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/

In the grand Orwellian energy transition, the theocracies of Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran continued preaching morality while conducting geopolitics through blockades, shortages, and floating crude oil.

Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble; Spotify & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-hidden-costs-of-ai-podcast

While markets continued debating whether the “Epic F**k Up” was finally ending, the reality inside global storage facilities looked far less comforting: crude inventories kept collapsing toward levels where the issue was no longer price, but whether the system could physically function at all.

According to JPMorgan Chase projections, inventories were expected to fall toward 7.6 billion barrels by June 2026 — the so-called operational stress level — before approaching 6.8 billion barrels by September, effectively the minimum needed to keep pipelines pressurized and refineries operating. Below that threshold, the conversation shifts rapidly from “$90 or $110 oil” to the far more awkward question policymakers prefer to avoid: what happens when fuel infrastructure itself starts breaking down?

Global inventories for major fuels are in the same mood, now sitting at, or below, the lowest seasonal levels of the past five years — just in time for the Northern Hemisphere’s peak summer demand season, because apparently the global energy system enjoys living dangerously. Gasoline inventories looked “reassuring” a few months ago, peaking at their highest levels since 2019 in February, only to perform a spectacular disappearing act by May and fall below the lowest levels seen for this time of year in more than a decade. But markets remain calm, reassured that shortages are surely just another “transitory” phenomenon.

In short, the global economy now has roughly four months to magically rediscover diplomacy before every major market on Earth reprices simultaneously. Energy, food, shipping, manufacturing — all remain tied to the same rapidly shrinking inventory curve that policymakers are still pretending is perfectly “manageable.”
But for now, markets remain comforted by reassuring press conferences explaining that shortages, inflation, and geopolitical escalation are all somehow a non-event.

As the Empire continues exporting “democracy” through regime-change adventures, more countries are inevitably concluding what Pyongyang understood years ago: in the modern Orwellian rules-based order, the ultimate despot survival package is not human rights — it is nuclear deterrence. On cue, North Korea quietly updated its constitution to authorize an automatic nuclear strike if Comrade Kim is assassinated or if the country’s nuclear command system is threatened. The message was refreshingly straightforward by diplomatic standards: if leadership disappears, so does everyone else. Iran, apparently, provided the latest reminder that in the global security marketplace, nuclear weapons remain the closest thing to a lifetime insurance policy.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/north-korea-revises-constitution-drop-references-unification-korean-peninsula-2026-05-06/

As Confucius almost certainly never said, “When oil burns in the Middle East, factory prices rise in the Middle Kingdom.” China’s producer inflation surged at its fastest pace since the pandemic as the Iran war sent energy and commodity costs soaring, officially ending years of factory deflation and reminding investors that globalization works beautifully right until shipping lanes catch fire. Yet while AI-driven demand for semiconductors and integrated circuits exploded, helping high-tech exports surge, many Chinese manufacturers now find themselves trapped between rising input costs and consumers still reluctant to spend, a situation ancient scholars would describe as “the margin is squeezed from both Heaven and Earth.” Copper, oil, chemicals, and AI chips all became more expensive simultaneously, proving once again that in the modern economy even artificial intelligence ultimately depends on mines, pipelines, and geopolitical chaos.

As everyone knows, “The wise investor watches not the headlines, but the spread between costs and prices.” And unfortunately for China equity bulls, the spread between core CPI and core PPI just reached its worst level since February 2021 — precisely when the Middle Kingdom entered its second wave of the Covid “great harmony campaign,” triggering a derating of Chinese equities that lasted until October 2022. Once again, margins appear to be discovering the ancient Chinese art of suffering in silence.

In a nutshell, when shipping lanes burn and margins vanish, even AI cannot save the Middle Kingdom from the ancient curse of rising costs and reluctant consumers.

The Macro Butler was back on Asharq Bloomberg to explain why the oil prices flashing on traders’ screens still look suspiciously calm while the physical market is quietly screaming shortages.

Global oil inventories have already entered operational stress territory — and if the Strait of Hormuz stays “closed for geopolitical maintenance” for another three months, the world may discover that pipelines and refineries run on actual barrels, not central bank optimism and PowerPoint slides.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-663

The fourth CPI print of the year delivered exactly what Wall Street ordered: a beautifully airbrushed +0.6% MoM, while YoY inflation came in at +3.8% — just a tiny “unexpected” upgrade from last month’s +3.3%. Apparently, inflation is only transitory when you zoom out far enough. Underneath the soothing headline theatre, food inflation slowed from its fastest annual surge since September… only to remain the hottest since November — and that’s before fertilizer shortages begin turning grocery aisles into luxury boutiques. Meanwhile, energy prices bounced back to their highest yearly increase since November 2022, because nothing says “price stability” quite like paying more for literally everything that moves.

Welcome to the opening act of Inflation Wave 2. Once fertilizer shortages and energy shocks fully leak into the data, consensus economists may finally have to retire the word “temporary” for good.

Core CPI delivered another thrilling episode of “nothing to worry about”: +0.4% MoM and +2.8% YoY, conveniently landing just above forecasts and last month’s reading — because apparently inflation persistence is now considered a sign of economic resilience.
The real star of the performance was core services, the 76%-of-the-basket heavyweight that policymakers keep insisting is “normalizing.” Instead, it quietly accelerated to +2.48%, its highest level since last September. But don’t worry, we’re assured this is all perfectly manageable as long as nobody looks at the trend. Translation: inflation is behaving impeccably right before fertilizer shortages, energy spikes, and petrochemical supply-chain chaos arrive fashionably late to turn “soft landing” forecasts into collector’s items. Enjoy this brief moment of statistical serenity before the second inflation wave starts surfing straight through the consensus narrative.

In a nutshell, Wall Street keeps celebrating “transitory” inflation while food, energy, and core services quietly rehearse the opening act of Inflation Wave Two.

🤵 The Macro Butler Special Service 🤵

🌐 What begins in the oil market ends on your plate, as rising energy costs quietly turn into a full-blown squeeze on your wallet, your lifestyle, and ultimately, economic stability. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/from-fuel-to-food-the-bite-of-stagflation

Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler Special Service newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble; Spotify & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/from-fuel-to-food-the-bite-of-stagflation-d54