Please don't ask Rio Tinto to pay their way...

(Source: News Corp)

Rio Tinto has chalked up a record first-half profit of $7.6bn as it cashes in on surging resources prices and powers ahead in the fast lane of Australia's increasingly polarised economy.

This is a giant multinational company that is at the forefront of opposition to a tax on the super-profits of mining monopolies.

The record super-profit comes at a time when there are massive government debts in developed capitalist countries, when whole countries face bankruptcy, when there is renewed capitalist global economic crisis, loss of thousands of jobs, cuts to people's services, impoverishment, etc.

A country like Australia, with a small population and massive natural resources, has no excuse for poverty and precarious existence. Its national assets should be used for the benefit of the people to whom they belong. In the first place, this is the Aboriginal custodians of the country.

Instead, over a six-month period, an amount equivalent to $347 for every man, woman and child in Australia has been poured into the coffers of an overseas-owned company.

This is from an earnings base of $29bn, or $1325 for every person in Australia.

The revenue for the company is up 18.4%, but the profit is up 30% or nearly twice the rate, revealing the hypocrisy of the company’s opposition to a super-profits tax.

Meanwhile, its mainly overseas shareholders are doing well at the expense of the Australian people.

Dividends are up 20%, whilst earnings per share (generally considered to be the single most important variable in determining a share's price and a major component used to calculate the price-to-earnings valuation ratio) are up 36%.

So let’s pass the tissue box to Rio Tinto. Times are tough and a super-profits tax is obviously just too awful to contemplate!

(Above: Please don't ask Rio Tinto to pay their way....rich people defending the multinationals)