The Treasury just printed its first 30Y auction above 5% since August 2007 — yes, the same month the quant crash kicked off before the Global Financial Crisis arrived fashionably late. Apparently history doesn’t repeat, it just updates the coupon rate while quants quietly relive their trauma.

Demand at the 30Y auction looked about as convincing as a “soft landing” forecast: bid-to-cover fell to its weakest since November, while dealers were once again left absorbing more supply as investors demanded 5% yields just to pretend long-duration Treasuries are still “risk-free.”

Overall, it was another ugly tailing auction, reinforcing the growing realization that in a world of endless deficits, sticky inflation, and weaponized finance, the asset once marketed as “risk-free” may now be the most dangerous illusion in a diversified portfolio.

In a shocking development absolutely nobody who passed Economics 101 could have predicted, the IEA has discovered that shutting down major oil flows during a Middle East war may create… an oil shortage. The agency now expects global oil demand to outpace supply by 1.78 million bpd in 2026, with roughly 10.5 million bpd of Gulf production offline and the Strait of Hormuz closure hammering refinery operations, jet fuel production, and global supply chains. Apparently “energy transition” slogans do not magically replace missing barrels. The IEA also warned markets could remain severely undersupplied through Q3, even assuming the conflict ends soon, while refinery throughput collapses under infrastructure damage and feedstock shortages. Translation: higher oil prices, slower growth, demand destruction, and another inflation surprise are no longer risks — they’ve already RSVP’d.

https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/2b89a47b-34a2-40e0-90ff-68f7ccd80715/-13MAY2026__OilMarketReport_publicversion.pdf

According to the IEA, global oil inventories are now projected to collapse by 8.5 million barrels per day in Q2 2026 as Middle Eastern production falls — proving once again that removing millions of barrels from global supply during a geopolitical crisis is apparently “bullish” for inflation after all.

The release of 400 million barrels from IEA reserves may buy markets a little time, but with supply deficits still looming, it increasingly looks less like a solution and more like using a garden hose to stop an oil-field fire.

US retail sales rose for a third straight month in April, once again proving that American consumers will keep spending until either confidence, savings, or credit cards physically collapse — whichever comes first. Headline retail sales climbed 0.5%, although nearly half the increase came from higher gasoline prices, meaning Americans mostly spent more just to drive to the store and pay more for groceries. Excluding gas stations, sales rose a far less exciting 0.3%, while vehicle sales slipped as consumers apparently discovered that $80,000 pickup trucks and 7% financing rates are not the bargain of the century.

Adjusted for “CPLie,” headline retail sales actually declined 0.35% MoM — another sign that Americans are increasingly spending more merely to maintain the same routines while ultimately buying less in real terms. Consumers continue driving to keep their jobs and paying more for essentials, but real purchasing power keeps deteriorating beneath the surface. Historically, this type of divergence between nominal spending and real consumption has often marked the early stages of broader stagflationary pressure — a parallel markets may ignore temporarily, but one long-term investors will recognize immediately.

In a nutshell, American consumers are still spending — just increasingly more money for less stuff — as shrinking real purchasing power quietly revives the early anatomy of stagflation.

In what future historians may politely describe as the Empire’s “final harmony tour” through the Middle Kingdom, Donald Coppergfield arrived in Beijing accompanied by America’s Tech Bro aristocracy to exchange ceremonial smiles with Xi Jinping while both sides quietly measured the distance to the next crisis. The Great Mandarin Xi declared relations “stable,” which in diplomatic Confucian usually translates to: “we are not arguing loudly today.” Discussions covered oil flows, trade access, fentanyl, agriculture, semiconductors, and the sacred modern principle that global peace depends entirely on keeping container ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, CEOs from Tesla, Apple, Boeing, and NVIDIA followed closely behind like wealthy disciples seeking enlightenment through supply chains. Xi ultimately invoked the “Thucydides Trap,” reminding that when rising powers and aging hegemons compete , history tends to turn philosophy lectures into wars.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RReTNnMkS3Y

Meanwhile, the official White House scripture described the summit as a glorious triumph of “stability,” “cooperation,” and carefully choreographed optimism:
“Trump had a good meeting with Xi.”
Naturally, the propaganda liturgy concluded that all tensions are under control, trade relations are improving, and geopolitical rivalry can apparently be solved with soybeans, crude oil, and sufficiently enthusiastic press releases.

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2054859596938785204

And of course, no imperial pilgrimage would be complete without a triumphant post on Truth Social from “Donald Copperfield” himself, graciously inviting Mandarin Xi to the White House while simultaneously hinting at launching Season 2 of the Epic F**k Up before Air Force One had even departed the capital of the Middle Kingdom. Nothing captures modern diplomacy quite like smiling for cameras, praising “historic cooperation,” and threatening the next trade, tech, or geopolitical escalation before the jet engines finish warming up — especially when both empires are quietly competing to dominate the world before the next decade even begins.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116575104401917058

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 AI and geopolitics are colliding in The Global War for Chips — because the 21st century belongs to whoever controls the silicon. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-global-war-for-chips

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

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/the-global-war-for-chips-podcast

The Sovereign debt crisis isn’t coming… it’s already here. 💸📉

While Wall Street keeps selling “soft landings,” the math is quietly collapsing underneath the system.

More debt. Higher rates. Slower growth.
Governments’ favourite magic trick is running out of rabbits. 🐇🔥

Who really pays when the debt bubble bursts?
You; not the people printing the money.

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

Big Tech didn’t disrupt the system… it became the system. 🏛💻

While everyone was distracted by AI hype and stock market euphoria, Silicon Valley quietly merged with Washington to build the ultimate plutocracy.

The result?
Corporate power, endless lobbying, surveillance capitalism… and ordinary people funding the whole circus through inflation and debt. 🎪💸

This isn’t capitalism anymore.
It’s the merger of the Empire and the algorithm.

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

Freshly returned from his diplomatic excursion to the Middle Kingdom, Donald Copperfield immediately resumed his favourite form of international relations: Truth Social megaphone diplomacy. Barely hours later, he was already warning that the clock is ticking for Season 2 of the war that was never officially called a war and was supposedly “totally won” sometime around hour one of day one. Nothing says lasting peace quite like announcing the sequel before the credits of the first episode have even finished rolling.

As another glorious side effect of the holy wars in the Middle East, the Middle Kingdom’s economy slowed sharply in April, with retail sales barely growing, industrial production missing expectations, and investment quietly slipping back into contraction. Apparently, AI-fuelled exports and semiconductor euphoria are no longer enough to hide the tiny inconvenience of collapsing domestic demand and soaring energy costs. Beijing still insists the economy is “stabilizing and improving” — which in modern central bank dialect roughly translates to: “please stop looking at the actual data.”

The economic activity was weaker than expected in April,” politely admitted economists, in what may be the financial equivalent of saying the Titanic experienced “minor navigation challenges. Exports still surged thanks to the global AI frenzy and improving trade ties with the U.S. following Donald Copperfield’s latest diplomatic tour of the Middle Kingdom, but even booming semiconductor shipments are no longer enough to fully offset collapsing domestic demand. Meanwhile, household loans slumped, consumer confidence remained stuck in a post-Covid coma, and youth unemployment quietly climbed to its highest level in more than two years — proving that even in the age of artificial intelligence, someone still has to buy things.

In a nutshell, China’s economy is slowing faster than Beijing’s propaganda machine can spin it, as collapsing domestic demand and soaring energy costs finally overpower the AI export boom and semiconductor euphoria.