The world has had enough of billionaires

As the tide of public opinion turns against those with too much money, there could be uncomfortable times ahead for the world's billionaires, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: no one's laughing now
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Well. It rather looks like we have had enough of billionaires. Flick through the headlines written during Davos a few weeks ago and you'll see a pretty clear change in the trend. "Forget philanthropy. The super rich should just pay their taxes," said The Observer (some do by the way). "Great and good on top of a mountain at Davos see ground shift beneath their feet," said The Times.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.