Paul Langley
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paullangley.bsky.social
Paul Langley
@paullangley.bsky.social

Prof. Economic Geography, Durham, UK.
Managing Editor @econsocjournal.bsky.social
Finance, money, FinTech, and more.
https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/paul-langley/

Economics 63%
Political science 15%
Pinned
Co-authored with @andrewleyshon.bsky.social for a forthcoming special issue of @finandsoc.bsky.social, this essay takes Elon Musk's planned FinTech makeover of X as a provocation for a critical analysis of so-called 'embedded finance' and the evolution of FinTech
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Embedded finance and FinTech disappearance | Finance and Society | Cambridge Core
Embedded finance and FinTech disappearance
www.cambridge.org
“exiting the market”

UK universities sinking faster than expected under the weight of contradictions that are too many to list on a standard SWOT form

Reposted by John Hogan

Show me a major US company that isn't like Enron. The financial tail wags the dog of US corporations and private equity owned firms
In the memo, “Nvidia also responds to claims that the ‘current situation is analogous to historical accounting frauds (Enron, WorldCom, Lucent) that featured vendor financing and SPVs [special purpose vehicles.)’”

@barrons.com $NVDA
@firstadopter.bsky.social
www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...
In the memo, “Nvidia also responds to claims that the ‘current situation is analogous to historical accounting frauds (Enron, WorldCom, Lucent) that featured vendor financing and SPVs [special purpose vehicles.)’”

@barrons.com $NVDA
@firstadopter.bsky.social
www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...

Chinese state capitalism = protected and regulated tech monopoly capital at home, supported and expanded tech capital reach across the globe
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Mosaic of state power: How ‘New’ state capitalism shapes global tech capital - Weidi Zheng, 2025
This article investigates how China's platform and data infrastructure expand globally amid shifting state-capital relations at home and abroad. Moving bey...
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by John Hogan

Fit blackout blinds in their bedroom and cross your fingers for luck

Not to mention a functioning higher education system

I'd rather not be posting yet more @FT content today, but right now it's more a question of when (not if) something big breaks ... on.ft.com/3LCuVDb via @FT
If private credit breaks, insurers will fall under the microscope
Rising holdings of the asset class could lead to problems when the next downturn comes
on.ft.com

Reposted by Paul Langley

Setting the stage for "we were all in this together so no one is to blame" when the bubble bursts.

Who’s funding Silicon Valley’s data-centre dream? It might be you. - on.ft.com/47X4I9U via @FT
Who’s funding Silicon Valley’s data-centre dream? It might be you.
A large part of the investment pouring into AI is being financed by debt of the kind that lines millions of nest eggs
on.ft.com

Miran Rides into Town on the $ Hegemony Pony
on.ft.com/48eg8qU via @FT
Why Trump’s team is betting on stablecoins
The administration sees these digital assets as a tool in the fight against de-dollarisation
on.ft.com

An FT editorial against a British government is usually a marker of the displeasure of the City
on.ft.com/4nZWdke via @FT
Labour has shredded its claim to competence
A chaotic week has raised the risks around this month’s crucial Budget
on.ft.com

Recommended reading and timely, too, as the British Chancellor continues to falsely assume that pandering to financial fractions in the City will result in the investment which is so desperately needed across economy and society

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Subordinating ‘alt-finance’: How British venture capital became dependent on the US | Finance and Society | Cambridge Core
Subordinating ‘alt-finance’: How British venture capital became dependent on the US
www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Paul Langley

A fantastical and unsustainable mega-project pushed by elites disconnected from reality and backed by huge volumes of fickle and self serving financial capital. Sounds familiar
ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled
Mohammed bin Salman’s utopian city was undone by the laws of physics and finance
ig.ft.com

The dark side of Japanese convenience stores - on.ft.com/3Jvk9Ok via @FT @msteinbrg.bsky.social
The dark side of Japanese convenience stores
Rising wages and an ageing workforce put pressure on existing staff
on.ft.com

Welcome to platform capitalism
nowadays every app wants to be a platform, and platform logic requires that they become the *only* platform.

that's why they all start as Specific: The Tool That Does A Thing and five years later announce they're rebranding as Totalizr: We Manage Your Life

Reposted by Paul Langley

nowadays every app wants to be a platform, and platform logic requires that they become the *only* platform.

that's why they all start as Specific: The Tool That Does A Thing and five years later announce they're rebranding as Totalizr: We Manage Your Life
Pull up for a bumper issue, nine articles, from ecologization as a mode of economization to the prompting of generative AI models in UK government, with stops in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and the US along the way!

www.tandfonline.com/toc/reso20/c...
Economy and Society
Dedicated to Michel Callon, 1945–2025. Volume 54, Issue 3 of Economy and Society
www.tandfonline.com

One vision, fried chicken

Reposted by Paul Langley

The AI bubble has reached its ‘fried chicken’ phase ft.trib.al/VGyrH8K
The AI bubble has reached its ‘fried chicken’ phase
This is nuts. When’s the crash?
ft.trib.al

Reposted by Paul Langley

53 years young and still trending
Racism, colonialism, and tax havens: tracing the offshore world’s hidden histories, by Miguel A. Rivera-Quiñones
Racism, colonialism, and tax havens: tracing the offshore world’s hidden histories
This article advances a decolonial intervention in International Political Economy (IPE) by examining the centrality of racism in the formation of offshore zones under British and American colonial...
www.tandfonline.com

Reposted by Martin Paul Eve

Just in case anyone is listening, please note that UK universities cannot operate successfully on the basis of continuous reduction of academic staff and academic staff pay. No amount of staff wellness sessions will change this.

FinTechs large (and small) are frantically updating their platforms so that AI agents can pay, borrow, invest, etc. This is the logical extension of the transformation of people into FinTech "users" (rather than consumers) which has already reordered social relations
thepaypers.com/payments/new...
Mastercard and PayPal accelerate agentic commerce | The Paypers
Mastercard expands partnership with PayPal to contribute to the adoption of agentic-driven transactions for consumers and businesses.
thepaypers.com

I'm a little older

Yet, when everything is in crisis, everything is still in crisis
When everything is unprecedented, nothing is unprecedented.

Reposted by Paul Langley

When everything is unprecedented, nothing is unprecedented.

The next General Election is a way off, but it seems likely that more people will vote against political parties that they don't want to be elected than will vote for the party that they want to be elected. Strange times in British politics