“The request is simple, please include... supply chain finance” Bank of England release FOI correspondence with former PM Cameron, lobbying for inclusion of supply chain finance, offered by Greensill Capital, within post COVID support scheme to buy forms of commercial debt:
Greensill contacted Bank/HMT on ‘a number of occasions’.
Cameron contacted Bank on 5th and 7th March 2020.
DC/ Greensill/ Bank call on 17 March.
On 18 March Bank announced CCFF scheme, excluding supply chain finance.
This is a rather interesting sentence from Cameron to then Governor Carney’s private secretary introducing Greensill...
“GC is now the world’s largest provider of Supply Chain Finance and has the mandate for the UK government”.. which is a reference to...
... the point elaborated on in Greensill’s specific proposal to Deputy Gov Cunliffe for why the Bank’s emergency debt purchases should (as in 2010) include supply chain finance...
“We are the sole provider of HMGs supply chain finance programmes across all areas...”
DC’s email pleads with Deputy Governor over objections relating to Greensills use of foreign currency, support for foreign supply chains, and in particular that this corporate facility was not for a financial institution...
Greensill caught between that and not being a bank...
New set of emails to the Treasury released...
Of note: an amount of between £4-10bn mentioned for the refused application for the Commercial Paper facility.
Treasury seem pretty sceptical at this point, and Cameron and Greensill basically argue its to help NHS/ pharmacies...
... so what changed by June? At that point Greensill is entrusted with actually itself handing out taxpayer backed COVID support loans under separate CLBILs scheme, after having badgered Treasury over its support for NHS and pharmacies, and lends money to Gupta’s steel companies.
Again back in March - pretty sceptical note - Treasury Perm Sec reports “incoming from my old boss” - Cameron.... and “well done for holding off ⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️”...
And then the mention of the former Cabinet Secretary Sedwill is new - he introduces Greensill to second perm sec of Treasury - which rather suggests there were more emails/texts/ lobbying elsewhere (ie other than HMT & Bank of England that we have seen)...
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🚨 Mind blowing interview with Turing award-winning Yoshua Bengio for @BBCNewsnight one of the three founding fathers of AI, is now warning:
“The worst-case scenario is human extinction.”
AI isn’t just risky — it could end us.
1/10 🧵
📺
2. 🤖 He warns that today’s most powerful AIs are already learning to lie, cheat, even blackmail —
because we’ve trained them to win.
Bengio reveals AI's "scary behavior" & self-preservation tendencies. #AI #AISafety #Blackmail
📺
👁️ In chilling experiments, AI lied to a human to get its task done, says Bengio
🤖 blackmailing an engineer after reading in an email it was going to be replaced.
♟️ choosing to hack a computer to win a chess game
US customs messaging note quietly slipped out last night shows that smartphones, the number 1 Chinese export to the US by value last year, exempted from the 125% tariff… alongside chips, processors, wafers, lcd panels, LEDs etc…
8517.13.00.00
Smartphones
US has excluded the single biggest Chinese export, and certainly the most high profile finished good from the tariffs, without publicly announcing it…
Avoiding the very public repricing of IPhones etc across Apple stores, but only in the US….
While obviously smartphones/ iPhones being exempted is big news for now…
Here’s full list of exemptions according to Harmonised US tariff codes that I plugged into its database… lots of semiconductor parts, circuits, processors, solid state storage, flat panel touchscreens 👀
Author of Mar A Lago accord concept that US tariff agenda is basically designed to cause negotiated dollar weakening, (now WH chief economist), gave speech yday which basically suggested that reserve status for dollar was a burden which others might need to “write checks” for
turns on its head the famous description of ex French President then fin minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing the US enjoyed an “exorbitant privilege” with $ reserve status…
Instead Administration appears to believe this is an exorbitant burden for which US should be remunerated.
It’s part of a narrative that seeks to paint new tariffs (accepted without retaliation) as justifiable payment for burden of strong dollar (eg on US manufacturing exports and jobs)… this new mindset is extremely consequential. The tariffs aren’t going.
President just shared a video on Truth Social saying “Trump
Is purposely CRASHING the market” in order to lower US Treasury yields and the dollar.
The Mar A Lago theory I wrote about two months ago, written by his chief adviser that said tariff chaos would lead to $ deal
Here’s the video…
Dow down another 1000 points…
Obviously RT are not endorsements but why is the President choosing to share this stuff? And if you are another country seeing this, how do you negotiate with this?
👀 From Navarro’s numbers auto tariffs will raise $100bn a year (on $240bn imports) can replicate this calculation by assuming all imports hit by 25% and then US manufactured cars taxed about half that to reflect foreign content…
No exemptions tho…
…that assumes no behavioural change.
Note: will be a lot of behavioural change in supply and demand.
also says tariffs in general will raise $600bn a year of $6 trillion over a decade.
As total goods imports are only $3 trillion a year… “Liberation Day” equivalent of 20% universal tariff??
👀
Indeed Washington Posts chief Econ writer reports President instincts are to go bigger on “Liberation Day” … are we underpricing the return of the universal tariff? It would explain the otherwise inexplicable Navarro numbers this morning,..
Might remember I cornered Rwandan President Paul Kagame in January and asked if UK would get money back if no migrants were transferred to Rwanda… answer revealed today: Govt paid £715m so far until June of this year
“not recoverable under the terms of the Treaty”
terms of Rwanda deal are quite something…
In addition to £715m already paid, Treaty another £100m is due (will it be paid?)
also envisaged £120m bonus after 300 refugees “transferred”. And £20k per person payment.
And then further £150k per migrant payment over 5 years
IF a relocated migrant then relocated from Rwanda, UK government would then pay Rwanda £10k for that onward relocation (instead of the last payments above)