rich

Porsche has stopped production of the Taycan because the rich don’t want it. And that says it all about the new Ferrari Luce

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The sports and luxury electric car market has been in a week like no one remembered for a long time. Mercedes and Ferrari have presented two supercars that anticipate their next steps regarding their zero emissions and that confirm their commitment to this technology. Porsche, however, is taking the opposite path: it has temporarily suspended production of its Taycans. What has happened? Porsche has temporarily stopped production of its most advanced electric car, the Taycan. At the moment, we know that at the end of last week the production chain stopped and more closures are anticipated in the short term, explain our colleagues from Motorpassion. And the reason is as simple as that they do not sell. They point out in Automotive and Sportwhich in the first quarter of the year barely 3,420 units have been delivered (19% less than in the same period of the previous year). If these figures hold, at the end of the year Porsche would have sold about 14,000 electric supercars, the lowest figure since its launch. We better stop. They say that a withdrawal in time is a victory. In the case of the automobile industry, it is totally true. When overproduced, the product accumulates in warehouses, takes up space and depreciates. In the end, it is best to give it a way out with suggestive discounts that can eat into the profit margin. This is a problem that Stellantis has experienced firsthand, which even came to “give away” the electric Fiat 500 in the United States to get them off your back. Honda has preferred cancel its upcoming electric launches and assume more than 2,000 million dollars in losses due to the expected low demand. This is a problem for any company but it is much more so for a brand like Porsche whose value is based on exclusivity and brand image. Finding dozens of Porsche Taycans online at ridiculous prices (as ridiculous as the price of a car that starts at over 100,000 euros can be) would be killing its position as a brand that one longs to achieve at some point in their life. Have we reached the limit? The Porsche Taycan was a success in its first years. In a few months of 2020, it already placed more than 20,000 units and in its first full year it exceeded 41,000 units. After a small drop in 2022, in 2023 it once again surpassed that barrier of 40,000 units and everything seemed to be going smoothly. In fact, the company based its strategy for the future on electricity as a fundamental pillar. But 2024 arrived and the crash began. Sales fell by half that year. In 2025 they remained at just over 16,000 units and the accounts say that it looks even worse for the remainder of the year. Along the way, the Chinese public that was essential for Porsche has turned its back on itfocusing on luxury cars much cheaper they are faster and that, above all, They offer other types of experiences. Chinese market closedeverything indicates that in the United States and Europe the market is already full of Porsche Taycan. It must be taken into account that the brand also has to deal with the tariffs in the United States which forces them to raise the price of the car or assume a narrower profit margin. We might think that we are facing the usual drop in sales of a product at the end of its commercial life, but the Taycan was renewed in 2024 and there is no announced replacement model that would make it lose its appeal. a trend. The production stoppage of the Taycan is just one more example of how the market is retreating. The company opted to convert the Macan, its great best-seller, into electric and the bet has gone wrong in numerical terms. Also they seem to have gone backwards to its “electric-only” project for the future Porsche 718. “We were wrong,” its former CEO has come to point out.now president of the Volkswagen Group. On the same wavelength, Lamborghini has stopped its plans to put an electric supercar on the market. Lotus, which within Geely was betting everything on pure electric, will also return to the combustion engine although with hybridization. And Mercedes is going the same way because does not sell its most expensive models. a problem. The electric supercar has a problem: it is not sold. In China, where electric has been assumed as the only future, it seems that there is no turning back but in United States emissions regulations have been eliminated and in Europe it will be allowed to sell cars with combustion engines in a movement that limits them to the most expensive and exclusive vehicles. That is to say, in Europe combustion sports cars will be even more exclusive, as the general fleet of vehicles is rapidly electrified. But, also, an electric can’t match the experience of its sound, its smell and its touch. It may be faster but it doesn’t sell the same experience. a clue. In the last week, Mercedes has presented the new Mercedes-AMG GT in its fully electric version. Without noise, they have recorded the sound of the legendary V8 that until now was under the hood to include it as a soundtrack. An attempt to make the car more than just a fast but aseptic product. The other great failure among the public has been the Ferrari Luce. On social networks and even the most renowned voices within the Ferrari orbit They have skinned him. But the movement is interesting because the new electric points to a different strategyto an audience that Ferrari does not have right now. It doesn’t want to be an electric supercar, it wants to be a fashion accessory. And only from there is its launch understood. Photo | In Xataka | The new Ferrari Luce is much more than Ferrari’s first electric car. It is a desperate cry to find a new audience

After the Titan millionaire submarine disaster, China plans to take more rich tourists 1,000 meters under the sea

