Rich Books

i loved this book. i was lucky to be a student of his just when he finished grad school and the book was published. i treasured it and stupidly lent it to someone who now holds this treasure.

it's beautiful and touching and the "rich" stories are the real shockers.

even if you track this down through the library it's worth reading

By getting his subjects to write about their portraits, on the portraits, Jim Goldberg added a depth and poignance we could only have imagined (and suspected we were wrong). This is a powerful and wonderful and accessible book. I wish they'd reprint it, I'd give it away often.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. In our cynical, ever more unequal world, this old saw seems to convincingly describe the eternal way of the world.

But the world doesn't necessarily always work that way, as Stewart Lansley helps us understand in his absorbing new book, Rich Britain: The rise and rise of the new super-wealthy. In the mid 20th century, Lansley relates, the British rich actually became distinctly less rich and the British poor distinctly less poor.

Now that situation has reversed, and that reversal raises a question that desperately needs asking: Was the "Great Compression" of the mid 20th century some sort of a never-to-be-repeated accident of history -- or an inspiring example of what any society, given a deep enough commitment to greater equality, can accomplish?

Rich Britain explores this question by focusing in on the economic, social, and political evolution of the contemporary UK.

Advocates for justice, Rich Britain contends, need to recognize that decency demands more than "a minimum living standard below which it would be socially unacceptable for people to have to live." Decency may well also demand a "ceiling at the top," a "norm" about what constitutes "an acceptable limit" of income and wealth.

Without such a limit, the wealthiest in Britain -- and any other deeply unequal society -- will continue "to lead segregated lives, unaware of the reality of everyday life, increasingly divorced from common experience and independent of the society that enabled them to build the wealth that gives them the choices denied to most of the population."

Rich Britain discusses, in its final pages, a variety of approaches that could impact this "issue of distribution." But Lansley offers his countrymen and women no guarantees for success should his specific policy initiatives be followed. Events may simply be moving too swiftly in the wrong direction.

"It may well be that we are already on course for creating a detached and insular super-class, a parallel at the top to the `underclass' at the bottom," he concludes. "That is certainly a strong and possibly irreversible trend in the United States, a society where the very rich exercise considerable political power for their own benefit."

For our own benefit, in the UK, the United States, and across the world, we need to expand the discussion Rich Britain so potently encourages.

[Excerpted from a longer review that originally appeared in Too Much, the online weekly newsletter on excess and inequality [...].

Under Labour, from 1997 to 2002, the number of Britons with more than £5 million in `liquid assets' rose by 13% a year. Between 2002 and 2004, the number rose again by 50%.

The richest 45,000 people, 0.1% of the population, now own a third of all liquid assets; the richest 1% own 62%. From 1979 to 1999, the richest 1%'s share of gross income doubled from 6.5% to 13%. While their share has risen, that of the bottom 5% has fallen, from 10% in 1986 to 6% in 2002. The rich stay rich, and get richer; the poor stay poor, and get poorer. This growing inequality makes British society less mobile. The USA, Britain and South Africa, the world's most unequal societies, have the least social mobility.

Stock markets boom, interest rates and tax rates fall, top salaries, land values and property values soar. The gainers are a few thousand chief executives, City dealers, property developers, investment fund managers, landowning aristocrats (80% of the EU's £36 billion Common Agricultural Policy funds go to the richest 20% of landowners), commercial lawyers and bankers. This whole process is part of the counter-revolution started by Thatcher and continued by Blair.

From 2000 to 2004, the pay, including bonuses and long-term incentive plans, of top executives at Britain's biggest companies more than doubled. By 2004, the average remuneration of a top 100 chief executive was £2.5 million - some 113 times that of the average British worker. They claim that their private greed benefits us all.

But this soaring pay is not due to greater entrepreneurialism, tightening global or national markets, exceptional skills, or better company performances. Over the same period, from 2000 to 2004, the FTSE 100 index fell by around a third while average earnings rose by only 13%. Britain has a lower rate of innovative activity within firms than France, Germany or Spain, and in productivity growth we are only 15th out of the 30 richest countries.

