with schoolwork or anything like that because work consumes too much of the day. The parent isn't lazy and is a hard worker, but he or she is stuck working dead-end jobs. Getting some form of higher education that would open more career options is out of the question because it's both unaffordable and would necessitate taking time away from work. So the parent drudges away working low-paying McJobs because he or she has absolutely no other choice. And yet out-of-touch billionaires like the woman in the OP would dare call people like this lazy!

I want to agree with you, and I guess partly do. Thing is that in Canada education and hard work really are the great equalizer. I have a limited amount of sympathy for the "bad childhood" argument and how its basically a domino affect on people not being able to do A,B,C things with their lives.

I wouldn't suggest for a second that people working for minimum wage don't work hard, they definitely do. I worked those jobs and frankly working menial labour and having held numerous jobs at a time (all of which were terrible I assure you) was part of the reason that I made sure to finish school!

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I'm thinking rising commodity prices played more of a role than her intelligent business mind. The price of iron ore in 1990 when she inherited her fathers company was roughly 15 dollars a metric tonne at the current time it is roughly 130 dollars a metric tonne with it having reached a peak of roughly 185.

Her spoon would have evolved into a diamond encrusted scoop regardless.

She's also expanded and diversified her holdings and changed the way her company profits. The company went from prospecting to full on production. This took the involvement and cooperation with several venture capitalists. She also succeeded in her role, where her siblings had failed:

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/27919...m#.UED3a5ZvC00

She runs the company very closely. Yes increasing commodity prices helped her substantially, and in most cases you also have to be lucky to be good. However, do you honestly think managing a multi-billion dollar mining company is easy work?

Saying her success would have happened regardless of her own skills is like saying Steve Jobs got rich because computer usage increased 100x over the course of his business.

Edit: Basically my point is this. There are many people born into rich families. Not all of them manage to expand on their wealth in the way this woman has. If she was truly lazy, she would sit around and live off proceeds from her investments.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by blankall

To be fair to this woman, she proably one of the hardest working and intelligent business minds the world has ever seen. It's in no way fair to characterize her as a lazy socialite.

She inherited a company worth a few hundred million and turned it into a company worth about 20 billion within a decade. In 2007 she was worth 1 billion, and she is currently on track to become the richest person in the world ever, with a networth of 20-30 billion. She probably works 100+ hour weeks every week, which is why her looks and personal relationships are suffering.

She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but turned that into a platinum diamond encrusted spoon through years of hard work. Is she a jerk? probably. Is she lazy? absolutely not.

I don't think she's lazy, but I do think she's completely out-of-touch with the plight of the poor. She got to where she is by being hard-working, intelligent, and having opportunities presented to her that are not available to 99.999% of the population. It's that last bit that makes all the difference. There are millions of hard-working people around the world that devote just as many hours to their jobs as she does but will never see even a tiny fraction of her wealth. It's not for lack of a work ethic that these people are poor.

I think people like her (and many, but not all, rich conservatives) have a very simplistic view of the world that follows this flawed line of reasoning:

1. I'm successful
2. I worked hard
3. Success, therefore, is the result of hard work
4. Anyone who is not successful must not work hard
5. Poor people must therefore be lazy
6. Why should my hard-earned tax dollars fund programs that benefit poor (i.e. lazy) people?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I don't think she's lazy, but I do think she's completely out-of-touch with the plight of the poor. She got to where she is by being hard-working, intelligent, and having opportunities presented to her that are not available to 99.999% of the population. It's that last bit that makes all the difference. There are millions of hard-working people around the world that devote just as many hours to their jobs as she does but will never see even a tiny fraction of her wealth. It's not for lack of a work ethic that these people are poor.

I think people like her (and many, but not all, rich conservatives) have a very simplistic view of the world that follows this flawed line of reasoning:

1. I'm successful
2. I worked hard
3. Success, therefore, is the result of hard work
4. Anyone who is not successful must not work hard
5. Poor people must therefore be lazy
6. Why should my hard-earned tax dollars fund programs that benefit poor (i.e. lazy) people?

