Sign in

Scott James

@drscottjames.bsky.social
1.3K followers 475 following 393 posts

Reader in Political Economy, King’s College London www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-scott-james Geoeconomics of finance, monetary politics, City of London BANK POLITICS (OUP, 2023) global.oup.com/academic/product/ban…

PostsRepliesMedia
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 8h
Every private sector briefing note I’ve read on ‘geoeconomics’ begins with the same obligatory reference to Blackwill & Harris 2016
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 14h
The AI Doom Loop™
ft.com
Nvidia turns to insurers to spread the risk of AI build-out
World’s largest listed company looks for new ways to draw Wall Street deeper into the financing of the AI boom
011
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Still grappling with the fallout from how much Covid shifted the overton window on politicians’ construction of fiscal space at just the moment when the macro/geopolitical context became less conducive to realising it
030
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Racking up policy commitments conditional on Labour winning the next election won’t survive till 2029
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Burnham’s speech would have been great in 2006
110
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My students have never heard of Adam Tooze so it really must be the end of history
110
Reposted by Scott James
Jens van 't Klooster 💸💸💸 @jvtk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Finally out, with @shahinvallee.bsky.social our ambitious story for European Macro Policy Network (EMPN) on the future of the global euro empn.eu/publication/...
610131
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Looking forward to chairing this discussion on 15 October between the ECB’s Jürgen Schaaf and the FT’s Martin Sandbu on the digital euro and Europe’s monetary sovereignty
020
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Except central banks have significantly raised the bar for financial crashes. Systemic loss of market confidence matters less than sudden collapse in trust that central banks can still backstop the system. We replaced price signals with politico-technocratic ones.
theguardian.com
All the signs say another financial crisis is coming. Here’s why we need to prepare for it now | Larry Elliott
War, AI disruption and markets in turmoil: the warnings are all there. But lessons from the 2008 crash could help us, says Guardian columnist Larry Elliott
011
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Finally catching up with Adam Curtis’s Shifty
110
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
JPM alarmed discovery of IPE
1345
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Yield curve control, Threadneedle style
100
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Dynamic pricing
020
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
📌
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Links to a nice Jackson Hole paper confirming that stablecoins are likely to reinforce dollar dominance - and that formal models are no substitute for good IPE
ft.com
Will financial innovation dethrone the dollar?
The evolution of a truly multi-polar currency market depends on governments’ willingness to embrace technology and fortify markets
020
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The Long 1986…or 1694 Good illustration of the BOE’s uniquely conflicted role as regulator and champion of the City And why the main political faultline through the City has always been between the Treasury and Bank, not between Conservatives and Labour
ft.com
Ministers tell Bank of England to boost innovation in digital currencies
Treasury gives central bank a new legal objective as part of effort to promote UK as hub for stablecoins
121
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
UK about to overtake China and Japan in holding Treasuries…as hedge funds book their positions through London
111
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Looking forward to chairing the panel on hedge funds and sovereign debt on 10/09, and presenting on stablecoins and privatised dollar dominance on 11/09 🇩🇰
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“I actually believe a new asset class will be buying futures of compute. We just don’t have enough compute power right now.” - Larry Fink
chamath.substack.com
Deep Dive: The Next Trillion-Dollar Futures Market
AI capex hit $765B in 2026, passing oil and gas for the first time. The resource powering AI is getting its first futures contract. Here is what has to be true for it to work…
110
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Crowding out, 2026 edition
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A reminder that Treasury market intervention in an age of Treasury-backed stablecoins, Tether Gold and tokenised MMFs makes 2007 look like a lemonade stand
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
‘Are we the vigilantes?’
ft.com
Bitcoin and gold surge as Bessent’s bond market intervention weighs on dollar
World’s biggest cryptocurrency on track for best week in more than three years
020
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Fascinating discussion (from 30 mins) about whether stablecoin issuance under Genius constitutes new money creation and implications for monetary policy
open.substack.com
Monetary Forces IV with Noelle & Izabella
Stablecoins, money creation, Sony's impact, SWIFT and more
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
‘35% of the S&P 500 is seven companies. Six of them are losing money on AI and the seventh is the one they’re losing the money to.‘
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Important points here about how weaponised US supply chains and financial networks may be used increasingly to target domestic ‘adversaries’ as they become less effective against foreign ones
open.substack.com
What the Anthropic fight says about AI regulation
Fables of the deconstruction of American power
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
‘Tech billionaires have visibly lost contact with reality and with anything that could plausibly be described as classical liberal values…The princely passions described by Hirschman didn’t disappear, but went underground. Commerce and power were fused into a new ideology of entrepreneurial virtù.’
open.substack.com
The political economy of billionaire derangement
The passions are devouring the interests
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Without going full Hall & Soskice, unpicking some aspects of Thatcherism (centralisation + privatisation) but not others (financialisation) also risks creating a larger and more fragmented state whilst leaving the fundamental drivers of the UK’s stalled growth model intact