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The depths ofto Mariana Trench or exploration from the deep ocean It has always been a thing for scientists and remotely controlled machines. China wants it to stop being so and already has an ambitious plan in motion: taking wealthy tourists to 1,000 meters deep, where sunlight does not reach and where there is no turning back for an engineering failure. The project comes three years after the Titan tragedythe OceanGate submersible that imploded in June 2023 while I was visiting the remains of the titanic in which its five occupants died. Far from stopping its efforts, China is moving forward with a proposal that, unlike the Titan, is backed by decades of naval engineering developed with the support of China. Four highly sought-after seats. Ye Cong, director of the China Naval Scientific Research Center, counted to ChinaDaily that “after more than four years of research, engineers have finalized the structural design” and that, once the prototype is built, “they will carry out sea trials and then improve the design based on the results.” The submersible will have enough space to accommodate four peoplepilot included, so, to begin with, the availability of places is very limited. This shortage of vacancies is expected to contribute to skyrocketing prices for filling each seat. One of the most complex problems of the small submarine has already been solved: the panoramic viewfinder. Your designers they describe it as “one of the most difficult structural codes to decipher on a deep-sea submersible.” And it makes sense since at 1,000 meters deep the pressure is about 100 times greater than on the surface, and that window has to withstand it without giving way. An unprecedented leap into the abyss. This is not the first submersible that Chinese engineers have operated. However, such andhow do they count in South China Morning Post The new projects that are being tested far exceed the depths at which current submersibles operate, which do not go below 20 meters deep. They are used for lakes, reservoirs and shallow coasts, so going from there to 1,000 meters is multiplying the operating depth by 50. The same naval engineering center that is now building this new generation of manned mini-submarines already built The Huandao Jiaolong 1 and 2, two tourist submersibles with capacity for seven passengers and a limit of 40 meters. However, on that occasion, immersion operations were suspended due to regulatory restrictions, but everything learned then has been applied to the new design. China plunges into the field of underwater exploration. The West has been designing submersibles for decades for deep dives. Companies like Deep RoverTriton and U-Boat Worx have been manufacturing submersibles over 1,000 meters since 1985 and until now had no Chinese competition in that segment. The new project developed by the China Naval Scientific Research Center changes that scenario supported by the previous experience of the Jiaolongthe Deep Sea Warrior and the Fendouzhe, three ships that last year completed more than 300 dives around the world and accounted for more than 50% of all manned deep-sea expeditions on a global scale. Ye Cong assured the Chinese news agency that the submersible: “will be a valuable asset for cruise lines, high-end tour operators and oceanographic researchers. It will offer the most demanding travelers an unforgettable experience in ocean exploration.” The prototype should be ready before the end of 2026, with the commercial debut expected before 2030. Much more than a tourist “toy”: it is a key strategy. This submersible is not just a mere product intended for tourist use of millionaires with adventurous concerns. It is part of China’s strategy to become strong in the blue economy, the sector of economic activities linked to the sea, a developing sector in which China seeks to play a leading role in the future. The Asian giant already leads manned deep-sea exploration and wants that this technological advantage is amortized in the form of a private business for their companies. After the Titan catastrophea good part of the luxury underwater tourism industry came to a screeching halt. China is the first to step on the accelerator again in this area, and this project is supported by State resources, which gives it a considerable advantage over projects that, like the Titan, are developed with private funds and investors. In Xataka | There is a new chapter in the Titan submarine tragedy: the memory card of its camera survived the implosion Image | CSSC

If the question is whether the rich are born or made, the answer is condensed in a graph that shows that Spain is different

