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.

The Macro Butler was back on The Time Compass Show with Bud Leiser!

We break down why the world is approaching a major inflection point in the price of everything REAL: 🥇 Gold, 🥈 Silver, 🛢 Oil, and critical commodities.

As wars intensify, shortages spread, and governments drown in debt, the next crisis may not be in stocks—it may be in the bond market itself.

Discover why a sovereign debt crisis could send the U.S. dollar soaring against other fiat currencies while simultaneously collapsing against the assets and resources people actually need to survive an era of Trump Stagflation.

📈 The biggest opportunities of the decade are forming.

📉 The biggest risks are hiding in plain sight.

🎥 Don’t miss this one.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-time-compass-show-0b8

With Season 2 of the Epic F**k Up underway, the Treasury of the Empire sold $58 billion of 3-year notes at a yield of 4.192%, the highest since February and up sharply from 3.965% in May. The auction tailed by 0.3 basis points for a second consecutive month, suggesting bond investors are demanding a little more compensation before funding Washington’s latest deficit-financed adventures.

Despite endless warnings about fiscal doom, the auction internals were surprisingly robust. The bid-to-cover ratio climbed to 2.65 from 2.54 in May and above the recent average, while indirect bidders happily absorbed 63.7% of the issue and direct bidders took another 21.0%. Dealers were left holding just 15.3%, down from 16.9% last month. Apparently, investors remain more than willing to finance the Empire’s expanding deficits—as long as the Treasury keeps offering ever more generous yields for the privilege.

Overall, it was a largely forgettable auction with unremarkable metrics. Demand remained sufficient to clear the issue, but not strong enough to inspire confidence. For now, investors continue treating U.S. Treasuries as the world's risk-free asset, even as deficits, debt issuance, inflation risks, and geopolitical tensions steadily erode that assumption. At some point, many may discover that the asset once considered safest has quietly become one of the most vulnerable.

🚨 The Biggest Lie in Finance? 🚨

Everyone is celebrating a "strong" U.S. dollar.
But what if the dollar is only rising against other failing fiat currencies... while losing purchasing power against gold, silver, oil, food, and everything you actually need?

📈 Stronger Dollar
📈 Higher Gold
📈 Higher Oil
📈 Higher Cost of Living

Something doesn't add up.

⚠️ Most investors are looking in the wrong direction.
 
Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

The Ministry of Allies has announced a startling discovery: the friend you arm, fund, and defend may also be reading your mail. The Pentagon has solemnly raised its counterintelligence threat level on the Zionist Holy Land to the highest tier — a revelation roughly as fresh as Jonathan Pollard's 1987 conviction for stealing massive quantities of classified intelligence, or the NSA reportedly catching Israeli officials discussing how to bend U.S. policy. Every nation spies — China, Russia, Britain, France, and the United States upon allies and adversaries alike; this is not the secret. The doublethink is that Washington sounds the alarm about Israeli espionage at the precise moment Congress votes for ever-deeper integration with the same ally — warning of a threat while embracing it tighter.

https://www.military.com/pentagon-raises-israeli-spy-threat-as-ndaa-seeks-deeper-defense-ties

As in Rome, competing factions and foreign entanglements have overwhelmed any coherent national purpose, leaving a government reactive rather than strategic — a state that, as the article warns, no longer knows where its own interests begin and end.  

A nation that cannot tell friend from spy has already lost the war that matters — the one for its own mind.