After a conveniently “strong” manufacturing ISM boosted by higher prices, the ISM Services PMI quietly disappointed, slipping to 53.6 as new orders fell, employment contracted again, and prices stayed stubbornly high. Beneath the headline, growth is clearly losing momentum—consumer demand is fading under higher costs, and even financial services are cooling, as uncertainty and rising rates finally start doing what they’re supposed to do.

In a nutshell, the ISM Services PMI is still “expanding”—just with collapsing demand, rising costs, and a growing sense that the slowdown is already here.

In the latest quarterly borrowing ritual from the Treasury of the Empire, officials once again reassured markets that there would be no unpleasant surprises—by refusing to even whisper about increasing long-term coupon issuance. Instead, Treasury stuck to the now legendary “for at least the next several quarters” guidance, confirming that the preferred strategy remains flooding the market with short-term bills and hoping nobody notices the refinancing risk building underneath. Despite exploding deficits and rising borrowing needs, the playbook remains unchanged: issue more short-term debt, keep long-term yields artificially calm, and let the next administration worry about the consequences. Even the International Monetary Fund politely warned that relying so heavily on bills leaves the Empire increasingly vulnerable to shifts in rates and investor sentiment—but apparently that problem belongs to future historians.

And, right on cue, markets rewarded the Treasury’s “nothing to see here” strategy with lower yields after officials kept auction guidance unchanged. The message was clear: deficits may explode, borrowing needs may rise, but as long as the Empire keeps rolling short-term bills fast enough, apparently everything remains “well positioned.” Treasury also reassured investors that it continues to “evaluate” future increases in coupon and FRN issuance—the financial equivalent of promising to think about exercising someday. Meanwhile, the latest refunding package came in at $125 billion, unchanged from February and perfectly aligned with Wall Street expectations, because stability is apparently achieved by refinancing ever larger debt piles one Treasury bill at a time.

The Treasury maintained its now familiar guidance of keeping coupon auction sizes unchanged for the coming quarters, continuing the delicate art of pretending exploding deficits require no meaningful adjustment in long-term issuance. The latest refunding package will raise approximately $41.7 billion in new cash through $125 billion of issuance, including $58 billion in 3-year notes, $42 billion in 10-year notes, and $25 billion in 30-year bonds.

For now, the Empire remains committed to its favourite strategy: refinance massive debt piles as smoothly as possible and hope markets continue applauding the absence of surprises.

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In another reminder that the economy looks far less “strong” outside the Washington and Wall Street bubble, U.S. foreclosure filings have climbed to their highest level in six years, with ATTOM reporting a 26% YoY increase as households struggle under rising property taxes, soaring insurance costs, elevated rates, and mounting consumer debt. Florida and Texas are at the epicentre, where homeowners increasingly discover that even a low fixed mortgage rate does not protect them from exploding total ownership costs.

https://www.attomdata.com/news/most-recent/foreclosure-rates-by-state/

Unlike 2008, this is not a crisis driven by toxic subprime leverage and collapsing bank balance sheets. Most homeowners today locked in low fixed rates and lending standards have been tighter. The real problem is affordability exhaustion: insurance, utilities, taxes, maintenance, and debt servicing are all rising simultaneously while wage growth lags behind. The result is not a sudden housing collapse, but a slow-motion squeeze where the market becomes increasingly frozen, consumer finances steadily deteriorate, and confidence erodes one monthly bill at a time.

In a press conference masterfully conducted by Viceroy Rubio — that virtuoso of diplomatic dystopia — the Empire has unveiled its bold new strategic objective for Operation Epic F**k-Up, entering another day of decisive hourly victories: the goal is to restore the access to the Strait of Hormuz exactly the way it was before the Empire started the war.
To summarise: the Empire launched a holy war, closed the world's most critical oil chokepoint, destroyed a quarter of global LNG supply, sent gasoline above $4, triggered the Trump Stagflation, introduced Europe to fuel rationing, deployed troops to hotels, fired its Army Chief of Staff, blockaded a blockade, threatened the Pope, called Iran "crazy bastards" on Easter Sunday, and has now — after all these days of uninterrupted victory — concluded that the optimal outcome is things going back to the way they were.

The way they were, one recalls, was before all of the above happened.

The Ministry of Victory wishes to assure the public that this represents a major strategic breakthrough. Critics have noted that "restoring things to the way they were before the war" is also known as "not starting the war." The Ministry has no comment. Viceroy Rubio is understood to be working on the messaging. The Strait remains closed. The irony does not. 😂

Fresh off the plane from China, The Macro Butler landed straight on The Contrarian Capitalist Podcast— and what he saw in the Middle Kingdom will change the way you think about the next decade.

While the Empire wages holy wars and drowns in stagflation, China is already living in the future — AI-powered, decoupled from the West, and quietly positioning itself to thrive in exactly the kind of chaotic world that Washington just accidentally created.

This is the interview that connects the dots:

🤖 China’s AI revolution — it’s not coming, it’s already here

🌏 The great decoupling — and why it’s irreversible

📈 How China wins while the West burns

🎙 Pull up a chair. This one will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the world’s next superpower.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-the-contrarian-capitalist-71f

The Macro Butler joined Cris Sheridan from Financial Sense Wealth Management for a deep dive into the great global decoupling already underway between China and the West — and why investors are massively underestimating its inflationary consequences.

