To demonstrate that Red and Blue remain remarkably united when it comes to American statecraft, The Blue Plutocrat Bernie published an op-ed just days earlier in The New York Times titled “A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It.” The proposal was refreshingly straightforward: seize 50% of the largest AI companies—not through profits, but through equity—and place the shares into a government-managed sovereign wealth fund on behalf of the public.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/the-public-should-own-half-of-the-big-a-i-companies/

In other words, while Donald Copperfield was exploring ways for the government to become a venture capitalist, Bernie was proposing that it become a controlling shareholder. Different campaign slogans, same destination. The convergence became even more entertaining when Donald Copperfield openly acknowledged that he and Bernie were not actually that far apart on economic policy, confirming what many observers have long suspected: in modern America, the choice is often not between capitalism and socialism, but merely between different branding strategies for state-managed capitalism.

While fake news media continue to point to the Middle East, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defence reported that 32 Chinese military aircraft, 10 naval vessels, and five additional government ships were operating around the island, with 25 aircraft crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line—an unofficial boundary that Beijing now crosses so routinely it is being transformed from a red line into a navigation lane. The real mistake is assuming any future conflict must begin with a dramatic amphibious invasion worthy of a history documentary. In the age of drones, cyber warfare, missile barrages, and economic blockades, a country can be strangled long before the first soldier reaches the beach.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/taiwan-detects-32-chinese-aircraft-10-naval-vessels-near-territory-amid-rising-tensions/articleshow/131496211.cms

The real story is not the daily aircraft count but the timeline. China, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, and the United States are all quietly preparing for the same window: 2028–2029. Missile programs, defence budgets, and military planning cycles are converging on a remarkably similar horizon. Governments still insist they are working to preserve peace. In classic Orwellian fashion, however, every new weapons program is presented as a peace initiative, every military buildup as a deterrent, and every escalation as a stabilizing measure.

The question is no longer whether a storm is forming, but whether policymakers can postpone its arrival until after their carefully constructed timelines expire.

The Macro Butler returned to Asharq Bloomberg to explain why gold has likely already printed its low for the year. The forced sellers have been flushed out, central banks across the Global South continue accumulating ahead of the next round of dollar weaponization, and with Middle East tensions flaring once again while the next chapter of the geopolitical drama slowly shifts toward Taiwan, the case for gold remains firmly intact.

While the financial media remain busy declaring the death of the barbarous relic because it failed to levitate during the latest bout of market hysteria, smart investors are quietly doing the opposite.

Gold is not setting up for its next major move lower—it is simply reloading before reminding everyone why central banks keep buying it by the ton.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-5e2

In yet another instalment of America’s longest-running reality show, The Apprentice: Oval Office Edition, the Manipulator-in-Chief reportedly delivered what commentators immediately branded his “worst meltdown ever” during an interview with Kristen Welker.

When challenged on his California election claims and asked for the radical concept known as evidence, Donald Copperfield responded with the traditional tools of modern political discourse: calling the journalist “crooked” and “stupid,” and ultimately exiting the interview altogether. Why bother presenting facts when storming off creates far better television?

In an era where narratives are often treated as self-validating truths, such behaviour can be deeply unsettling for public officials accustomed to operating without interruption.

As Season 2 of Epic Fury opened with Tehran and Tel Aviv theocracies exchanging missiles in the name of peace, Uncle Scrooge Bessent, Washington’s Sanctioner-in-Chief, reportedly proposed borrowing a page from the European playbook by repurposing Iranian assets to compensate Gulf allies for damages sustained during the conflict. Treasury officials were tasked with estimating reconstruction costs, identifying frozen Iranian funds that could be redirected, and exploring legal pathways to transform confiscation into foreign policy. The complication, of course, is that Tehran has made the release of roughly $24 billion in frozen assets a non-negotiable condition for any peace deal.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-considering-using-iranian-funds-to-help-gulf-states-rebuild-source-says/

In classic Orwellian fashion, the same money is now being discussed simultaneously as a peace offering and as war reparations. With more than 80 energy and infrastructure sites reportedly damaged across the Gulf and reconstruction costs estimated near $58 billion, diplomacy increasingly resembles a negotiation over who gets to keep the other side’s money while demanding peace.

