20.10.2010

Happy Hour Vid: Zuckerberg Explains What's Wrong with 'The Social Network'

WASHINGTON, DC – Safe within the confines of Y Combinator, a kind of , Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the differences between 'The Social Network,' (aka the Facebook movie) and the real-life founding of his company. On the one hand, the film's costume design was dead on. But the rationale for Zuckerberg wanting to build Facebook (a girl)-not so much. Zuckerberg said the filmmakers "can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things."

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Rio Tinto to boost iron ore despite mine-tax fears

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Global miner Rio Tinto approved a $3.1 billion iron ore expansion on Wednesday, staking a claim to become the world's top producer and defying industry concerns over a new Australian mining tax.

Iron ore miners are ramping up production to meet booming demand from Asia, with most of the growth in output set to come from Australia where two of the world's biggest producers, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, dominate.

Rio Tinto's move to boost output by 28 percent follows this week's demise of a planned joint venture with BHP Billiton in northwest Australia's Pilbara region aimed at saving the companies $10 billion in costs.

"Rio and BHP are obviously not taking much notice of the mining tax if they are planning all these investments in iron ore," said an analyst in Perth, who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak to media.

BHP Billiton unveiled a 6 percent rise in quarterly iron ore output on Wednesday and is also planning to expand its Australian iron ore operations to meet booming Asian demand.

Rio Tinto's announcement, combined with BHP Billiton's production surge, eclipsed news reports on Wednesday that suggested they and other miners risked being double-taxed under Australia's proposed 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal.

DOUBLE-TAX THREAT

Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and London-listed Xstrata -- the big three of Australian iron ore and coal -- accuse Canberra of reneging on a guarantee to refund all of the money the miners pay state governments in the form of royalties, newspapers said. Without that guarantee, they could effectively be double-taxed.

But neither industry analysts nor political experts believe the issue will reignite the tax issue and hurt mining investment, and pointed to Rio Tinto's expansion plan as evidence.

"They see the benefits of selling more iron ore outweighing the extra tax they will have to pay," the Perth analyst said.

Iron ore prices tracked by Thomson Reuters are near 5-month highs, suggesting producers will see higher sales margins. Most ore is sold on a quarterly system based on the previous quarter's average price.

Rio Tinto's $3.1 billion plan would take its annual Australian production to 283 million metric tons a year in 2013 from 220 million metric tons. It plans to boost it further to 333 million metric tons, which could bring it alongside Brazil's Vale, now the world's top producer.

BHP Billiton is running at around 125 million metric tons a year, with near-term plans to take that to 155 million metric tons.

BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner said on Wednesday it was now running most of its assets at full capacity as suppliers struggle to keep pace with the global appetite for industrial raw materials.

"Despite ongoing uncertainty in the developed world, BHP Billiton remains positive on the prospects for many of its core commodities and the underlying performance of its business due to strength in the emerging economies and the ongoing delay in the supply side response," the company said.

Mining shares fell on Wednesday, but attention was focused on the possibility of a slowdown in Chinese demand after Beijing raised interest rates for the first time since 2007.

Commodities prices fell across the board and pushed Rio Tinto shares down 1.7 percent to A$81.18 at 0450 GMT, outpacing narrower losses in the wider market. BHP Billiton shares were 0.75 percent lower at A$40.86.

STILL TALKING

Rio Tinto said last week it produced a record 47.6 million metric tons of iron ore in the quarter and was similarly driving all its divisions near or above capacity to take advantage of an upsurge in mineral prices.

Both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton had threatened to pull investments in Australia when Canberra first announced its mining tax proposal in May, but struck a truce with the government in July when it agreed to cut the tax to 30 percent from an original 40 percent and narrowed its scope to iron ore and coal mines.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's minority government is currently negotiating with miners over final details of the tax which is due to come in from 2012 and raise about A$10.5 billion.

"We've said all along we'll credit existing royalties and scheduled increases, and the policy transition group is going to advise government on the best way to provide certainty to the industry given that policy setting," Gillard told reporters.

Rio Tinto and BHP declined to comment on the media reports. During the initial fight over the tax, fears over mining investment hurt the local dollar.