"Welcome to the City - the biggest crooked casino in the world." In the last 20 years, the City and Wall Street have creamed off £100 billion by rigging capital markets. In this a corporate cartel, the top 50 fund managers control three quarters of London's stock market. The best way to raise share prices is to sack staff. As the Daily Telegraph put it, "fat cats get fatter while the savers suffer." Financial firms' fees from mergers and acquisitions, which destroy value and jobs, are known as `the croupier's take'. A City `star' admitted, "I could not believe that anyone would want to pay me so much for creating nothing."

The capitalists' last line of defence is to claim that their tax contribution justifies their wealth. Yet Britain is a tax haven for the very rich. The revenue stolen from Britain through tax avoidance is possibly £85 billion a year. The accountancy firm KPMG has 400 off-the-shelf tax avoidance `products'. Only Britain and Ireland allow non-domiciliary status to the rich, whereby they only pay tax on domestically-derived income. Other countries collect tax on all their residents. Our tax system has been regressive since 1985. In 2002, the richest fifth of the population paid 35% of their income in tax, the poorest fifth 37.9%.

For the very rich, tax is voluntary. For example, the owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al-Fayed, made a secret tax deal with the Inland Revenue in 1985 that he would pay just £240,000 a year - he should pay £6 million! The state lets him steal £5,760,000 a year. On top of this, Al-Fayed arranged for £100 million to be paid him in dividends, between 1995 and 1998 alone, to a tax-free offshore trust in Bermuda.

There are millions of similar offshore companies designed to avoid tax. They hold an estimated $11 trillion. Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson and Bill Gates all use them. A third of the world's entire GDP flows through them.

The working class produces all this wealth, creating the income of the rich. In return, the capitalists steal their cuts from every aspect of life - work, housing, saving.

Patsy Brubaker was voted the girl most likely to succeed, but she hasn't done anything successful since she graduated high school and her reunion is coming up. So, she hires a handsome guy she works with, and two terrible little kids to play her husband and talented and gifted children. This is the 4th one in this series and I'm collecting them all. My mom and neighbor love her too. This was just like my class reunion, only funnier.

Patsy Brubaker has spent her time since high school traveling Europe and "making a career out of floatin' in the pool" now that her high school reunion is coming up she has to work fast to become "the girl most likly to succeed"....even if that mean making up the wonderful husband and two beatiful childern! The Rich Gal's Rented Groom is the forth in the series "The Brubaker Brides" Great series that is getting better with each book!

This book is about Marilee, the poor girl. Marilee Ellis has always wanted to be rich. She wants to be so rich that her best friend will love her and those mean girls at school will be nicer and jealous of her. Then she gets the LoveRock from her Grammy as a gift and she makes a wish. Soon Marilee has won the lottery and has more money than she ever dreamed of. But she quickly learns that money can't buy everything especially not love.

An excellent addition to the Mirror Image series!

This was a great book! I really enjoyed it and it was soo interesting that I couldn't put it down. If you loved the first Mirrow Image book, then you'll definitely love this book too. The book showed that money can't buy everything, a good heart does. Marilee discovers this after her wish of becoming rich came true after wishing on the loverock. Before receiving the loverock from her Grammy, Marilee was very poor. She'd always wish she was as rich as the girls who tease her at school were. Then when she wished upon the loverock, her wish finally comes true but she learns the lesson that money can't buy everything. To find out more about her dilema, read Mirror Image: Rich Girl In The Mirror. You won't be dissappointed.

This book is an excellent choice for children. The author writes in a very straight-forward way. Death is not something that should be a secret. Children need to understand, or at least be exposed, to this concept. Younger children (below age 5) may not grasp the full picture. However, I would recommend this book to any parent or teacher who is trying to broaden their libraries. It is a must have!

Sensitively written by Donna Jo Napoli, Flamingo Dreams is a color picturebook about a very serious theme -- coping with grief. Told from the point of view of a child losing a father to a slow bout with cancer, Flamingo Dreams is about accepting coming death, coping, and finding joy in life. With a marked art style by Cathie Felstead that is very similar to how young children themselves draw with crayons, Flamingo Dreams is a touching and heartfelt book highly recommended to help young people through great loss.

After you read this book, you will have a clearer picture of what Jesus was really saying, not what tradition says. See other books from Bullinger for even more surprizing twists that tradition does to the Word of God.

