In yet another payroll report destined to be celebrated across the Washington swamp as proof of economic brilliance, U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 172,000 in May, beating expectations and extending the strongest three-month hiring streak in over two years. The catch? Nearly all the job growth came from the usual recession-resistant suspects: Leisure & Hospitality, Government, and Healthcare. Meanwhile, the sectors that actually produce things—or care about interest rates—barely moved or shrank outright. Manufacturing, construction, finance, trade, and information all pointed to an economy that looks considerably less impressive beneath the headline. In other words, the labour market is still growing, provided one defines growth as hiring more bureaucrats, bartenders, and healthcare workers while the cyclical economy quietly loses momentum.

The unemployment rate conveniently remained unchanged at 4.3%, extending its stay above the two-year moving average for yet another month since October 2023—a metric that has historically been less a sign of economic strength and more an early warning that the economy may be heading somewhere policymakers would rather not discuss.

In a nutshell, while the economy quietly revealed that most of the hiring came from government, healthcare, and hospitality as cyclical sectors stalled, unemployment remained stuck at a level that has historically signaled trouble ahead.

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🌐 The age of drones has arrived—reshaping battlefields, rewriting military doctrine, and creating a multi-billion-dollar investment opportunity in real time. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-swarm-drone-age

A little over a year ago, Strategy’s Chief Bitcoin Evangelist declared that everyone should sell everything—perhaps even a kidney or two—to buy the magical digital asset that was supposedly destined to replace the barbarous relic. As with many great financial prophecies, the enthusiasm was inversely proportional to the amount of scepticism required.

https://x.com/saylor/status/1895325810942411234

Fast forward to June 2026 and, with Bitcoin down nearly 30% since that memorable “sell everything” sermon, Strategy’s Chief Bitcoin Evangelist quietly announced the firm's first net Bitcoin sale since December 2022. Between May 26 and May 31, the company sold 32 BTC for roughly $2.5 million. Admittedly, the sale represented just 0.0038% of its 843,706-Bitcoin hoard, but it was nevertheless a curious development from a movement that assured everyone Bitcoin was the asset to buy forever and never sell.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/06/01/strategy-sold-32-btc-for-usd2-5-million-in-late-may-filing-shows

Until late May, Bitcoin had been one of the war’s more surprising beneficiaries, rising roughly 12% since the conflict began at the end of February, while gold — the traditional geopolitical safe haven — had fallen nearly 14%. By Friday, however, Bitcoin had surrendered all of those gains and more, providing yet another reminder that speculative enthusiasm can evaporate faster than it appears. More importantly, the reversal in the Bitcoin-to-Gold ratio may once again be serving as the canary in the Nasdaq coal mine, signalling that the extraordinary outperformance of the Nasdaq relative to the Dow Jones reached a turning point as the U.S. increasingly confronts the realities of ‘The Trump Stagflation’.

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https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-swarm-drone-age-podcast

As Trumpian statecraft increasingly resembles a curious blend of capitalism with centrally planned features, Donald Copperfield revealed on June 5 that his administration is exploring whether the U.S. government should acquire stakes in artificial intelligence companies. According to Donald Copperfield, the idea is simple: AI firms become wildly profitable, the government takes a slice, and the public is told they are now "partners" in the enterprise. In other words, after decades of insisting that governments should not pick winners, Washington appears ready to become a venture capitalist—presumably in the name of free markets. A meeting with major AI firms was reportedly scheduled to discuss how Americans could "benefit" from AI's success, proving once again that when profits become large enough, even capitalism occasionally requires a little public ownership to save it.

https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-says-his-team-will-look-into-us-taking-stake-ai-companies-2026-06-05/

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/