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Globally, the distribution of wealth is not only measured by how much money the richest have, but also by the economic flow and what it is like. the architecture of success that each country has built. The balance between “own merit” and “cradle” defines the identity of an economy: while in some countries they function as innovation laboratories where fortunes emerge from nothing, in others they function as a kind of safe deposit box where heritage is transmitted from generation to generation like a modern noble title. This chart from the German economic data analysis platform DataPulse and is made from Forbes data for June 2025. At that time, the business magazine counted 2,838 billionaires around the world. Forbes ranks each using its own scoring system (Self-Made score), which ranges from 1 to 10 according to the weight of the inheritance versus one’s own merit. The overall result is clear: two out of every three millionaires are millionaires because they “made themselves.” But this statement hides abysmal differences that reflect how economic power works in each society. By the way, a global fact that the graph itself highlights: between 2024 and 2025 the total wealth of all the billionaires in the world grew by 13.4%. According to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025that growth pushed aggregate wealth to an all-time high of $15.8 trillion. Wealth: Self-made vs. inheritances. Data Pulse with data from Forbes Where does the fortune of the world’s richest come from: inheritance or self-made? The upper area of ​​the graph is where those countries are located where it is easier to get rich on your own and is led by Russia and China: both appear with 97% of billionaires self-madethe highest percentage in the world. They may be entrepreneurial countries, but the true differential feature must be found in their history: their respective revolutions of the 20th century They destroyed any inheritable private capital (the Bolshevik in 1917 and the Maoist in 1949). So technically, their fortunes are first generation because they couldn’t be from any other. However, this small print also includes Forbes’ conception of Self-made: In the Russian case, the main oligarchs accumulated their wealth in the 90s by taking advantage of Yeltsin’s savage privatizations. He Harvard’s Wilson Center says it loud and clear: It was one of the largest transfers of public wealth into private hands in modern history. Calling it self-made is at least generous. Although the United States is the country with the most millionaires in number with almost 924 people and according to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025 74% of them are self-made, not the one that appears higher in the graph. The United Kingdom, Canada and Israel stand out there. What they all have in common are economies with developed capital markets, active venture capital ecosystems and legal frameworks that facilitate the creation and scaling of companies. In Germany, France or Spain inheritance rules. The Western European bloc is the area where inherited wealth weighs the most, with Germany as an extreme case: only 25% of its rich people are so because they built their own fortune. Family Capital explains it quite well: the ten largest German assets are all linked to family businesses. There are no great new generation technological fortunes. What there are are “old-fashioned” names, such as the Quandts at BMW, the Albrechts behind Aldi or the Würths: post-war industrial dynasties that have passed down their empires from generation to generation. Spain and France embrace a similar logic: they have legal frameworks that strongly protect intergenerational wealth transmission, scarcity and/or weakness of a technological ecosystem comparable to that which exists in the Anglo-Saxon or Asian ecosystem, and a business culture where family control of capital is considered a value in itself. Just above Germany is Spain, which has second place in the world in percentage of inherited wealth, with 74% of its billionaires in that category and only 26% self-made. Although there is the occasional green shoot of a modernized economy, it is residual: Spanish wealth is historically concentrated in a very small number of families with dominant positions in sectors with little competition. In short, generally In Spain wealth comes from dad. As in Germany, the names in the Spanish state are great classics: the Ortega family with Inditex, the Del Pino with Ferrovial, the March, the Entrecanales or the Lara. They are fortunes built for the most part during the Franco regime or the transition, in a context of little competition, privileged access to credit and close relations with political power. The result is what the graph shows: a country where becoming a billionaire from scratch is statistically almost an anomaly. In Xataka | We thought that millionaires had their fortune rain down from the sky without the slightest effort: Spain is different In Xataka | The “Great Transfer of Wealth” is not only a thing for the rich: demographic change will concentrate wealth among the youngest Cover | DataPulse

“Taxes for us. Taxes for the super rich”

