They dont need to back down because every other mining country will adopt the same measures. Its inevitable when everyone is broke. Our terms of trade will balance out and we will remain competitive. FMG may go by the wayside but on the scale of things its a small sacrifice to maintain social stability which is the question facing all governments globally post GFC. Other nations may call it different things, like Chile calling for a special mining tax to help with earthquake reconstruction but the big picture is a rapidly evolving landscape or power centralization. You can scream socialism if you want but we'll all climb aboard in the face of dog eat dog capitalism that has mutated democracy into something thats not life affirming. Its a new world order if you like and at the end of the day our living standards in Australia will remain relatively well ahead of the rest of the world which is as good as it gets with 7 billion large mammals on one planet.
