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drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James
@drscottjames.bsky.social
1.2K followers 380 following 170 posts

Reader in Political Economy, King’s College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr-scott-james
IPE of finance and tech, monetary politics, City of London
BANK POLITICS (OUP, 2023)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/bank-politics-9780192898609?cc=gb&lang=en& .. more

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Political science 38%
Economics 34%
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drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Mar 18
New article with Lucia Quaglia on how EU banks and EU regulators engaged in ‘noisy geopolitics’ by leveraging the digital sovereignty agenda to push for tighter controls on (US) bigtechs. Part of a special issue on ‘Transformation of Banking’ in Competition and Change
doi.org/10.1177/1024...

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 13d
Look forward to reading this Jacquie!

Reposted by James Scott

lpeblog.bsky.social
LPE Blog @lpeblog.bsky.social · 13d
Today, @amandaparsons.bsky.social explains how the crypto industry is partnering with government institutions to craft demand for a currency that hardly anyone uses.
The Anarchist Currency with a Government Sponsor
Despite its professed commitment to radical libertarianism and anarchy, the crypto industry is actively cultivating government intervention in markets on its behalf. From recruiting states to accept…
lpeproject.org

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 14d
Stablecoins as Hegelian dialectic👌

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 17d
Tbh I don’t think Genius is quite the win for crypto that we, or the defi industry, thought it was. Wall St will be just fine.

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 18d
Problematically this conflates multiple issues: unregulated offshore Tether and Bitcoin which may pose threat to EMs but less so Europe or China; and onshore Genius Act compliant Circle, JPM Coin etc which will likely integrate with tradfi to access Fed reserves
Why the world should worry about stablecoins
Dollar-based digital currencies offer benefits for the US, but Britain and the EU are better off resisting them
www.ft.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 18d
🚨 They put the old band back together
galendruke.bsky.social Galen Druke @galendruke.bsky.social · 21d
David Runciman, Helen Thompson, and I reassembled what once would have been a FiveThirtyEight x Talking Politics podcast crossover while I was in London.

Call it the ghosts of two podcasts past!

It'll be in the GD POLITICS podcast feed later today!

Reposted by James Scott, David Runciman

galendruke.bsky.social
Galen Druke @galendruke.bsky.social · 21d
David Runciman, Helen Thompson, and I reassembled what once would have been a FiveThirtyEight x Talking Politics podcast crossover while I was in London.

Call it the ghosts of two podcasts past!

It'll be in the GD POLITICS podcast feed later today!

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · 26d
Every academic, always
www.ft.com/content/573d...

Reposted by Paul Davies, James Scott

aldasoro.bsky.social
Iñaki Aldasoro @aldasoro.bsky.social · Nov 27
The Rock is always surprised

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 26
Emergent market economy
www.ft.com/content/3e98...

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 21
A bug not a feature 🫤
Bitcoin's $83,000 Price Drop Caused By ‘Software Glitch’ And ‘Manipulation,' Says Tom Lee
Tom Lee says Bitcoin’s price drop was caused by a ‘mechanical glitch’ and deliberate market manipulation, sparking backlash.
www.ccn.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 14
cf Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), 1–25.

Reposted by James Scott

reuters.com
Reuters @reuters.com · Nov 14
UK's Reeves does not plan to raise income tax, government source says reut.rs/47Iyz6Y
UK's Reeves does not plan to raise income tax, government source says
British finance minister Rachel Reeves does not plan to raise income tax at her upcoming annual budget on November 26 due to an improved fiscal outlook, a government source said on Friday.
reut.rs

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 13
Highly recommended on Labour’s macroprudential dilemma, from Nick Kotucha
Back to the Future: Labour and the Politics of Financial Deregulation
One of the professed aims of the current Labour government in the UK is to boost GDP by ‘cutting red tape’. This also applies to the financial sector, where in recent months regulators have been aske...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 12
‘The only bridge left to cross is Sam Bankman-Fried.’
Trump turns crypto pariahs into power players
Trump’s embrace of crypto has extended to overseas digital assets giants once under the gun in Washington.
www.politico.com

Reposted by Benjamin Braun, James Scott

dmwoodruff.bsky.social
David Woodruff @dmwoodruff.bsky.social · Nov 12
Over the last 11 financial years, the UK Treasury has spent more on paying interest to the banking sector on their reserves than it has taken in from them in corporate and sector-specific taxes. In 2024-25, it paid over 3 times as much for interest on reserves as it received from taxes on banks.
A chart with year-by-year data on interest paid to banks on reserves created by QE, banking sector profits as implied by tax receipts, and taxes on banking sector including corporate tax, bank levy, and bank surcharge. Total taxes banks paid over period: £100.1 bln. Total interest paid to banks: £109.3 bln Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/paye-and-corporate-tax-receipts-from-the-banking-sector-2025 Interest calculated from BoE database series RPWZ4TM and Bank Rate

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 10
‘Presenting its consultation paper on rules for regulating widely used stablecoins, the BoE said it was “considering central bank liquidity arrangements to support systemic stablecoin issuers in times of stress” 📌
Bank of England dilutes planned rules for UK stablecoins
Central bank partly backs down after industry criticism over plan for digital tokens
www.ft.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Nov 6
At least it’s not a pound stablecoin
If an ex-chancellor pumps crypto and no one notices, does it make a noise?
Kwasi be stacking, no one be caring
www.ft.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 21
‘Bailey told the committee that the BoE was considering conducting a “system-wide exploratory scenario” next year to test how the private credit market would manage in a crisis.’ ⏰
BoE governor warns ‘alarm bells’ ringing over private credit market
Andrew Bailey draws parallel with practices before 2008 financial crisis
www.ft.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 20
Whether or not AI is a bubble is less interesting than thinking about the commercial and epistemological interests served by the performative act of framing it as such
Silicon Valley takes stock of the AI bubble
Plus, Karel Komárek, the man bringing the fight to US gambling giants
www.ft.com

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 16
Attempting and failing to reset relations with China now part of the British Political Tradition™

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 15
Treasury seizes the £5bn for a new strategic bitcoin reserve on my 2026 bingo card

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 15
I suspect in part a traditional aversion to allowing the integration of defi with tradfi. But I guess this is also part of the commercial logic behind tokenising real world assets.

drscottjames.bsky.social
Scott James @drscottjames.bsky.social · Oct 15
Agree this is mainly about competition for high net worth individuals