Billionaires dig in to kill good idea

Australia is committing economic suicide.

That's what the hyperbolic backlash over Kevin Rudd's planned 40 percent tax on mining profits would have you believe. Executives are foaming at the mouth with every free-market clich imaginable: the prime minister is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, tossing the baby out with the bathwater, shooting the economy in the foot, you name it.

This bellyaching misses the point. The tax is the right thing to do and miners will have to live with it.