This is a story of the class struggle between money, politics, and heart. In 1973, the wealthiest one percent of Americans owned only 13% of the countrys assets. Those assets included the equity in homes, businesses, stocks, bonds and property. Forty years, three poorly conceived wars and two major financial disasters later, that figure has risen to nearly 50% at the expense of the average American. Where did this windfall of wealth come from and why did the real income and personal assets of the vast majority of working Americans decline during this same period? Were they just smarter ... or did they just outsmart us? Once thought of as the land of opportunity with a standard of living envied around the world, America has become the land of political manipulations and unconscionable acts in favor of a select few. This factbased fiction novel tells the story of a generation of men and women who sought the elusive American Dream during the decline of the middle class and the deliberate war against those in poverty who can only afford to dream. Richard DeBenedictis story is told through the lives and adventures of four main characters, whom, although of diverse backgrounds, ideologies and social status, are influenced by the self-serving acts of those who want it all. Is this trend reversable or is America, as feared by the authors of our Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, on its way to becoming ruled by and for The Priviliged Few?

Publisher Description

When Lexy Baker makes it to the finale of America's most prestigious bakery contest, Bakery Battles, she thinks her biggest dream has finally come true... Until she stumbles across the dead body of judge Amanda Scott-Saunders. âe ̈What starts out as a bad day for Lexy becomes even worse when the police discover the judge was strangled with Lexy's apron. Now Lexy's sitting at the top of the suspect list with a motive, means and opportunity... but no solid alibi. âe ̈Lexy soon finds herself in a race against time to find the real killer before she ends up disqualified from the contest, or worse, in jail. But that's no easy task. There's a bakery competition full of suspects who all hated the victim and have a $100,000 motive for murder. And then there's the gorgeous, smart police detective who has mysterious ties to Lexy's boyfriend and thinks Lexy is the killer. Luckily Lexy has a secret weapon -- her iPad-toting grandmother. As long as Lexy can lure Nans away from the slot machines, she and her gang of senior citizen amateur detectives can help Lexy sift through the clues to uncover the startling truth about the real killer. With a $100,000 grand prize at stake and the search for the killer heating up -- will Lexy clear her name in time to grab the prize... or will her dream turn into a nightmare? This is book 3 in the Lexy Baker Bakery Cozy Mystery Series.

Male and white privilege are on the decline, yet elite privilege has gone from strength to strength. The privileges enjoyed by the rich and powerful are not only unfair but cause widespread harm, from the everyday slights and humiliations visited on those lower down the scale to the distortions in the labour market when elites use their networks to secure plum jobs, not least in new domains such as professional sports. In this book, Clive Hamilton and Myra Hamilton show that elite privilege is not a mere by-product of wealth but an organising principle for society as a whole. They explore the practices and processes that sustain, legitimise and reproduce elite privilege and show how we are all implicated in the system, both facilitating it and tolerating its harmful effects. Building on their original fieldwork and a wide range of other sources, the authors paint a vivid picture of the micropolitics of elite privilege, highlighting in particular the vital role played by exclusive private schools. Ranging across topics as diverse as ‘glamour suburbs’, philanthropy, Rhodes scholarships and super-yachts, The Privileged Few delves beneath attempts at concealment to expose how the elites keep getting away with it.

Zinia Santos is the daughter of a Yazidi refugee and thus lives a life of privilege on one of the highest Strata of society. Her life, like everyone else in the country, is strictly timetabled by the government, her job, her home, the food she eats, even her hobbies are prescribed to her by law. She will never be homeless, or unemployed, or hungry. Nor will she ever be able to choose her own meals, her own job, her own sexual partner.If anything goes wrong in her life, the government is responsible and the government can be sued. If she steps off the timetable however, as her sister Lara has done, the government will give her nothing. No job, no healthcare, no protection of any description. She will stop existing.Zinia isn't an idiot, what's not to like about being looked after from the cradle to the grave?A random DNA test at work outs Zinia, not as the daughter of a middle-eastern refugee, but as ordinary white British. Her mother lied in order to gain a privileged place in society reserved for those who belong to historically oppressed minorities. Zinia finds herself stripped of her identity and everything that goes with it. Relegated to the lowest Strata of society reserved for the historic oppressors, Zinia is quickly told that it's a way of atoning for the privilege her ancestors enjoyed.But a new minority has emerged in the last twenty years, they call themselves the Starsouls, religious zealots who believe themselves to be beyond humanity and are instantly elevated to the highest Strata although nobody knows why. Lara Santos, an outspoken YouTube Content-creator intends to find out why Starsouls can flout the strict timetables the rest of the country must adhere to.

Eighteen Cattlemen tell their stories. The Privileged Few is the sequel to Horsebells and Hobblechains. Critique Readers of Jeff Hills book Horsebells and Hobblechains will be delighted with the sequel The Privileged Few, as again the book contains the verbatim short life stories of interesting characters. “The Privileged Few” are men who knew and were part of the lifestyle and work efforts involved in the development of the pastoral industry in this great country. The Privileged Few is a great read. — Bruce (21) Simpson, author of The Packhorse Drover, Caboolture, Queensland.

Politicians continually tell us that anyone can get ahead. But is that really true? This important best-selling book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top. Friedman and Laurison show that a powerful ‘class pay gap’ exists in Britain’s elite occupations. Even when those from working-class backgrounds make it into prestigious jobs, they earn, on average, 16% less than colleagues from privileged backgrounds. But why is this the case? . Drawing on 175 interviews across four case studies - television, accountancy, architecture, and acting – they explore the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile. This is a rich, ambitious book that demands we take seriously not just the glass but also the class ceiling.