It is the author's contention that when dealing with the subject of what happens at death, it is important that Christians confine themselves to what the Bible has to say and not turn to tradition. Some current views have more in common with the traditions taught by the Pharisees than with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is true of Luke 16:19-31, "The Rich Man and Lazarus". By an extensive use of both Scripture and traditional sources, Dr. Bullinger places the evidence before the reader. Christians will find this publication very helpful and informative. Some will be surprised to find just how much of an influence the traditions of the Pharisees had on early Christianity and how some of it still permeates Christian thought today. (Review by The Open Bible Trust / Grace Publications Inc.

Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques

Several years ago, the Sinclair family ruined Rico D'Alessio's reputation and his marriage with scandal. Rico has since recovered his good name, if not his marriage, and has a successful career in kidnapping recovery. He has never forgotten what the Sinclairs did to him however and his only quest now is one for revenge. What better way than to seduce Danielle Sinclair?

Horribly suffering over the death of her mother when Danielle was a teen, she had turned to Rico for support and that turned into infatuation. Humiliated beyond words at the time as a result of her puppy love, Danielle still has not forgotten Rico. So when he shows up again several years later, and is once again working for her father, Danielle tries very hard to forget the past.

However, Rico and Danielle find themselves forced into close proximity when in order to thwart a stalker after Danielle, she and Rico stage a phony marriage to throw off her pursuer. Danielle has her own plans for this pretend marriage and will do anything to protect her secret. Rico soon comes to realize as well, that revenge is no longer his number one priority. Can these two adults find a real lasting love together?

With her sophomore release, Rich Man's Revenge, Tessa Radley shows her successful first book was no fluke... she has what it takes to make a strong name for herself in the category romance genre. Once again the twists, turns, and red herrings are in abundance as we follow along with Rico and Danielle as they fall in love. Again, the big secret is no huge surprise, but the real adventure is in the journey to the conclusion. Tessa has a talent for taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary just with the way she tells the story. This is a rare talent and I for one have moved her to the top of my "must buy immediately" author list.

Danielle and Rico are two damaged individuals, neither one able to forget their shared past which helped mold them into the people they are now. This makes them all the more sympathetic to readers. Danielle's wounds are soul deep due to the tragedy that put them there and I couldn't help but be moved by her experiences when she shares them with Rico, her family, and us. Rico feels immense guilt over certain aspects of their shared past and that serves to make him even more driven in his plans for revenge. As these two come together, (And do they ever! Their passion runs very hot.) they finally learn that they can only move on by letting go of their pasts and turning to each other.

The mystery surrounding who is stalking Danielle takes a back seat to the love story between our hero and his chosen lady, but don't let that fool you. Its part in the story was more of a catalyst to throw Danielle and Rico together, but even so, Tessa brings it around to a satisfactory conclusion that is a little unexpected.

Rich Man's Revenge is a beautiful love story between two wounded hearts who need each other to heal and survive.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, June 2007. All rights reserved.

Danielle Sinclair has finally gotten her wild sister Kim settled into a nice marriage. Perhaps now she can relax. Don't count on it! Rico D'Alessio has come back, bent on revenge against the Sinclair family. It is not enough to take control over the Sinclair business. Instead Rico wants to make it personal and if it means taking Danielle Sinclair as his wife and making her pregnant, so be it. There's just one problem with his revenge plan ---when he chooses Danielle as his instrument of revenge, he never realized how his plans might just lead to a revenge sweeter than he ever imagined!

Rich Man's Revenge is Tessa Radley's second romance but already but there is something about this author that readers will just love. I normally do not get thrills reading about rich men (even less so today than in the past due to the current corporate culture). I don't like reading about Alpha men either ---- but I love reading Tessa Radley's romances and even the way she writes her corporate men. Readers will love the way Tessa Radley writes her heroines --- they are not submissive spineless women but bright and intelligent. When they find love it is about finding their heart and not compromising their inner strength.

