Weekend reading: Who wants to see a billionaire?
by The Investor
on October 10, 2026
What caught my eye this week.
I am sure you’ve noticed. The absence of the once-familiar chop of helicopters overhead. No longer being cut up by Ferraris and Lambos on the M1. It suddenly being easy to find unwanted copies of Atlas Shrugged at your local library.
Weekend Reading – featuring the week’s best money and investing articles from around the web – can be read by any logged-in Monevator member. Alternatively please subscribe to our free email newsletter to get future editions direct to your inbox.
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Dear The Investor – can I please praise you to the heavens for being a superb online media resource curator (as well other many things). I have never come across The New World website but I have added the bookmark to the many others that I have picked up through Monevator. To say that you are ” well read” is an understatement!
Billionaires are more wealth than income I believe, because of compounding. The money from their wealth I believe wouldn’t sit in the country that holds the assets but in the underlying assets that it’s invested in down on the ground – and those companies would still generate corporation tax and vat (if you credit that to the business rather than the consumer)
I realise they’re our top income tax payers, but i’d be interested to know how the taxes that come from the underlying investments regardless of where they live, the corporation tax + vat that billionaires’ assets generate compares to the taxes that come from being UK resident (income, capital gains + dividend + iht), I’m imagining they’re far more important for taxes that their wealth generates simply from being deployed here even if they’re not tax resistant here
But still, if they do live here, the taxes they generate is very significant, and perhaps vat isn’t appreciated as much as it could or should be.
So really even if we dont do well on tax attractiveness we could primarily aim to make the UK somewhere where they want to vacation/spend – resident or not. Maybe build a spaceport, since rockets are the new yachts. Build the fancy golf courses, yacht dock, maybe even a billionaires only theme park
Checked in for my weekend update and saw only an initial paragraph and no comments.
“Heavens!”, I thought, “The Myrmidons of the active funds have finally caught up with Monevator. They will have vanished into an offshore black site”.
Fortunately, I had just been signed out for some reason. So, on with the weekend’s reading. Less exciting, but probably more useful.
@TI excellent weekend reading and think piece as usual. One item is harder to reach though: there’s a link missing for The Week under the robot overlord section.