Everything Is Becoming a Bank. “Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy.”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
Comments 3
This is yet another reason why I think a very large financial collapse is coming. My guess is that the AI bubble will burst spectacularly, and is probably now large enough to take a lot of things with it. I think it will make 2008 look really rather small.
This is continuing the decades-long trend of financialization.
IIRC, Piketty made the point (and I paraphrase) that monied interests have learned that there's more wealth to be obtained by passive investment than by running actual businesses.
I should add that that results from fifty-odd years of continuous upward transfer of wealth--income inequality--wherein there's way too much wealth at the top that goes into that passive investment and speculation instead of, I dunno, making the world better eg maybe finance a shift to passive energy even if buying AMD stock is more profitable. You get the idea.
So everything becoming a bank (while banks move away from banking as Matt Levine periodically reports) is just something evolutionary.
Reminds me of when I lived in Utah, the biggest bank was actually RC Willey, a furniture store. Depressing really. We financed our first couches as married college students. Luckily we quickly learned better financial habits.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!