Gina loans $.7billion off US taxpayers

Australia's Gina Rinehart, who has become the richest woman in the world after inheriting a mining empire, has succeeded in borrowing just under $.7billion from US taxpayers. Yes, the same US that is currently cutting back on foodstamps for the poor over there. WTF?

How Australia's richest person, mining heiress Gina Rinehart, secured a $US694 million ($764 million) loan from American taxpayers is surely one of the great ironies of the capitalist system, reports The Australian Financial Review. 

The case is the latest example of a flaw in the United States political economy: what some see as crony capitalism. 

Rinehart's mining group, Hancock Prospecting, last week signed off on a $US7.2 billion debt package for her highly anticipated Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara region. 

There are 19 international lenders, including Australia's big four banks, in the syndicate. Government export credit agencies including the Ex-Im Bank in the US, as well as Japan and Korea, were crucial in helping the massive debt-funding deal over the line. 

Commercial banks and bond investors were reluctant to shoulder all the risk. 

The US Ex-Im Bank says it "assumes credit and country risks that the private sector is unable or unwilling to accept". 

In return for the US government loan, Hancock Prospecting will purchase American mining and rail equipment from Caterpillar, General Electric and Atlas Copco. The Export-Import Bank says their involvement will "support" 3400 US jobs. Read more

Why oh why does the US lend money when it's bloody as broke as me? It'd be like me getting $700 cash out on my credit card at fuck knows what interest rate (21%?) and loaning it out, whilst I'm half starving without food.

Hey US, beware of Gina. She wants people to work for $2 an hour, like in some mining slavery camp in Africa that she was on about. Fuck you Gina.