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Once a year, the quiet city of Davos becomes the financial and political capital of the world during the World Economic Forum in Davos. World leaders and executives from the world’s largest corporations debate for a few days the course What will the economy take? and global geopolitics. In this context, almost 400 millionaires from 24 countries have presented an open letter asking for something that, a priori, goes against their own interests: higher taxes for those who, like them, have several hundred million dollars of assets. Millionaires against their interests. The initiative of this group of millionaires it’s not new. They have been asking the economic authorities to meet in Davos on tax tightening for the richest. The difference is that this year different groups of millionaires have joined together, such as Patriotic Millionaires and Millionaires for Humanity to Oxfam to join forces and accuse the ultra-rich of capturing democracies, aggravating poverty, stopping innovations and damaging the planet with their economic control. The group denounces in its letter that this extreme wealth “has led to extreme control” for those who risk everyone’s future in exchange for obscene profits. Among the signatures on this manifesto are those of actor Mark Ruffalo, Disney heirs Abby and Tim Disney, and real estate developer Jeffrey Gural, who directly proclaim: “Taxes for us. Taxes for the super rich.” According to a poll conducted by the Patriotic Millionaires organization to G20 millionaires, 77% of those surveyed believe that the ultra-rich buy political influence, and 71% believe that this influence serves to create states of opinion in elections. More millionaires than ever. The claim coincides with a moment in which the stock market situation is generating millionaires at a frenetic pace. The report Global Wealth Report 2025 prepared by UBS revealed that 379,000 new millionaires were created in the US alone during 2024. This increase caused the world’s population of millionaires to go from 13.27 million people with more than one million dollars available to invest to more than 52 million people by the end of 2024. The concentration of wealth that has been occurring in recent years is evident. According to data According to the Federal Reserve, in the US the richest 20% of households, with an average of $4.3 million, controlled 71.1% of the total wealth in 2024. On the other hand, the poorest 50% of households, with an average of $60,000, only accounted for 2.5% of the wealth. Philanthropy falls short. Some rich people try to compensate for the imbalance in the distribution of resources with voluntary donations with initiatives such as The Giving Pledge, promoted by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, which has brought together more than 250 billionaires. Each of them promised to give at least half of their fortune during their lifetime or by will. However, the creators themselves recognize that these initiatives are not enough to tackle the problem. Warren Buffett confessed in his traditional letter to his shareholders that some of these philanthropic plans were frustrated by political decisions or due to the lack of consistency of donor commitment. “I have witnessed ill-conceived wealth transfers by cheap politicians, dynastic decisions and, yes, inept or peculiar philanthropists,” wrote the “oracle of Omaha in his last letter. Less taxes for millionaires. According to a study Prepared by economists from the University of California, in the US the 400 largest fortunes paid an effective tax rate of 24% between 2018 and 2020, below the 30% paid on average by the rest of taxpayers. The report concludes that this happens because capital gains on investments and certain business profits are taxed less than high salaries, allowing billionaires to reduce their real tax burden so that their income They do not depend on a salary in the companies they run or have founded, but of shares thereof. This mismatch fuels the argument of the Davos letter, which urges global and local leaders to tax large assets more. However, it is a risky request since the simple proposal of a measure that would tax California’s large fortunes at 5% has caused some of the largest fortunes to have already packed their bags for other states with more lax tax policies. In Xataka | An atoll in the South Pacific has become a magnet for millionaires. Its great attraction is not its beaches, it is its banks Image | Flickr (Fortune Live Media, Gage Skidmore)

In the 17th century there was a food that was considered deadly for the rich, but did not kill the poorest: the tomato.

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Today it is almost impossible to imagine Mediterranean cuisine without tomatoes, a food highly valued by its nutritional benefits and their antioxidant propertiesanti-cancer and how preventative for aging cellular. However, its integration into the European diet was a slow process full of obstacles, marked by a phenomenon that stigmatized it for centuries, calling it a poisonous food that could lead to cause death, especially if you were rich. Curiously, the poor were immune to its poison. The tomato was deadly for the rich The history of the tomato hides a phenomenon that defied the logic of the time, as it seemed to act as a selective executioner capable of distinguishing the social status of those who ate it. While the peasants and the popular classes They consumed it without suffering harm In some cases, rich aristocrats and wealthy merchants became seriously ill and even died after ingesting it, which consolidated the belief that it was a poisonous and cursed fruit. However, the key to this medical mystery lies not in the biological composition of the tomato, but in the chemistry of the utensils used by rich Europeans when serving and preparing this food. The upper classes of the 18th century had the custom of serving their banquets in pewter tablewarea metallic alloy highly appreciated for its shine and similarity to silver, composed mainly of tin and copper, but with a high lead content. Unlike the rich, the humble classes could not afford these luxuries and ate on simple plates made of wood, clay or coarse ceramics, materials that were chemically inert to food. The problem was that, when the natural acidity of the tomato came into contact with the surface of the pewter plates, their interaction caused a chemical reaction that leached lead from the alloyreleasing this heavy metal directly into the food. As a result, the aristocrats suffered lead poisoning (lead poisoning), whose symptoms were erroneously attributed to the toxicity of the tomatoes and not to the dish in which it was served, granting him tomato the nickname “poison apple” for more than 200 years. Bad botanical companies The rejection of the tomato in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries was not only due to the wealthy victims that this evil fruit claimed, but was supported by the botanical science of the time, which classified it under a family of some plants with a bad reputation: nightshades. Naturalists identify the tomato as a member of the Solanaceae, the same group to which plants belong. famous for their toxicity such as nightshade, henbane or mandrake. This botanical association was enough for doctors and scholars to assume that the new fruit native to the Americas shared the deadly properties of its distant relatives. This botanical classification reinforced the irrational fear of the plant, linking it not only with the poison that was clearly killing the richest, but with spiritual and moral dangers typical of the time. The mandrake, in particular, was strongly associated with witchcraft and rituals dark due to its narcotic effects and the anthropomorphic form of its roots. By placing the tomato in this same biological bag, all the negative connotations and superstitions that surrounded the plants used in the dark arts were transferred to it. As and as they pointed out in National Geographicthe herbalist John Gerard was one of those responsible for fixing this negative image in the collective mind, leaving in writing in his work Herball of 1597 a devastating sentence. Gerard described the plant as producing “corrupt and poisonous fruits”, a statement that, coming from an authority on the subject, cemented the terror of the tomato in Britain and its colonies for centuries. Although in Spain and Italy the tomato began to be accepted earlier due to the influence of customs brought from Americain northern Europe the shadow of suspicion lasted much longer. It was necessary for modern chemistry to explain the pewter reaction and for botany to refine its classifications so that the tomato could finally clear its name and occupy the place it today has on our tables, no matter if you are rich or poor. In Xataka | They are millionaires, but they eat like children. Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg share a passion for junk food Image | Nano Banana, Unsplash (Wanasanan Phonnaun)

‘human safaris’ for the rich

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Three decades ago Sarajevo earned a tragic place in history. Between April 1992 and February 1996 the city suffered the longest siege of our time: 1,425 days during which hundreds of thousands of people lived under the constant threat of mortars and snipers. It is estimated that they lost their lives more than 11,000 civilians (including 1,601 children) and about 50,000 people suffered injuries in one of the most tragic episodes of the Bosnian War. Now that bloody siege threatens to slip back into the history books for an even (even) more terrifying episode. The Milan Prosecutor’s Office is investigating If while thousands of inhabitants of Sarajevo were living hell on earth, a small, opulent and, above all, heartless group of foreigners who were fond of weapons were dedicated to practicing ‘human safaris’. Four years of hell. The 20th century was generous in tragedies, but the Sarajevo site by the Bosnian Serb militias stands out among all of them for its data: it lasted nearly four years, left more than 11,000 civilians dead, tens of thousands injured, more than a thousand and a half corpses of children and scenes of heartbreaking harshness, such as the murder of Admira and Boškoa couple of unarmed young men killed in May 1993 while crossing a bridge. At the mercy of snipers. The photo of the young lovers, embraced on the ground, lifeless, stirred stomachs beyond the city and inspired the documentary ‘Romero and Juliet in Sarajevo’released just a year later by the Canadian filmmaker John Zaritsky. In reality, the story of Admira and Boško was just one more drop in the turbulent and gloomy ocean of that siege. During the siege the street also became popular Zmaja od Bosne and the boulevard Messe Selimovicthen nicknamed ‘Sniper Avenue’. your name says it all: those who crossed it risked slipping into the sights of some gunman willing to pull the trigger without paying attention to who would receive the bullet, civilian or military, man or woman, child, adult or elderly. Something more than a war? That wars are fertile ground for barbarism is nothing new. We keep checking it still in the middle of 2025. The question that has now arisen in Europe, more specifically in Italy, is whether all the people who fired bullets during the siege of Sarajevo were militiamen, soldiers, people desperate to protect their lives… or were there also foreigners who simply wanted to participate in ‘manhunts’. That is, people willing to pay large sums of money to take their rifle, travel to another country located hundreds of kilometers away and dedicate themselves to hunting people like someone who goes out to hunting grounds in search of wild boar, roe deer or hares. An ancient hum. It’s actually not a new suspicion. Rumors have circulated since the 1990s about ‘human safaris’, war tourism and rifle-wielding foreigners during the siege of Sarajevo. Perhaps one of the most controversial documents on the subject is a short recording showing the Russian writer Eduard Limonov together with Radovan Karadzic (today convicted of genocide) and snipers in full action. At one point Limonov is seen taking a gun, although there is no suspicion that he participated in ‘human safaris’. A few years ago the Slovenian director Miran Xupanič even recorded a documentary (‘Sarajevo Safari’) in which it talks about how supposedly during the 90s wealthy foreigners paid to shoot the residents of the city. A complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office. If the issue is in the news today it is because, almost 30 years after the siege, the Milan Prosecutor’s Office has decided open an investigation to clarify whether there were indeed people with a lot of money and little or no heart who participated in ‘safaris’ taking advantage of the siege of Sarajevo. Specifically, it studies whether there were groups of foreigners (not only Italians) who paid large sums, between 80,000 and 100,000 euros to the current change, to get on a plane in Trieste, land in Belgrade and then be taken to one of the hills of Sarajevo to hold a rifle and give free rein to their sadism. But… Why now? That the Milan Prosecutor’s Office has made a move just now, 30 years later, is no coincidence. The process has been launched following a complaint filed by the journalist Ezio Gavazzeniresident in Milan and who has dedicated himself to collecting evidence that points to the existence of these ‘human safaris’. Thanks to his investigations, Gavazzeni has prepared a 17-page complaint that has the support of two notable figures: Guido Salvini, a former magistrate, and Benjamina Karic, who governed Sarajevo between 2021 and 2024. The existence of this weekend war tourism has confirmed it also in recent weeks a leading figure in the Italian diplomatic mission in Sarajevo during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war. In an interview he has acknowledged both the existence of those bloody ‘safaris’ and that in his day the Italian secret services (SISMI) received information about what was happening in Sarajevo, which led them to investigate it and put an end to it shortly after. “There were Germans, French, English…” Gavazzeni recognize that rumors about ‘sniper tourism’ are not new. He remembers having read reports about similar cases already in the 1990s, but what triggered his investigative spring, what led him to investigate the case further and finally present the complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office was Zupanič’s documentary. “I began a correspondence with the director and, from there, I expanded my research until I gathered enough material,” relates to Guardian. After collecting this material, he defends that there were “many Italians” involved, although he also speaks of Germans, French, English… Even “rich and relevant Spaniards”. “People from all Western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians,” summarizes the researcher. One complaint, two achievements. For now, Gavanezzi has already achieved two objectives. First, that the Milan Prosecutor’s Office initiate an investigation for an alleged crime of voluntary manslaughter with aggravating cruelty and abject motives. … Read more

The luxury goods market is dying of success. The reason: there are too many rich people

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According to the latest report According to Intermon Oxfam, the 10 largest fortunes in the world have increased their assets by 698 billion so far in 2025. However, despite the fact that their fortunes are on the rise, the consumption of luxury goods aimed at this type of consumer has only decreased in the last year. Paradoxically, one of the causes of this decrease in sales would be the increase in the number of millionaires that have been created in recent years. The luxury market has hit the brakes. In 2024, the global luxury products market recorded a drop of 2% compared to the previous year, marking the first decline in fifteen years. Prices and sales of goods such as luxury watches, exclusive mansions, art and liquor have stopped growing and, in many cases, have stagnated or reduced. For example, the index Knight Frank’s luxury investment portfolio (KFLII), which takes into account the market value of these luxury consumer products, has increased by 72.6% in the last 10 years. But if we take the percentage of the last two years we see that in 2023 it fell by 6.6%, while in 2024 it fell by 3.3%. That is, to try to alleviate the drop in sales, luxury product brands have lowered their prices. This drop in sales of luxury products has been noticed in groups like LVMHwhich has been experiencing negative numbers in its wine and spirits division since 2023. Has all luxury gone down equally? However, as how they stand out in The Economistnot all luxury has decreased in the same proportion. A look at the Wealth Report 2025 from the consulting firm Knight Frank gives us a clear picture that only a certain type of luxury goods have fallen, while others, much more exclusive and inaccessible They have continued to grow at the same pace. For example, the high end cars have continued to increase their prices at a rate of 1.2%, as have leather bags from exclusive brands, such as those manufactured by Hermès, which have also maintained their upward trend at a rate of 2.8%. Even a market as bullish as real estate has been altered by the turbulence in the luxury market, reducing its growth rate to just 0.7%. Changes in the perception of luxury. If the data says that in 2025 not only have increased the number of millionaires but those that 1% of the population each time it’s richer Why have sales of luxury products decreased? The answer lies in Thorstein Veblen, an economist of the late 19th century, who in his book “The theory of the leisure class“has already defined that real luxury depends on its scarcity and exclusivity. This theory maintains that, if a luxury good is accessible for many peopleit is no longer perceived as exclusive and loses its value. Therefore, as the number of people who, for example, can pay 200 euros for a bottle of wine increases, it is no longer perceived as an exclusive luxury product and its price is devalued. It’s something similar is happening in the industry luxury fashionwhere “more affordable” brands such as Gucci, Burberry recorded drops in sales of between 15 and 30% while the most exclusive and inaccessiblesuch as Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior, suffered more contained falls of around 1.7%. Scarcity is the hand that rocks the luxury market. You can’t go to a Hermès store and buy the last Birkin without further adoin the same way as Ferrari makes you wait its millionaire clients more than two years to drive their car. This is not because of a production problem, but because tight control of the amount of product that is put on the market for it to exist a permanent shortage. This scarcity not only maintains the price in the store, but also keeps it above those that have already been sold, ensuring that their value not only does not go down, but that it increases because of this “exclusivity” caused by scarcity. If it is mainstreamit is no longer luxury. That concept is what is making some supercar manufacturers they are overturning in creating special editions and even editions One-off to take the concept of exclusivity a little further. Reason that explains that, for example, the invoices for some of these supercars double the price of the base car due to the customizations that are applied to them to make them even more exclusive. The new forms of luxury: exclusive experiences. Just as I pointed out a study of Bain & Company at the end of 2024, the luxury customer is moving away from those products that are no longer exclusive, and is now betting on something that does maintain that exclusivity: the luxury experiences. The Economist quote thatFor example, a night at the Le Bristol hotel in Paris costs twice as much today as it did four years ago. Likewise, tickets for the 2026 World Cup final to be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, they have doubled their price compared to previous finals, with prices ranging between $2,030 and $6,730, although on the resale market They can exceed $25,000. Something that is also common in top-level events such as the SuperBowl or the NBA finals. In Xataka | There is someone playing a gigantic game of Monopoly with real houses and in front of our eyes: Jeff Bezos Image | Unsplash (Jonathan Francisca)

