About 56,000 people control three times as much wealth as half of humanity. Here’s one way to illustrate that

Cruising around on private jets, the ultra-rich are the world’s financial elite – but how many people actually occupy this exclusive wealth club? Could they all fit into a floating mega-yacht, or is the group much bigger, possibly the size of a dazzling mega-rich city?

Thanks to an inequality report out on Wednesday, we now have a snapshot of the size of the topmost layer floating above everyone else – the 0.001%.

Swiss bank says bequests made 91 people billionaires, while overall number jumped from 2,682 in 2024 to 2,919 this year

The super-rich are inheriting record levels of wealth as they pass down billions of dollars to their children, grandchildren and spouses, research by a Swiss bank favoured by billionaires shows.

Globally, there are 2,919 billionaires this year, up from 2,682 in 2024, UBS found.

Rising economic division is destabilising nations and eroding accountability. Joseph Stiglitz’s G20 blueprint offers a way toward global economic renewal

When Swiss tycoons handed Donald Trump a gold bar and a Rolex watch – gifts that were followed by a cut in US tariffs – it was no diplomatic nicety. It was a reminder of how concentrated wealth seems to buy access and bend policy. It may, alarmingly, become the norm if the global “inequality emergency” continues. That’s the message of the most recent work by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. The economist sees the yawning gap between rich and poor as a human-made crisis which is destroying politics, society and the planet. He’s not wrong.

The problem is no longer confined to a few fragile states. It is a global harm, with 90% of the world’s population living under the World Bank’s definition of “high income inequality”. The US sits just below that threshold and is the most unequal country in the G7, followed by the UK. Prof Stiglitz’s insight is that the current system’s defenders can no longer explain its mounting anomalies. Hence he wants a new framework to replace it. His blueprint for change is contained within the G20’s first-ever inequality report, endorsed by key European, African and middle-income nations.

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Court papers show the island cautiously welcomed the oligarch – with London’s approval – before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

For decades the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey has played a big role in moving fortunes made in some of the world’s most despotic countries into the west, attracting overseas oligarchs with a mix of low tax and high levels of financial secrecy.

It is a secrecy that extends to Jersey’s relationship with the UK government. As a crown dependency, Jersey has its own parliament, but belongs to the king. The relationship between the two jurisdictions remains something of a black box, with very little public information on how the big decisions are made, or to what extent Westminster is consulted.

Gerade in Städten werden Anpassungen an den Klimawandel immer wichtiger. In Zürich gibt es schon sei 1991 eine Pflicht zur Begrünung von Dächern. Wie es dort heute aussieht.

Imposing a 1% levy on the super-rich isn’t a policy, it’s pantomime. Tackling inequality in Britain will require much more far-reaching changes

By this time next week you will be digesting the budget, you lucky thing. Yet even before Rachel Reeves has commended a single damn thing to the house, her efforts have been written off as a “shambles”, from a “chaotic” government that is Labour in name alone. Which prompts the question: what is the leftwing alternative?

Because there is one, on which agreement stretches from Labour backbenchers to many of their opponent MPs and far beyond. Whether you listen to Zack Polanski or Zarah Sultana, the TUC or the YouTubers, they all call for a wealth tax – stinging the rich to pay for schools and hospitals. Who could be against such a thing?

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

Bill Ackman thinks his pickup line could aid population rates. Given the track record of the mega-rich, it may do the opposite

Sit down and pay attention, because this column might change your life. I bring you tidings from the Nazi-filled wilderness that is now X, where Maga-adjacent billionaire Bill Ackman has generously decided to dispense romantic advice to the masses. Online culture, Ackman notes, has “destroyed the ability to spontaneously meet strangers”. The antidote to this, he suggests, are four simple words.

“May I meet you?”

Money talks – and his essay denouncing ‘near-term emissions goals’ at Cop30 mostly argues the case for letting the ultra-rich off the hook

Let’s begin with the fundamental problem: Bill Gates is a politics denier. Though he came to it late, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about political realities. His latest essay on climate, published last week, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and no such thing as billionaires.

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month’s climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from “near-term emissions goals” towards climate “adaptation” and spending on poverty and disease.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Schmoozing the super-rich to fund a $300m ballroom while cutting food aid for those on low incomes threw the president’s architectural folly into sharp relief

It was a feast fit for a king – and any billionaire willing to be his subject. From gold-rimmed plates on gold-patterned tablecloths decorated with gold candlestick holders, they gorged on heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice-cream.

On 15 October, Donald Trump welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a vast new ballroom now expected to cost $300m. That the federal government had shut down two weeks earlier scarcely seemed to matter.