Overflight, 5

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
Benjamin Disraeli, as quoted in: Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy

“The idea that a small, wealthy ruling elite — an oligarchy — controls America appears to be well supported by the facts. A disproportionate amount of America's resources is controlled by a handful of its 265 million population. According to a 1983 study by the Federal Reserve Board, a mere 2 percent of U.S. families control 54 percent of the nation's wealth, and only 10 percent of the people own 86 percent of the net financial assets. The majority of American families — 55 percent — have zero or negative net worth. This study excluded the net worth of institutions, most of which, are owned or controlled by the above−mentioned 2 percent.
This cycle of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer has been accelerating since the 1960s through both Republican and Democratic administrations. It gained more momentum in the 1990s, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. From 1992 to 1994, the wealthiest 5 percent's share of the national income rose 14 percent, nearly twice that of everyone else's gain during the previous twenty−five years.
Current figures are even more gruesome. The average worker's median pay in 1998 — adjusted for inflation — is one full dollar below the 1973 hourly rate. During the past twenty years, the income gap between males with a college education and those with none has grown from 42 percent to 89 percent. Union jobs have borne the brunt of this "downsizing." In 1970, the unions representing steel and auto workers counted nearly three million members. Today, membership is below one million.
«We have evolved into a two−tier society where people in the knowledge industries prosper, and those without a college education or technical skills fall by the wayside,» noted U.S. News & World Report's editor−in−chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman. Many are now questioning if this winnowing of the American middle class is truly natural evolution or conscious planning for a "New World Order."”
Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy