As Confucius almost certainly never said, “When the Eagle visits the Dragon, the Bear soon arrives for tea.” Less than a week after Donald Copperfield’s grand diplomatic pilgrimage to Beijing, Tsar Vladimir arrived to reaffirm the ever-deepening friendship between Moscow and the Middle Kingdom, with both leaders once again promoting their vision of a “multipolar world” — loosely translated as “less Washington, more us.” Xi and Putin signed dozens of agreements covering trade, technology, and strategic cooperation while politely reminding the world that sanctions, wars, and global instability have become excellent networking opportunities. Meanwhile, the long-discussed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline remained mysteriously absent from official remarks, proving that in geopolitics, as in ancient philosophy, the most important subject is often the one nobody mentions out loud.

“When the Strait closes, the pipeline suddenly becomes negotiable.” Russia is now quietly hoping that chaos in Middle East energy markets and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz will make Beijing more flexible on the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 gas deal. While Xi and Putin continue celebrating their “multipolar friendship,” the reality is that Moscow increasingly depends on China for everything from trade to sanctioned technology imports, while Beijing carefully balances supporting Russia without becoming too visibly attached to the Ukraine war.

In ancient strategic wisdom, this is known as “standing close enough to the Bear to benefit from the hunt, but not close enough to get covered in blood.”

Every empire believes it’s eternal… right before the decline begins. 🏛📉
 
Rome had bread, circuses, debt, corruption, and endless wars.
America has stimulus, Truth Social, trillion-dollar deficits, and “transitory” inflation. 🇺🇸🔥

History doesn’t repeat exactly — but it rhymes loud enough for investors willing to listen.
The real question isn’t whether the system is changing.

It’s who will survive the transition when the plutocracy finally cracks.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

When a central bank speaks with many voices, markets should prepare for turbulence beneath the surface of apparent harmony. The latest FOMC minutes under Chairman “Too Late Jerome” revealed a Federal Reserve increasingly divided between officials fearing persistent inflation and others still dreaming of eventual rate cuts. A growing number of policymakers favoured removing the Fed’s easing bias altogether, while several officials acknowledged that renewed inflationary pressures tied to war and energy markets could justify keeping rates higher for longer — or even tightening further if inflation refuses to obey official forecasts. Meanwhile, stronger labour market data briefly restored confidence that the economy remains stable, proving once again that in modern monetary philosophy, one resilient payroll report can erase many inconvenient concerns.

https://www.scribd.com/document/1041425699/Fomc-Minutes-20260429

The deeper message from the minutes is that the Fed no longer speaks with unified conviction. Like an empire debating the weather while the river quietly rises, policymakers remain divided over whether the next move should be a cut, a hike, or simply another meeting explaining why certainty remains “data dependent.”

As the Empire quietly prepares the release schedule for “Epic F**k Up: Season 2,” the Treasury successfully auctioned $16 billion in 20-year bonds at a reassuringly elevated 5.122% yield — the second-highest stop in the history of the modern 20-year auction, surpassed only by the delightful panic levels of October 2023.

The auction cleared exactly at the When Issued level, ending a brief and apparently temporary streak of healthier demand. Investors, it seems, continue demanding increasingly generous compensation for the privilege of financing endless deficits, geopolitical adventures, and the modern monetary philosophy known as “don’t worry, the Fed will figure something out eventually.”

The only visible crack in the Treasury’s latest funding exercise was a softer bid-to-cover ratio of 2.55, down from 2.68 in April and the weakest since February — a gentle reminder that investor enthusiasm for financing the Empire’s expanding balance sheet may not be entirely limitless.

Still, the auction internals remained solid. Indirect bidders absorbed 67.7% of the issue, well above recent averages, while Direct bidders took another 22.9%, leaving dealers with just 9.4% of the allocation — one of the smallest dealer takedowns on record. Apparently, global investors are still willing to buy long-duration debt at 5% yields, at least until the next episode of fiscal improvisation airs.

Overall, the auction was surprisingly solid, although recent bond market volatility may ultimately prove to be merely the opening chapter of a much larger repricing cycle. For decades, U.S. Treasuries were treated as the world’s “risk-free” asset. Increasingly, however, investors are beginning to question whether sovereign debt can truly remain risk-free when fiscal deficits expand structurally, inflation pressures persist, and reserve currencies become more closely tied to geopolitical strategy and financial sanctions.

The real risk may not simply be higher yields, but the gradual erosion of confidence in the long-term purchasing power and political neutrality underlying sovereign debt markets themselves.

America once built the world’s greatest infrastructure. 🇺🇸🏗
 
Now it struggles with collapsing bridges, aging power grids, broken supply chains, and airports that look like abandoned shopping malls.
While trillions were printed for Wall Street and forever wars, the real economy quietly decayed underneath.

