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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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Listing countries tells you nothing about who has the wealth in that country. I agree Israel itself has surprisingly small amount of very rich. My guess is it’s because companies have limited ability to really scale there.

The wealthiest families lists seems weird to me and I am not sure how the are separating “family” from “individual”. Why is Ellison a family? Founder is still in charge. Sassoon is notably not on the lists despite reports of a $100b. If you just went richest it would be Jewish. Notable there are not any old American money clans on the lists. Culturally this is a very American thing. Maybe it’s more old world versus new world with building clans. The closest thing to an old-moneyed clan in the US would be the Pritzkers but that’s still not that old.