iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 5h

A lot of rich guys want you to think that the bar on the right is always going to be bigger than the bar on the left.

Vertical bar chart titled "Norwegian wealth tax revenue, change from 2021 to 2024," in billions of Norwegian kroner (BNOK), nominal. Subtitle: top rate 0.85% to 1.1% and stock valuation discount cut from 2022.

Two bars. "Growth with no emigration": 13.71 BNOK, a tall bar. "Lost to reform-driven emigration": 0.65 BNOK, a barely visible stub, about one-twenty-first the height.

Notes: Growth includes the rate and valuation changes and wealth growth. Net of tax that emigrants still paid, the reform-driven loss is 0.49 BNOK.

Source: Ring (2026), NBER Working Paper 35854, equation 2 and figure 5.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 5h

I'm taking my "Norway's wealth tax didn't reduce tax revenue" victory lap.

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, nor is there any evidence that the reform induced more bankruptcies. ...

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What isn't surprising: work requirements are reducing coverage because of paperwork burdens What is surprising: apparently The Pitt had a storyline that demonstrated the difficulty of navigating Medicaid redeterminations

“Hopefully we’ll be back on Medicaid by then.”

“How’d you lose it?”

“They sent a redetermination letter to our old apartment. It didn’t get forwarded.”

“And you haven’t been able to get it back since?”

“I’ve been trying for months. To get re-enrolled, you need tax returns, pay stubs… I cut hair. My income fluctuates.”

– The Pitt, Season 2, Episode 13

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yea, Meta is the last company in the world I'd trust with this, but at a time when the GOP is weaponizing administrative burdens to kick poor people off healthcare, having a computer that can help you navigate a hostile bureaucracy could be a big deal for a lot of people.

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Cameron 🇺🇸🗽🦅 @cameroncorduroy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

speaking of closing tax loopholes, if the IRS was able to collect all taxes owed since 2000 it could mean today's national debt would be $8 trillion lighter some new fiscal analysis from yours truly, link below

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yea makes sense. I do think a subset of people are going to be driven insane, like the 'save 4o' people who grew attached to that one sycophantic model, but I hope people are mostly normal about it.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yea a lot of the absurd overhype has led to an overcorrection against the areas where the hype is justified.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fair. Anecdotally, in my own work (self employed, no boss, mostly spreadsheet/knowledge work), I've watched it go from basically useless to something that has dramatically changed how I work. I'll be curious to hear if it ever makes that jump for you in your archival/translation work.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yep, this has been my ongoing bit in reference to his (vindicated but often incorrectly mocked) take. Though I grow less confident of my take as time goes on

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Curious your take! No to the technology being significant/changing society?

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I see people putting AI in the same bucket as NFTs (speculative technology that will go away when the bubble pops), but I think the internet is the better comp. Sure there's some early bubble-y activity, but the underlying technology is real it's going to dramatically change things.

Hand-drawn Venn diagram titled "Bubbles," with four overlapping circles: Beanie Babies, AI, NFTs, and Dot-com.

Each alone: "Gamble on plushies!" / "Gamble on LLMs!" / "Gamble on JPEGs!" / "Gamble on HTML!"

Beanie Babies + AI: "The products tend to have cutesy first names."
Beanie Babies + NFTs: "Who will own the rarest fake monkey?"
AI + Dot-com: "Genuinely important underlying technology."
NFTs + Dot-com: "This URL could be worth millions!"

Every bubble but Dot-com: "Mostly in private markets."
Every bubble but NFTs: "Good people got hurt."
Every bubble but AI: "Never threatened life as we know it."
Every bubble but Beanie Babies: "Blame Silicon Valley."

All four: "Somebody got rich, but probably not you."

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I don't fully know, but opus 5.5 is apparently a much smaller model while performing as well or better than a massive model like fable. So overall model complexity may have gone down, but performance hasn't plateaued.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

But the new one makes fable feel more or less irrelevant, it's both more expensive and slightly worse

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yea I think everything from opus 4.5 and on has been good enough for most things. When fable came out, I had it audit my more complicated code projects from 4.5-4.8 and found enough unaddressed edge cases that I always relied on fable going forward, usually just as an orchestrator because of cost

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yea - the efficiency of opus 5.5 is the most notable thing about it. Interestingly, it's the most token hungry model ever, those tokens are just apparently really cheap.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It has a combination of effectiveness, generous usage, and non-obnoxiousness that I think is pretty unprecedented

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Whatever you think of the AI existential risk stuff, I think a pause on frontier AI development would be good. Society has always been quite good at adjusting to new technology, but usually we have a lot more time.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The most notable thing is the cost. It's on the same level as fable/astra, but more usable and at a fifth the cost. Getting frontier level performance in a small model strikes me as very economically significant.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I keep expecting AI progress to plateau, but with the opus 5.5 release it seems clear that is not happening.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

We should do a large scale in-person arts subsidy. Even AI disruption aside, it’d be worth it just to get people to touch grass more.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

He goes on to argue we should instead invest in technology and it's like, my brother in christ, your party just cut the money dedicated to investing in new technology

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.

Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

One day I hope to convince conservatives that we should enforce the rule of law, reduce the deficit, and not carelessly tear down the institutions prior generations built, but today is not that day.

First tweet:
Harry Heymann @harryh · 16h
The GOP literally cut funding to IRS enforcement so more people could commit tax fraud.
2 replies, 5 reposts, 545 likes, 13K views

Reply tweet:
Austen Allred @Austen
It cut funding to IRS because the assumption that the way to catch tax fraud is to hire tens of thousands of auditors to look through paper tax returns by hand is insane
7:18 PM · Sep 26, 2026 · 196.2K Views

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Love to see Medicare for Kids back on the menu, such an underrated path to M4A

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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 21/09/2026

i don't think you necessarily meant it in this way, but yes, the invention of the washing machine is one of the most liberatory moments in human history, among other time and labor-saving inventions

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In related news, I'll be starting the Medlock sportsbook. Every line is even money, no vig, max bet $580, both sides mandatory, one visit per six months. It's time to gamble our way to Medicaid for All.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Here's the article, it just needs a "[and that's good]" www.aei.org/commentary/t...

aei.org

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements. I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.

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Bill Kuchman @billkuchman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“We pay for the equipment in the gym. We pay for the art supplies. All of the things that we just built into a school budget, that’s because those are the required elements of educating the children. ... Making sure everybody’s had breakfast and lunch is just as important ...”

thebulwark.com

EXCLUSIVE: The Next Big Dem Proposal: Let Kids Eat Free

School lunches were free to all kids during the pandemic; a prominent think-tank wants to bring back the idea and make it permanent.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

As Mike said a few months ago, everyone has an industrial policy plan until they get punched in the face by 'itty-bitty titties and a bob.'

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

You might find in my occasional absences that the real james medlock was the taxes we paid along the way...

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Missouri voters,, welcome to tax positivity

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Nothing but respect for a man who just loves to pay taxes 🫡

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Glonzo the Bureaucrat 🇬🇱 🌹 @snarkranger.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Once again, with feeling: any leftism which doesn't account for the fact that America collects fully 30% less taxes than the average OECD country is doomed to fail. And no, you can't just get it all from billionaires. Adopt @jdcmedlock.bsky.social thought or die.

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Nope, I've been busy with work. Any good write ups on it?

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