The characters in Rich Man's Revenge are multi-dimensional characters, written with a depth and darkness. Here the hero and heroine have undiscovered dreams and strengths. The darkness of Rich Man's Revenge is one of emotionally wounded people whose wounds become the very foundation of their ability to love. Tessa Radley fans will recognize her distinctive stlye in this second book. Rich Man's Revenge is overflowing with crazy situations and and all sorts of events and moments crafted together with such skill. When I read the back cover blurb, I just wondered how in the world she would be able to put all this together and not make it feel it was contrived --- but she does! I love it! Every added detail reveals the characters, every complication comes from the heart and history of her characters.

Even though Casual is Oksana Robski's first novel, she proves her mastery, wit, and writing talent easily. Originally written in Russian and first published early in 2005, this book is about the elite of the Moscow society. It describes in minute details the life and intigues that go on among the residents of the posh Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway (a place where such people as former president Yeltsin own villas). It is a life filled with high-class cars, $50,000/day shopping sprees, vacations to Courchevel, houses with warming marble floors and dinners with caviar and Crystal. Although the book angered many Russians (probably for the sole reason that it described such an unattainable life and people who profit off others), it is written brilliantly. The original Russian version is extremely witty and shows how well Robski can use the language.

The heroine of the book is a woman whose husband, a rich businessman, was just murdered. She is left with a posh estate, money, 9-year old child, and a bunch of questions about her husbands real life. As she tries to answer these questions and get over her grief, we learn about her attempts to establish her own business, the brutality of the Russian reality, relationships between "rich" and "poor" people, and her husbands little secrets.

At first it might look like a snob wrote that book. Believe me, it is nothing like Paris Hilton's "All About Me" book. Robski is very insightful and seems to know a lot about life outside of Rublevka.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone - Russian or not. You will learn a lot about living large in Moscow. I would also recommend her other 2 books: Day of Happiness: Tomorrow and "Pro Ljuboff/on" ("About Loff/on")

She, Serge and their nine years old daughter lived the good life of the Russian nouveau riche in the upscale Rublyovka section of Moscow until her spouse was gunned down just outside their luxurious apartment. Stunned and grieving with no satisfaction from the police, who initially suspect her, the wealthy young widow is determined to maintain their high standard of living while also avenging the murder of her loved one.

As she plans to keep the business running smoothly, she turns to Oleg, who can navigate places that the police would fear entering. She wants to hire him to find her husband's killer, whose composite picture she has seen at the police station and has previously met at the restaurant. However, she will soon learn more than she wants to know about how Moscow's ruthless business world operates; her late spouse's real trade; and especially Serge's darkest secrets.

This is an intriguing look at Russia's nouveau riche especially those of high society who live in the exclusive Rublyovka neighborhood like Yeltsin. The story line is driven mostly by the lead female, but supported by her contacts with the upper class elite and the lower class minion as she works both sides of the street. Fans of deep dramas in which the locale is the star will enjoy this solid character study starring an affluent Russian woman with two divergent goals.

Harriet Klausner

This books is utterly intriguing, fascinating, entertaining and an absolute must-have for anyone who wants to get the inside info on how rich men think/act/play/stray. Definitely written by the guru who speaks from personal knowledge and experience. Enter Ginie's world and you will never want to leave! This book covers love-styles, wife-types and mistress roles as well as how to not be perpetually engaged. The creme-de-la-creme of sex/love/money advice manuals!

Completely unique - so many authors copy Ginie Sayles' topics and information; but this one that is exclusively hers - note the trademark and the fact that she wrote this based on her many years of consultations with rich men - something no one else has to draw from on this unique take of how money affects their sex lives. The sexual dynamics of money - wow - only Ginie Sayles could think of such an angle.

I like how she points out the 'perpetual engagements' of some of the rich who lead women on but do not marry them - and how to handle it. The 6 styles of rich men - and types of women they go for. It's all good.

This compilation of life skills for better business and living teaches usable skills for living a busy, fulfilling life. From managing worries and handling stress to analyzing the things needed to succeed, Rich Without Money shows how to build strategic plans to meet goals.

Reading this book reminded me of the Citibank commercial a few years ago that said, "Get rich quick. Count your blessings." As the author so wisely and insightfully describes, we have become so overwhelmed by earning and spending that we fail to realize that we are already rich - with or without the material "stuff" of life. The life strategies described here are simple, yet powerful. And, written in such a way that is easy to understand and assimilate.