The latest trend among the rich is exclusive writing retreats. Experts don’t think anything too good will come of it.

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The bubble of the luxury retreats It continues to grow by pairing itself with all kinds of hobbies. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography or jewelry classes we already have increasingly wealthy clients with higher and higher goals. The phenomenon of wellness luxury It continues to expand and the last sphere to receive its corresponding practical courses for very well-off people has been that of writing. In other words: if you are starving as a writer it is because you want to, it is a waste of time to make a living from writing (as long as you already had a lot of money beforehand, of course). Luxury retreats for writers. Luxury retreats for writers come under scrutiny in articles like this one from Slatewhich although it guarantees that the cost of the experience it describes is very high, also makes it clear that strictly literary results are not guaranteed. They are exclusive experiences that combine writing with activities such as massages, yoga, horseback riding, gourmet gastronomy and cultural tours in destinations such as Guatemalaon board a luxury cruise with all kinds of classes and tutorials, France either Tuscany. The only thing you need to participate in them is to have sufficient financial resources and available free time, not talent or experience in the world of writing. ‘Call me Ismael’, version wellness luxury. That is, more than the writing workshop in your neighborhood bookstore, these retreats have to do with the trend of wellness luxury that we mentioned: retreats that combine popular hobbies with exclusive holistic practices such as guided meditations, pranayamaspecialized massages, spa with ancestral therapies and gourmet organic gastronomy (sic). This exists but if you haven’t heard of it, perhaps it is because it is outside your sphere of possibilities. Visit websites with these types of experiences, such as Sansara Resort on the Pacific coast, and you decide if it is designed for your pocket or continue taking your drafts to your neighborhood bookstore. Emotional scam. Richard Z. Santos, author of the article, speaks directly of an emotional and financial “scam”: in the last 15 years, the duration of his literary career, he has observed how this market of workshops, sessions, and retreats to improve writing has grown, but the recent wave of touristy and expensive destinations for writers does not guarantee anything. These luxury retreats are accessible with direct payment and without a quality filter, they are more of a luxury product and a tourist experience than a serious training space. What’s more, some writers have reported that these retreats can be emotionally draining or counterproductive if you are working on sensitive or traumatic material without adequate psychological support. The barriers. Santos talks about the fact that the participants in this type of retreat are mostly white women with good economic stability, which creates an important socioeconomic and racial diversity barrier. Quite the opposite of what happens with “real”, prestigious and traditional retreats, such as Yaddo either Bread Loafwhich work with rigorous selection processes based on literary merits and offer scholarships for those who cannot afford them, and thus add social and ethnic diversity. Pay and you will receive. The luxury tourism industry and wellness They try to cover themselves with experiences that sell skills or training, and thus stop transmitting an image of indolence or little commitment to other social levels. But the name “pay-to-play” that is usually given to these withdrawals is for a reason: the fact of paying does not guarantee anything. And much less in something that requires a certain commitment, like artistic creation. Photo of Darius Bashar in Unsplash

“someone invented the plow and we all got rich”