(Additional reporting by Rob Taylor in Canberra; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Ed Davies and Lincoln Feast)

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Minimum Wage: Will Opponents Turn to the Supreme Court?

John Raese, the Republican candidate for Senator in West Virginia, is running against the minimum wage. But he is not just saying it is a bad idea - he's arguing that it is fundamentally unconstitutional. Joe Miller, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alaska, is saying the same thing.

Conservatives often oppose attempts to raise the minimum wage and question whether it makes economic sense - as Linda McMahon, the Republican Senate candidate in Connecticut, has done this year. But Raese and Miller are going much further, arguing that Congress lacks the power to adopt a minimum-wage law.

It sounds like a bizarre argument to make. The federal minimum wage has been around since Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. In 1941, the Supreme Court upheld it by a unanimous vote, in a decision written by a Republican Justice. Among legal experts, there is little real debate about the minimum wage's constitutionality.

Not that that has stopped opponents from railing against the minimum wage for decades. After all, Big Business really does not like the laws. Payroll is a large part of most companies' expenses, and many - particularly in the fast-food and hotel industries - see the minimum wage as a burden. They argue that it has been set at too generous a level, and that it actually prevents more out-of-work Americans from being hired.

The trouble is, it is a hard case to make. At $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage is almost impossible to survive on. Someone who works a 40-hour week and earns the minimum wage makes around $15,000 a year - or about 70% of the official poverty level.

In recent years, while the wealthiest Americans have gotten richer and richer - the top 25 hedge-fund managers personally took in more than $25 billion last year - minimum-wage workers are being left behind. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage today is 17% lower than it was in 1968.

Most Americans across the political spectrum support strong minimum-wage laws. Many liberals like them because they put more money in the pockets of people who desperately need it. Many conservatives favor them because they make it worthwhile to have a job - and reward people for getting out of bed every day and doing an honest day's work.

A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 67% of the American public not only supports the minimum wage but would like to increase it to $10 an hour. When voters get to weigh in, minimum-wage laws do very well. In Florida in 2004, while President George W. Bush was winning the state over John Kerry, voters supported a $1 increase in the state minimum wage by a margin of 72% to 28%. A year later, initiatives to increase state minimum wages appeared on the ballot in six states - Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Nevada and Ohio - and passed in all six.

Since minimum-wage opponents have no reasonable chance of prevailing in Congress or state legislatures, they are turning to their last best hope: the judiciary. Given the strong support the minimum wage has gotten from the Supreme Court, it may seem like a long shot. But politicians like Raese and Miller - who both have solid chances of being elected as Senator - are starting to lay the groundwork. Conservatives like them are looking back to an earlier, pre–New Deal era, from the late 1890s through the 1930s, when conservative courts routinely struck down laws designed to help working people.

This was the so-called Lochner era, named after the Supreme Court's 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, striking down a state law setting maximum hours for bakers. In 1923, the court also ruled that a minimum-wage law in the District of Columbia was unconstitutional. In each case, the court insisted that the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment guaranteed liberty of contract, which prevented the government from imposing worker protections like these.

The New Deal, and Roosevelt's appointments to the Supreme Court, ended the Lochner era, ruling that liberty of contract did not prevent government from imposing reasonable regulations to protect workers and others from the excesses of business.

But if conservatives are ever able to bring it back, the courts could do away with far more than the minimum wage. They could revive now discredited ideas of liberty of contract and outdated views about the scope of the Federal Government's power to pass all sorts of federal laws, including those related to the right to join a union, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and even Social Security.

If Big Business would be the winner from a repeal of the minimum wage, it is no great secret who the losers would be. The minimum wage puts extra money in the pockets of the nation's lowest-paid workers, whose salaries could fall significantly - particularly these days, given the weak economy and the high rate of unemployment.

When the minimum wage was raised last year to $7.25, 63% of the workers who benefited were women. Single parents make up 7% of the workforce, but they were 10% of the people who benefited from the last minimum-wage increase. Some 2.2 million children were in families whose incomes went up.

For some time now, conservatives have been railing against the supposed "judicial activism" of liberal judges. Now, they are starting to change course and argue for a new kind of judicial activism - one that would strip away the rights of workers and protect corporations' constitutional right to fatter profits.

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