From semiconductors becoming the new strategic commodity controlled by only a handful of players, to the coming supercycle in oil, copper, nickel, wheat, gold and critical resources, this discussion explores why the next decade will be defined by supply shortages, geopolitical fragmentation, and structurally higher commodity prices.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-financial-sense-07052026

The Macro Butler is back on Piggo’s Trading Desk — and this time, he brought history. 📚⚰️

While Washington blows trillions on weapons and Medicaid bureaucracy, China is quietly winning the AI race by doing something radical: actually investing in infrastructure and its own people. Revolutionary concept, apparently.

The uncomfortable truth nobody in Washington wants to hear?

💰 The real MAGA playbook: invest in average Americans and the nation’s extraordinary natural resources — not plutocrats and Pentagon contractors

🏛 From Rome to Spain to Britain — every empire collapsed the same way. The US is now lining up with impressive precision to join that distinguished list of fallen plutocracies

This isn’t doom. This is history rhyming so loudly you can hear it from Beijing.

🎙 Pull up a chair. This one connects 2,000 years of imperial collapse to your portfolio — and tells you exactly where to stand when the music stops.
👉 Watch now — because understanding why empires fall is the most valuable investment research you’ll ever consume. 🛢💡

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-piggos-trading-desk-b91

In Eurostan, Brussels’ technocrats are now flirting with restricting VPN access under the noble banner of “protecting children,” because apparently online privacy has suddenly become a dangerous extremist activity. After rolling out age-verification systems requiring IDs, facial scans, and biometric checks, officials are now worried that citizens are using VPNs to escape the surveillance maze — which, naturally, means the VPN itself must now become suspicious.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2026/782618/EPRS_ATA(2026)782618_EN.pdf

As always in the Orwellian playbook, the pattern never changes: first comes “misinformation,” then “safety,” then mandatory identification, and finally the quiet criminalization of anonymity itself. Conveniently, all this arrives alongside digital IDs, CBDCs, online speech regulation, and expanding financial monitoring — but citizens are reassured this is all merely about keeping the children safe while the infrastructure for full-spectrum digital compliance is built one regulation at a time.

The Macro Butler was back on BFM 89.9 — Malaysia’s premier business radio — and he didn’t come to sugarcoat the macro. 🎙

The verdict on Operation Epic F**k-Up’s global economic fallout?

🔥 Trump Stagflation is spreading — and it’s just getting started

🏦 The Fed, the BOJ, and central banks worldwide are trapped — raising rates kills the economy, cutting them fans the inflation. There is no good option.

💸 Faith in public institutions is collapsing — and when this happens, capital moves. Fast.

📈 Where does it go? US assets. And more importantly —

🥇 Gold. The ultimate antifragile asset. Zero counterparty risk. No central bank can print it. No sanctions can freeze it. No Truth Social post can devalue it.

This is not a forecast. This is the playbook.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-bfm-899-radio-08052026

In another nonfarm payrolls release destined to fuel Washington’s propaganda machine, the U.S. economy supposedly added 115,000 jobs in April, marking a second consecutive monthly gain while the unemployment rate remained unchanged. March payrolls were also revised modestly higher, reinforcing the official narrative of a resilient labour market despite underlying signs of slowing momentum. Beneath the headline, however, the picture was less impressive. Job growth remained heavily concentrated in education, health services, and transportation — the latter boosted by recent regulatory changes — while broader labour demand stayed subdued after nearly a year of near-stagnant employment growth. With immigration slowing sharply, economists and policymakers have also quietly lowered the threshold for what now qualifies as a “solid” payroll report.

The unemployment rate remained conveniently unchanged at 4.3%, staying above its two-year moving average for yet another month since October 2023 — a signal that has historically been associated with the early stages of an economic bust. But this time, markets are apparently expected to believe that rising unemployment, sticky inflation, and slowing growth are all simply part of the magical new economic doctrine now known as “Trump Stagflation.”

In a nutshell , another “strong” payrolls report, another chapter in the statistical theater of Trump Stagflation.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 AI wasn’t built to cut costs—it was built on them. Energy, chips, geopolitics, and power: this is the real balance sheet of artificial intelligence. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-hidden-costs-of-ai

While the Empire continued enforcing the blockade of the blockade to encourage Tehran’s “voluntary cooperation,” Iran appeared to play a card that Donald Copperfield never included in the script. A massive oil spill emerged near Kharg Island, the terminal handling roughly 90% of Iran’s crude exports, with satellite imagery from May 6–8 showing a spreading slick covering tens of square miles across the Persian Gulf. The official cause remained “under investigation,” naturally, but the timing fuelled speculation that Tehran may have decided that if sanctioned oil can no longer be stored or sold freely, it can at least be redistributed environmentally.

https://www.thedefensenews.com/news-details/Satellites-Detect-Large-Oil-Spill-in-Persian-Gulf-Near-Irans-Kharg-Island-Export-Terminal/