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Whatever reversing ‘neoliberalism’ means, a necessary condition must surely be reframing the City of London as a historic contingency amenable to state reform and not as a reified structure to be accommodated
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
If it’s traditional for effective PMs to appoint heavy hitting Chancellors to drive their domestic agenda, then Burnham’s strategy might be to delegate to a heavyweight Foreign Sec to create more space at home. But struggling to think of a precedent: Major & Hurd/Rifkind?
100
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Burnham’s soft left populism clearly aimed at halting and potentially reversing Reform’s rise through targeted and politically driven redistribution, but it risks providing considerable space for a revived traditional Tory growth & competitiveness agenda
120
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
No, because remember who will write the history books
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
The obvious tensions between devolution and public ownership are as old as Labour itself
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Imo a curious feature of so much critical IPE is how it’s suffused with an unwritten political realism and philosophical pessimism. The ubiquity of power, inevitability of conflict, limits of reason, etc. Tbh critical IPE without the promise of human progress is a pretty bleak place.
001
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Amidst the noise, this may be Reeves’s most enduring legacy: the UK has gone all in on dollar stablecoins
open.substack.com
The 10 stablecoin commandments
A U.S.-UK joint statement on stablecoins.
110
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Re Tooze & Setser on the profit dollar, stablecoins might be seen as an effort to resolve - or at least delay or deflect - the contradictions: leverage offshore private (rather than official) demand for dollars as a vehicle currency whilst creating a captive market for USTs
adamtooze.substack.com
Chartbook 457: The metamorphoses of the dollar
The general question I find myself preoccupied with right now is how we think - or fail to think - radical economic change.
100
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Fwiw I’d rather live in a country that forces right populists to compete against a dustbin
020
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
010
Reposted by Scott James
Jo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
I see that the OBR has published its fiscal risks report. I kinda feel that something might happen that forces a change of course at some point before we get to debt at 1000% of GDP? And this implies that it's not a very meaningful scenario?
The OBR's famous exponential growth in debt/GDP graphs.
4182
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
The City of London was central to the political economy of Thatcher and Blair, but was an afterthought in Starmer’s. If Burnhamism is move beyond pot hole socialism, it needs a theory of finance.
lrb.co.uk
William Davies · Burnham’s Political Economy
Whatever rash remarks he may have made about the bond markets or spending commitments, Andy Burnham understands...
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
With the US Treasury using $ stablecoins to create a captive market for T-Bills, and the BOE providing a gilt backstop to £ stablecoin issuers, we need to talk about the new infrastructural power of crypto
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
A recognition that gilt markets and sterling stablecoins are a heady brew
open.substack.com
BoE to offer unique liquidity backstop for systemic GBP stablecoins
The policy, aimed at maintaining gilt-market stability, positions the UK on a very different path to the EU.
010
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Shot/chaser ‘Some big hedge funds believe they may actually benefit as higher funding costs squeeze smaller rivals out of the market.’
ft.com
Bank of England to push ahead with plan to limit hedge fund leverage
Move to make gilt market more resilient has been criticised for potentially raising funding costs
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Trump’s carbon coalition of blue collar workers and high finance arrives in the UK 🤝
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
A reminder that one of the most immediate and consequential tasks for Burnham and his chancellor will be finding a replacement for Andrew Bailey by March 2028. But that timing probably comes too late in the electoral cycle to seriously rethink the Treasury-BOE relationship.
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Because obviously Britain has no history of effectual PMs governing in constructive tension with heavyweight Chancellors
021
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
CBI is a regime grounded in a distinct ecosystem of economic interests & epistemic politics. Left and Right opponents have polarised views on monetary policy and represent incompatible constituencies. Lack of consensus on what replaces CBI is a recipe for politicisation without institutionalisation.
theguardian.com
Britain’s politicians need to worry less about the bond markets – and more about the Bank of England | Daniela Gabor
A new model of central banking would weaken the power of bond vigilantes – and help progressive politicians pay for transformative change, says academic Daniela Gabor
100
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
We also need better theories of financial repression if this is the most likely and feasible route to fiscal consolidation. Pragmatism over orthodoxy is also prudent, but to what end? Otherwise it risks degenerating into muddling through the polycrisis until something shows up
open.substack.com
Chartbook 448 Price controls, nationalization, financial repression, fiscal-monetary coordination - embracing the Four Horsemen of Heterodoxy
If the current state of the world economy is marked by stark cognitive dissonance, if what is not sustainable cannot be sustained, then what comes next?
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Still not sure there’s an internally consistent Toozian account of moral hazard. You’re either relaxed about the crisis-driven ratchet effect expansion of CB balance sheets, and the systemic hazard it generates, or you need a coherent theory of unwinding which isn’t conditional on growth.
open.substack.com
Chartbook 447: The US economy in May 2026 - How much cognitive dissonance can you handle?
Open your favorite business paper or news site right now and you will be confronted with a scene of spectacular cognitive dissonance.
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Well timed Muskology
podcasts.apple.com
/538/ Muskism ft. Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff
Podcast Episode · Bungacast · 10 March · 1hr 15min
000
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Morning
040