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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi

@billkw.bsky.social
563 followers 782 following 592 posts

Luddite computer programmer. Morbidly fascinated by rise of reactionary liberalism.

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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
A real welfare state and universal health care require broad taxation, including the middle class. But high end wealth taxation is the kind of tax that protects democracy and the rule of law, and prevents aristocratic dynasties. It keeps us human.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Look at this, a nation state, nationing and stating.
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Rob (the floor one) @floorisbed.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
ELON MUSK: [speaking into watch] what should i say to mark zuckerberg WATCH: hello mark zuckerberg ELON MUSK: no no I’M not mark zuckerberg, i’m elon MARK ZUCKERBERG: [to watch] hello
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Jason Karsh @jkarsh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This is an important statement people, and especially elected Dems need to really understand. The current Republican project is one of destruction, by design. Yes, they have other goals, in RFK’s case he’s objectively pro-disease, but their primary metric of success is breaking government.
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5th Ward Democrats @phillyward5dems.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Did you know you can VOTE EARLY IN-PERSON at Philadelphia City Hall? Here’s some of our 5th Ward Democrats explaining how!
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Does that mean I can focus any extra dollars on two-Dem CA races?
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Joe Biden: I can screw you by cutting off military aid Netanyahu: he can screw me by cutting off military aid Every retired IDF general: he can screw him by cutting off military aid Biden dead enders: is there someone you haven't consulted yet?
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Who are the young imperialist guns of this generation that marked themselves as serious thinkers by supporting the Iran War, a la Yglesias and Klein supporting the Iraq War, contra most of the liberals of their generation, but immediately elevating them into prominence?
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Khanna has been more of an opportunist but he has definitely swung for the fences and led at many points this term.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not really a new thing either but their advice is increasingly putting electeds into conflict with people who "matter", not just e.g. union workers they repeatedly shivved for short term gains.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
All of this is true other than that it's a problem for Dem consultants. They are making small and large fortunes two-timing the candidates they purport to serve, actually serving the corporate interests that seek the party's impotence and failure.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
But also, we *did* treat him as if he had an extraordinary mandate! A state criminal court annulled his dozens of felony convictions, the SC said he can't be prosecuted, law firms, universities and news media gave him new made up powers to dictate their affairs, congress let's him make up tariffs.
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
bobby @bobbylewis.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
it rules that the president is a 90s cartoon style eco-villain. just doing a backyard burn of big yellow barrels that say “POLLUTION”. hexxus ass motherfucker
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A pretty good bargain for Republicans since blue states more likely to have these good government restrictions but MAGA doesn't do facial neutrality.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Very beside the point but I opened to figure out which mayor because I could have sworn Giuliani died.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
In the same way that the Paperclip Maximizer is real and it's the modern financialized corporation, Roko's Basilisk is real and it's the nerd reich's simmering resentments.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
It's illegal to criticize this! Their WAR ratings are too high!
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The reboot series is so good
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
This is also disingenuous because at other points she asserts that Democrats let all of the other groups decide what constitutes bigotry against themselves for the party. You actually have to *be* Jewish to have an opinion on genocide.
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
sorry the only science you can claim academic freedom over is race science
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Barely parody
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Could we book a young Bill Maher? Someone with down-the-line boomer politics and is an asshole, but I dunno wears a baseball cap?
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Want to feel old? Students starting college this week were born more than 2.5 million years after megalodon went extinct!
Artists rendering of megalodon
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
when you're AI, they let you do it
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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
They’ve convinced themselves that everybody who isn’t them is an NPC, not a real person in any meaningful way. They’ve reinvented dehumanization from first principles, just like they did with the city bus
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Israel called the UK an Islamic republic and it made absolutely no difference to UK-Israel relations. It's not even part of 'the discourse'. At this point Israel can just boast of how many citizens of 'allied' nations it can kill because any Israeli politician knows nothing will happen.
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
As I've taken to saying, any system that makes voters become dime-store game theorists is bad. Ranked choice voting eliminates that. Top-two exacerbates it.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Most healthy unions extend even beyond that to just "all workers in the organized shop"
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The thing being linked to is not an argument, it is a piece of original reporting. Baffling that you think people can best oppose hyperscalars by knowing *less* about their operations.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Sorry, did not know it was controversial to call eBay a free market, I guess I'm being harmful and detrimental too now
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Yeah, if you believe the free market has efficiently priced in the societal value of all things, and to suggest otherwise is an affront, you're going to have an issue with a lot of journalism.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
> If the intent of the article was to spur discussion on legality ...I didn't say that? I agree that the reporters and editors made choices. I think they were fine and lead to readers learning new things. You seem to be saying reporting without intent to spur the correct debate is illegitimate.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It just seems like you could write that opinion piece building on the original reporting 404 did here instead of denigrating their work because they didn't emphasize your hobby horse.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I mean you're making a different argument than the thread started with (necessary to legally train on vs. convenient to efficiently process), but sure, let's assume that the authors intended to deceive by talking about the former instead of the latter. Shame on you, 404.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It's detrimental to report on book destruction because it prevents people from learning about book destruction?
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
So your issue is people are being unfair to them by highlighting one thing they don't like (shredding rare books), since it's legally convenient to do another thing they don't like (mass plagiarism)?
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Joe Patrice @joepatrice.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
A good breakdown of originalism's Bullshit-Industrial complex.
slate.com
Dear (Juris)Prudence: Who Cooks Up the Supreme Court’s BS Originalist Ideas, Anyway?
Clarence Thomas is the worst offender here.
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 16/08/2026
your Tesla supports mass child death
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
A money grab? From our ethicist in chief?? 🤯
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Link?
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
It's hilarious there are so many videos of him talking about it but they all think they've come up with the perfect gotcha
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Reposted by Bill Kaguru Wanjohi
Atrios @eschatonblog.com · 11/08/2026
For a long time we had the somewhat annoying press view that the coverup was worse than the crime. Fortunately the cover-up doesn't interest them much either now!
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
If anyone it seems like RCV would favor the moderates since they are disorganized and do well with fresh faced outsider candidates.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I could see an argument against a "strong" RCV that reapportions all delegates to the runoff winner, but these states were just using them to not completely waste ballots on candidates below the national party's chosen minimum. This is baffling, just cantankerous "we don't do things this way" logic.
As spelled out clearly in the state plans approved by the RBC in 2020 and in the Washington, D.C law, RCV would be used not to elect a majority winner, but with a “bottoms up” rule. That is, trailing candidates would be dropped (either sequentially or all those under 15% at once) until the remaining candidates are all above the viability threshold of 15% for earning delegates.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Like I'm sorry, the Elect Chicago Women PAC is dictionary definition level ratfucking.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Even beyond everything said already, the other thing that makes it a ratfucking operation is the subterfuge they now use with these super pacs. They set them up in secret and at the last minute, give them vague liberal sounding names, and use them to attack progressives on non-Israel wedges.
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Bill Kaguru Wanjohi @billkw.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I guess the Pornhub World wins out again 😔
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August J. Pollak @augustjpollak.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I wish the Max Miller story was less framed as “look at how Republicans are hypocrites” and more “once again powerful people clearly knew of a horrific level of abuse being performed to somebody and obviously chose not to care about until it became a political liability.”
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