The similar lives of the rich and the not so rich

These days, it's not so easy to tell who's raking it in from who isn't, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

More on inequality. In my last blog post, I mentioned a talk by John Lanchester at the Edinburgh book festival in which he discussed the subject. During the Q&A, there was a conversation about rage how it would soon grip the UK and force change. I doubt it.

That's first because income inequality isn't rising, its falling. But it is also because the lives of the not so rich are no longer that different to those of the rich.

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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.