Infrastructure isn’t political — it’s the foundation of growth, productivity, and national power. ⚡️📉

The next economic superpower won’t be the country with the best slogans.
It will be the one that can still build infrastructure for its citizens rather than destroy those of other countries.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

US manufacturing activity surged in May to its strongest level in four years as companies rushed to front-run the inflation shock triggered by the Middle East excursion — because nothing says “healthy economy” like panic-buying raw materials before the next oil tanker disappears from the Strait of Hormuz. Factory activity hit a 48-month high while input prices posted their biggest jump since 2022, supply chains slowed again, and businesses quietly started cutting jobs as costs exploded. In short, manufacturers are still producing, consumers are still paying more, and economists are once again discovering that “temporary inflation” has a remarkable talent for overstaying its welcome.

In a nutshell, America’s factories are booming for all the wrong reasons: panic-buying, exploding energy costs, and the growing realization that “transitory inflation” has once again become permanent.

As another glorious episode of CP-Lie Z, Japan’s softer April inflation print was largely powered by base effects, cheaper government subsidised school lunches, and statistical ninja techniques rather than any real victory over inflation. Beneath the anime smoke screen, price pressures remain alive and well, with rising oil prices preparing their inevitable “final boss” return across the economy. The Bank of Japan now looks increasingly likely to unleash its next rate hike attack toward 1% in June.

In a nutshell, Japan’s inflation “cooldown” was mostly a statistical anime filler episode, with rising oil prices already preparing the next boss battle for the Bank of Japan.

Ahead of Memorial Day Weekend, The Macro Butler returned to Piggo’s Trading Desk for another completely “peaceful and non-controversial” conversation.

From the foreign interests quietly steering American politics behind the curtain, to the magical world of Washington stock market manipulation helping plant the seeds of the next American Civil War, nothing was off limits.

We also explored the coming Taiwan Strait showdown, the economic shockwave from the Strait of Hormuz closure, the looming risks of global food shortages — and wrapped things up with a special warning on how not to become exit liquidity in the future SpaceX IPO circus.
If you still think 2026 is a normal macro cycle… this interview is for you.

🎥 Watch now before another “totally unexpected” geopolitical event arrives 15 minutes before market open.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-piggos-trading-desk-597

After aggressively dumping gold at the start of the great Middle East “stabilization mission,” Turkey eventually discovered that defending a collapsing currency requires sacrificing whatever remains liquid — including U.S. Treasuries. As the Iran conflict triggered another classic emerging-market liquidation spree, Turkey’s foreign reserves suffered their largest monthly collapse on record in March, falling by $43.4 billion while the current-account deficit widened sharply under the weight of soaring commodity prices. Apparently, in modern central banking, “reserve management” increasingly means deciding which asset to sell first before the next crisis arrives.

Turkey’s economic “stabilization strategy” is now looking increasingly similar to a garage sale of national reserves. Hammered by soaring oil prices following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Ankara first dumped gold, then quietly liquidated nearly all of its U.S. Treasury holdings — collapsing from $16 billion to just $1.8 billion in a single month — in a desperate attempt to slow the lira’s decline. Despite aggressive interventions, inflation continues accelerating, bond yields are exploding, and the lira keeps sinking, proving once again that defending a currency with dwindling reserves is a bit like trying to stop a flood by selling the furniture.

🚨⚠️ THE TAIWAN STRAIT IS THE NEXT GLOBAL ECONOMIC FAULT LINE ⚠️🚨

Forget the headlines.
If the Taiwan Strait gets disrupted, this isn’t just a geopolitical story anymore — it’s a global semiconductor cardiac arrest. 💻🔥

No chips = no AI boom
No AI boom = no market euphoria
No market euphoria = Wall Street suddenly remembers which stocks perform during stagflation.

From supply chains to smartphones, EVs, data centers, and military tech… everything runs through Taiwan. And the world is dangerously underprepared for what happens if that artery gets blocked.

Learn to Earn with The Macro Butler Financial Academy: https://themacrobutler.com/financial-academy/

After spending months being quietly transformed from Director of National Intelligence into Director of “Do Not Invite,” Tulsi officially resigned under the noble banner of caring for her husband’s illness — conveniently ending one of Washington’s more awkward relationships between an anti-war intelligence chief and an administration enthusiastically expanding military operations from Iran to Venezuela.

While the White House praised her “incredible job,” Tulsi increasingly found herself excluded from key decisions, gently reminded that questioning permanent war strategies in modern Washington is roughly as career friendly as criticizing inflation statistics at the Federal Reserve.

https://x.com/DNIGabbard/status/2057877960783204419

The great American “blockade of the blockade” is starting to look remarkably selective, as ships continue crossing the Strait of Hormuz after politely coordinating with Iranian authorities, paying generous bitcoin “navigation fees,” and then requesting permission from the U.S. blockade further offshore — because nothing says “rules-based order” quite like two competing toll booths in the same waterway. While Viceroy Rubio warned that Iran’s shipping toll system is “unacceptable,” Tehran appears to be proving that in modern geopolitics, whoever controls the chokepoint eventually discovers the ancient and highly profitable art of monetizing panic.

https://x.com/Kpler/status/2057764655976587619