Mining profits reveal true greed http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46884

Mining company BHP Billiton’s whopping $10.5 billion profit for the second half of 2010 highlights the shameless greed of those making a fortune out of Australia’s valuable resources.Remember the tantrum thrown by BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata less than a year ago after then-PM Kevin Rudd proposed the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT)? The RSPT wasn’t a radical proposal. Part of the revenue from the modest 40% tax would have been returned to the corporate sector, helping to fund a cut in the already low corporate tax rate and various subsidies to mining.

But if we believed the scare campaign by the mining giants, the RSPT was going to cripple the mining industry, and force these poor companies to take their capital and invest it elsewhere, at the expense of Australian jobs.Now BHP is on track to break an Australian record. Its profit for this financial year will likely be more than $20 billion. Rio Tinto and Xstrata have also announced huge profits.The mining companies’ multimillion-dollar advertising campaign against the RSPT was one big con job.