The Haves and Have Yachts

Evan Osnos, 2025

See how extreme wealth buys distance from taxes, laws and consequences, and learn to recognize the machinery of yachts, trusts and private escape plans behind that separation.

Get the app Read on the web

7 parts, about 15 minutes to read.

Why read it

A reporter's field guide to the ultrarich, from superyachts and doomsday refuges to trusts that shield fortunes
Helps you see how private wealth turns into political power and quietly shifts costs onto everyone else
Built from close reporting at yacht shows, in wealthy suburbs and inside a support group for convicted executives

Who it is for

Readers uneasy about billionaires' growing sway over politics
Voters following debates over taxing great fortunes
Readers who like reporting built around real people

What the summary covers

Introduction: A View from the Top2 min
Superyachts: Luxury as Autonomy2 min
Apocalypse Insurance2 min
Facebook: Scale, Trade offs, and Responsibility3 min
Greenwich: Wealth Behind the Walls2 min
Trusts and the Wealth Defense Industry2 min
White Collar Crime and Moral Distance2 min

Recommended by

Jane MayerNew Yorker staff writer and investigative journalist
The Gilded Age had Mark Twain, the Jazz Age had F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Age of Trump luckily, has Evan Osnos.

About the author

Evan OsnosNew Yorker staff writer; shared a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting
- Raised in Greenwich, Connecticut
- Harvard graduate in government, 1998
- Joined the Chicago Tribune in 1999 as a metro reporter
- Became the Tribune's China correspondent in 2005
- Member of the Tribune teams that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and 2008
- Joined The New Yorker in September 2008; China correspondent until 2013
- Age of Ambition won the National Book Award and was a Pulitzer finalist
- Since 2016 he has covered the world's wealthiest individuals (relation to this book)