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The concept of “bubble” usually makes the heartbeat of those who hear it accelerate, especially if they are an investor, because it is associated with large losses and financial crises. However, Jeff Bezos proposes seeing it from another angle: if the bubble It is “industrial, they are not bad,” said the millionaire. According to Bezos, it will be a source of revolutionary advances that change humanity forever and become the prelude to something much greater and lasting. However, the millionaire warns of a huge real risk for big tech: “When the dust settles and we see who the winners are, society will benefit from those inventions.” Bubbles that leave a legacy. Within the framework of the Italian Tech Week 2025 that has been celebrated In Turin, Bezos clearly defined the situation in which the development of AI finds itself: “There is a bubble, but it is a kind of industrial bubble.” The millionaire assured that investors are so excited about this new technology that it is difficult for them to differentiate the brilliant ideas of those that are not. But this noise and chaos serve to eliminate what is less solid and preserve what has true potential. To give more context to your situation analysisBezos pulled from the newspaper library: “If we go back to the 1990s, when there was a biotech bubble, there were a lot of emerging pharmaceutical companies that were designing drugs and using new techniques, the world got very excited. The investment world got very excited. As a group, everyone lost money. But we got a couple of drugs that saved our lives. We still use those drugs today,” highlighted the founder of Amazon. AI is like a plow. The millionaire did not stop at technicalities, but rather brought the idea down to solid ground using a simple and powerful image. He compared artificial intelligence with the invention of the plow: “10,000 years ago, or whenever, someone invented the plow and we all became richer. And that’s what’s happening,” said the millionaire. This metaphor helps to understand that, in a phase of massive experimentation and risks, advances emerge that radically modify society. Bezos thus points out that AI is not just a business for a fewbut a historical leap comparable to those great inventions from the past. “We build tools and they increase, in terms of the entire civilization, our abundance,” says Bezos. Golden age for technology. The founder of Amazon offers an optimistic vision about the moment that technology is experiencing today. “We have the privilege of living in a time in which multiple golden ages are developing. So you have…Space travel is in the middle of a golden age. AI is living in a golden age. Robotics in the middle of a golden age,” listed an enthusiastic Bezos. Bezos imagines a future where millions of people they will live in space and robots will make regular trips to the Moon: “By 2045 million people will be living in space and there will be robots traveling to and from the Moon.” These space dreams are linked to the technology that is developing nowwith AI as a key piece to develop off-planet infrastructure and accelerate innovation. These visions complement the idea that the AI ​​”industrial bubble”, which today seems a crazy raceis actually the process of building technological foundations that will give new meaning to human life in the coming years. In Xataka | AI data centers are an energy hole. Jeff Bezos’ solution: build them in space Image | Flickr (iafastro)

No one seemed to want an electric Rolls-Royce of 400,000 euros. Until the 35 -year -old rich arrived

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Although some brands have launched to this technology, the luxury sector seemed to be turned to the electric car. Except for exceptions, such as the Porsche Taycan during its first years for sale, technology has not finished curdling in the market. There are multiple examples that demonstrate it and that touch all sticks. From Mercedes Eqs failurewho is The most advanced car of the German company, to the Rimac Nevera to whose owner It is costing to place its electrical supercardespite being a limited unit, ensuring that policies to favor the electric car are dynamiting these acquisitions. From these contact shots between luxury brands they have been learning in rival companies. So, Lamborghini has delayed its first electric car at 2029 and Bentley also stopped development of this technology when considering that demand did not compensate. But what if they were pointing to the wrong customer? An electric for younger millionaires Another of the companies that have opted for the total electrification of their models has been Rolls-Royce. The brand has in the Specter Its first electric car, a beast of 5.45 meters long, 2.08 meters wide and almost 3,000 kg. Its battery of more than 100 kWh promises 520 kilometers of autonomy with a consumption of 21.5 kWh/100 km, so we can expect a real figure that is much closer to a brief 350 kilometers. All with a starting price of 400,000 euros. Starting, we say, because we already know that the possibilities of customization are almost infinite in this type of vehicles … provided that the pocket is willing to pay it. In summary, the car has absolutely everything so that the millionaires flee from it. Or, at least, we thought. Because in The Drive They explain that the car has found a faithful audience: 35 -year -old millionaires. Jon Colbeth, president of Rolls-Royce in North America, explained that the Specter is the first car of the brand for 40% of buyers. And, in that list of new customers, the average age is 35 years. That is, about half of the customers who have the luxury car are new and very young, a reef for the future. The journalist of The Drive He points out that in the same interview event, various vehicles of the firm were exposed and that they had the most striking colors. “They were not grandfather or queen cars (from England), “explains Jerry Perre in the article. And that is precisely one of the keys to success.” New technology, new materials, new designs, everything plays its role, “explains Colbeth. The search for new customers and, above all, younger customers is being incessant by luxury companies that were clearly focused on elderly millionaires such as Rolls-Royce itself. Hence, in recent months we have been surprised with limited editions of the most striking, such as This 490,000 Specter that boasted a violet paint. The Rolls-Royce movement, but even more risky and groundbreaking, is the same as is tried to do jaguar. The British company has decided to break its past, press the Reset button and focus on ultralujo cars trusting that electrical technology can attract a young audience that flees from the boring designs that have been triumphing in this type of cars for years. And the announcement of your new brand image is the best example. Photo | Rolls-Royce In Xataka | While the European automobile industry is bleeding, a brand has found a gold mine: Rolls-Royce and its tuned cars

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