In yet another statistic destined to be celebrated across the Washington swamp as proof of the success of the American Dream, the average monthly mortgage payment surpassed $2,000 for the first time in U.S. history. According to Realtor.com, the typical homeowner is now paying $2,005 per month—up 44% from 2021. Apparently, inflation is under control, except for housing, healthcare, energy, food, and most of the things people actually need to live. Even more impressively, the average American family now spends over $2,200 per month on health insurance, meaning that keeping an insurance card has become more expensive than keeping a roof over one’s head. Meanwhile, the ongoing little excursion in the Middle East has reportedly added roughly $100 billion to household costs in just 100 days, largely through higher energy prices.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/homeowners-monthly-mortgage-payments-april-2026-report/

As if record mortgage payments and health insurance premiums were not enough, rising energy costs have quietly extracted another $400–$450 from the average American household since the conflict with Iran began. Meanwhile, Washington has responded by draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve toward levels not seen since the 1980s in an effort to keep the illusion of stability alive a little longer. Unfortunately, oil has a habit of finding its way into the price of almost everything. The consequences are becoming harder to ignore. Household debt has climbed to a record $18.8 trillion, while credit card delinquencies have reached their highest level in 15 years. At the same time, only 66% of American men aged 20 and over are employed or actively seeking work, near levels last seen during the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.

In true Orwellian fashion, citizens are told the economy is strong while debt records are shattered, participation rates stagnate, and living costs continue to outpace incomes. The official narrative remains one of resilience; the household balance sheet tells a rather different story.

The Pentagon has discovered, with the breathless surprise of a man finding his keys in his own pocket, that the company selling you cloud storage, sedans, and drones might also be on a first-name basis with the People's Liberation Army. Its updated Section 1260H list now formally names Alibaba, Baidu, BYD, BGI Group, and Autel as alleged extensions of Beijing's military-civil fusion strategy and starting June 30 the Department of War can no longer contract with them — with a broader ban on anything containing their parts following in 2027. Given that "their parts" covers half the world's batteries and chips, the next procurement audit should be a genuinely religious experience.

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-11571.pdf

Turns out the line between "made in China" and "deployed by China" was always written in disappearing ink.

After hosting Donald Copperfield and Tsar Vladimir in Beijing, Mandarin Xi Jinping visited Pyongyang for his first state visit in seven years, greeted by Kim The Great with a red carpet, a mounted cavalry escort, and giant portraits over Kim Father Square  The superior man knows that he who arrives bearing praise for the "socialist cause" generally arrives also bearing a wish list. Xi vowed that China's firm support for Kim's leadership "will not change," and called for deeper coordination across trade, agriculture, health, and technology, which is the diplomatic way of saying the two will study the future together by carefully not mentioning the present. Yet the host receives from a position of unusual strength: Kim's backing of Russia's war has paid dividends, his weapons program has cemented North Korea's de facto nuclear status.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_2sUOHB24

Confucius reminds us that the cautious man builds his house upon stone; Kim, it seems, has chosen to build his upon warheads. When the wise man wishes to never be invaded, he need not study virtue — only enrichment.

In another wonderful news for the American economy, which is thriving so vigorously that total bankruptcy filings rose 7% year-over-year in May, individual filings climbed 8%, and small-business filings leapt a triumphant 36% — a clear sign that entrepreneurs are merely "resetting financially," the way one resets a building by setting it on fire. Naturally this has nothing to do with the impact of the little excursion taken in the Middle East to support the Tel Aviv theocracy. Fear not, though — experts assure us this is merely the "calm before the storm" before the next wave of big filings, and the government is heroically riding to the rescue by offering bigger loans so businesses can borrow even more money they can't repay.

https://www.bankruptcywatch.com/statistics/2026-week-21-bankruptcy-report

Everyone with a modicum of wisdom knows that when the neighbour's house is on fire, the wise merchant sells more buckets. China's exports leapt over 19% in May and imports soared past 27%, swelling the trade surplus to $105.4 billion — its fattest since January — as the world's hunger for artificial intelligence enriched the workshop that builds its tools.

Semiconductor sales exploded 111% to $36 billion, the swiftest since 2013, though the superior man notes with a raised eyebrow that in volume the chips rose a mere 2% — for it was not more grain that filled the granary, but a tenfold price upon each kernel. So fierce is the AI famine that South Korea sold over 200% more chips into China, even as American restrictions still bar the finest machines — proof that he who is denied the loom may yet grow rich reselling thread. Yet beneath the banquet, two Chinas dine apart: high-tech factories feast while the maker of clothes and toys watches sales shrink 4% and 7%, and the citizen, asked to spend, keeps his coins in his sleeve as car sales at home fell 22% for a sixth straight month.

A surplus built on the world's mania is a feast cooked on a neighbour's fire — splendid, until the wind turns.