http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/huge-wealth-doesnt-come-with-any-incre...

LAST week, Clive Palmer showed the Football Federation of Australia he meant business. As the federation learnt, a billionaire who means business can cause a lot of trouble.

On the other side of that dispute is another wealthy man, Frank Lowy, and that is the first point I would like to make - not everyone with wealth thinks the same.

Take, for example, American investor Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man in the world with a worth of $US44 billion. Buffett says the rich in the US have never had it so good. He says they should pay more tax. Buffett is no socialist. He believes in capitalism and, through it, America's ability to rejuvenate itself.
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Treasurer Wayne Swan's attack on the billionaire activists in the mining industry - Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest - predictably brought responses such as that of The Australian's economics writer David Uren, arguing for ''the ability of capitalism fired by these entrepreneurial spirits to improve living conditions for everyone''.

This idea is basically accepted as a truism by politicians and media in this country. Again, I quote Warren Buffett: ''The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.''

Swan was also attacked by former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, who said the Treasurer's views amounted to ''class warfare''. Again, to quote Buffett: ''There's class warfare, all right. But it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.''

Clive Palmer (pictured) responded to the Treasurer in The Age on Monday. He began in characteristic fashion, calling Swan an intellectual pygmy ''for playing the man, not the ball''. To say Palmer took being labelled a threat to democracy personally would be an understatement. His aggrieved bellow listed his family's history with the Australian Defence Force from World War I through to East Timor.

I credit Palmer with the fact that he doesn't hide from public view and his article amounted, in my view, to a sincere expression of a democratic belief.

But the statement was deficient in two respects. It identified himself and the other mining tycoons purely though their activities within their industry. They have, said Palmer, ''led not by their words but by their courage and willingness to take action''.

They may not have led through their words but they certainly showed their ability to whip up a storm of words when their interests were threatened. Kevin Rudd was flying as PM until the big mining interests turned on him.

The other respect in which Palmer's incendiary declaration is inadequate is that it doesn't acknowledge the part played by inherited wealth in the lives of his industry's mega-wealthy. Warren Buffett refers to people who inherit fortunes from their fathers as ''members of the lucky sperm club''.

Andrew Forrest's commitment to indigenous Australians is to be admired, but to enter a public debate on corporate tax when your company is not paying any is the sort of audacious play made by gentlemen of fortune in 18th century comedies. That Forrest and his wife gave $50 million in charity last year is not the point. Charity is optional; tax is not.

The mining boom has altered the shape of Australian society. As a Labor treasurer, Swan was entitled - indeed, obliged - to grapple with that change and initiate a debate on where it is leading.

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Maqqa wrote on Mar 11^th, 2012 at 12:08pm:



But should NOT be permitted to do so.

I think it would be helpful to distinguish rights and freedom here.

You have the right to eat at all the most expensive restaurants in Sydney, but only a bucketload of money gives you the freedom to do so.