I don't disagree. She's a huge jerk. My comments were directed at people in this thread characterizing her as a lazy socialite. Guaranteed this woman works longer hours than anyone on this board.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Slava

I want to agree with you, and I guess partly do. Thing is that in Canada education and hard work really are the great equalizer. I have a limited amount of sympathy for the "bad childhood" argument and how its basically a domino affect on people not being able to do A,B,C things with their lives.

I wouldn't suggest for a second that people working for minimum wage don't work hard, they definitely do. I worked those jobs and frankly working menial labour and having held numerous jobs at a time (all of which were terrible I assure you) was part of the reason that I made sure to finish school!

Sure, but if you're in a situation where you must work two crap minimum wage jobs just so you can provide the necessities of life to your family, how do you break free of that rut? "Get a higher education so you can join the middle class" is sound advice to a teenager, but it isn't realistic to someone already working ~80 hours per week at low-paying jobs just to pay the rent and feed the kids.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Sure, but if you're in a situation where you must work two crap minimum wage jobs just so you can provide the necessities of life to your family, how do you break free of that rut? "Get a higher education so you can join the middle class" is sound advice to a teenager, but it isn't realistic to someone already working ~80 hours per week at low-paying jobs just to pay the rent and feed the kids.

I suppose that is fair, but there was also a point where these people made some ill-advised choices one way or the other. I don't have all of the answers, but I think that the number of people working 80 hours a week and not having any other way to make ends meet is pretty low.

[Erick Estrada]

Meh everything usually balances out as a lot of the richest and most famous people in the world are also the most miserable. This woman may be the wealthiest woman in the world but everyday she has to look in the mirror and be reminded of the cruel hand mother nature handed to her. Knowing you can have anything you want except evern remote attractiveness is a sentence in itself. Sounds like she's not even beautiful on the inside to boot just rich and miserable.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Slava

I want to agree with you, and I guess partly do. Thing is that in Canada education and hard work really are the great equalizer. I have a limited amount of sympathy for the "bad childhood" argument and how its basically a domino affect on people not being able to do A,B,C things with their lives.

!

As someone who worked summers as slave labour hand-picking rocks out of a field for $400 a month, I agree.

I remember walking into our garage where my father, who worked two jobs to support us, was working on his car. I said: "I want to go to college and the tuition is $946 for the year."

"AAAAAGGGH!!!. What the hell do you want to do that for!!!???"

That was exactly the reaction. I'd stabbed him through the fiscal heart. I'll never forget it. It was a hard sell. He was trying to get ahead as well and money didn't grow on trees.

If you're still young enough, there isn't any neighbourhood you can't dig yourself out of if it means enough to you.

The advice the Old Withered, Rich Cow gave is sound. Disqualifying it due to her position in life doesn't make it less so.

Cowperson

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Slava

I suppose that is fair, but there was also a point where these people made some ill-advised choices one way or the other. I don't have all of the answers, but I think that the number of people working 80 hours a week and not having any other way to make ends meet is pretty low.

An incredibly overbroad statement. There are a myriad of reasons why people wind up in poverty, and a whole hell of a lot of them have nothing to do with bad choices.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

As someone who worked summers as slave labour hand-picking rocks out of a field for $400 a month, I agree.

I remember walking into our garage where my father, who worked two jobs to support us, was working on his car. I said: "I want to go to college and the tuition is $946 for the year."

"AAAAAGGGH!!!. What the hell do you want to do that for!!!???"

That was exactly the reaction. I'd stabbed him through the fiscal heart. I'll never forget it. It was a hard sell. He was trying to get ahead as well and money didn't grow on trees.

If you're still young enough, there isn't any neighbourhood you can't dig yourself out of if it means enough to you.

The advice the Old Withered, Rich Cow gave is sound. Disqualifying it due to her position in life doesn't make it less so.

Cowperson

I think you really need to re-read what she said, you're giving her way more credit than her words deserve.