Diese Woche trifft sich die globale Geld-Elite beim Weltwirtschaftsforum. Auch Donald Trump kommt persönlich vorbei und mit ihm die Aussicht auf eine neue Eskalationsstufe der Weltpolitik – sei es in Grönland, in der Ukraine oder in Iran.

There are many excuses for failing to tax the ultra-wealthy. The truth is that governments don’t tackle the problem because they don’t want to

There is one political problem from which all others follow. It is the major cause of Donald Trump, of Nigel Farage, of the shocking weakness of their opponents, of the polarisation tearing societies apart, of the devastation of the living world. It is simply stated: the extreme wealth of a small number of people.

It can also be quantified. The World Inequality Report (WIR) 2026 shows that about 56,000 people – 0.001% of the global population – corral three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. They afflict almost every country. In the UK, for example, 50 families hold more wealth than 50% of the population combined.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Richest 1% took 10 days while wealthiest 0.1% needed just three days to exhaust annual carbon budget, study shows

The world’s richest 1% have used up their fair share of carbon emissions just 10 days into 2026, analysis has found.

Meanwhile, the richest 0.1% took just three days to exhaust their annual carbon budget, according to the research by Oxfam.

State residents worth more than $1bn could face one-off, 5% tax to help fund education, food assistance and healthcare

A battle is brewing in California over a plan to tax billionaires – with tech titans divided over whether they should pay up, or flee the state.

Under a tax proposal that could be put to voters this November, any California resident worth more than $1bn would have to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state.

Just eight billionaires accounted for a quarter of the gains, led by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Larry Page

The richest 500 individuals in the world added a record $2.2tn to their wealth in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with just eight billionaires accounting for a quarter of the gains.

The gains increased their collective net worth to $11.9tn, bolstered by billionaire Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory and booming markets in cryptocurrencies, equities and metals.

I’d like to believe that the horrific darkness of this past year is a necessary prelude to a brighter and saner future

About a year ago, at the start of the Trump 2.0 regime, a woman was about to pass me on the sidewalk and then stopped, turned toward me and almost shouted: “It’s a fucking nightmare!”

It has been a “fucking nightmare”.

Nie wird so viel Post verschickt wie in der Vorweihnachtszeit – aber wo hakt es, wenn sich Briefe und Pakete verspäten? Ein Versuch in Anekdoten mit Grüßen unserer Korrespondenten.

Baronesses Nadine and Ariane de Rothschild at odds over future of Swiss chateau’s priceless contents

After three generations of genteel discretion bordering on secrecy, the international banking family the Rothschilds has been riven by rival claims to a vast collection of masterpieces that are part of the family’s multibillion-euro fortune.

The battle now playing out in the courts and media has pitched the 93-year-old senior baroness, Nadine de Rothschild – widow of Edmond de Rothschild, the late scion of the French-Swiss branch of the family – against her daughter-in-law, Ariane de Rothschild, the current baroness.

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.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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.