On a scale from mildly confused to fully committed ‘Covidiot’, where did you land?

https://youtu.be/oYb8VvXfTeQ

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

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/ais-civilizational-shockwave-podcast

As the Jubilee year nears its close, China finds itself practicing restraint not by choice but by circumstance. Retail sales barely stirred, rising a modest 1.3%—their weakest showing outside the plague years—while investment continued its silent retreat and property crumbled without ceremony. Factories worked, though with less vigour, unemployment stood still, and policymakers nodded solemnly that “challenges remain,” as sages always do.

In a nutshell, China is discovering that patience is a virtue—especially when consumers refuse to spend and the world is no longer eager to buy.

Without warning, hundreds of Porsche vehicles across Russia were remotely rendered useless, their engines silenced by a “malfunction” in a satellite tracking system—an event that quietly revealed a far larger truth: modern cars are no longer owned, they are permitted.

With a flicker of connectivity loss, mobility was revoked ‘en masse’, proving that manufacturers—and by extension states—can switch off transportation at will.

Porsche denies intent, hackers are absent, and coincidence is the official line, but the message is unmistakable: in the age of digital war, compliance is enforced not with tanks, but with kill-switches, and freedom now runs on software that can be withdrawn overnight.

https://www.autoblog.com/news/all-of-russias-porsches-were-bricked-by-a-mysterious-satellite-outage

While the West debates digital promises, India is doing something refreshingly old-school—and strategically brilliant. By allowing gold and silver to be treated as mainstream investment assets, New Delhi is quietly reinforcing what its citizens have known for centuries: real money matters.

https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/india-to-allow-gold-and-silver-investment-in-pension-funds-202512151930

This isn’t about shiny trinkets or cultural nostalgia. It’s about channeling household savings into assets that preserve purchasing power, reduce reliance on fragile financial products, and strengthen the country’s monetary resilience. In a world drowning in debt, deficits, and debasement, India is choosing gold and silver over faith-based finance.

The message is clear: when currencies wobble, trust migrates back to tangible stores of value. India isn’t chasing the future—it’s anchoring it.

Everyone with a basic grip on reality knows this wasn’t a sudden outbreak of neighbourly intolerance. It is a proxy war, dressed up as a border dispute, with the usual sponsors lurking just offstage. In 2025, Washington helpfully clarified matters by deepening its “peace-and-security” partnership with Cambodia—peace defined as military meetings, training exchanges, and influence management. General Clark flew to Phnom Penh, hands were shaken, words like stability were repeated, and the Indo-Pacific was declared safer. As always, war was peace, alignment was sovereignty, and puppetry was rebranded as partnership.

https://thediplomat.com/2025/12/us-steps-up-defense-cooperation-in-southeast-asia/

A further step toward “peace” came when Cambodia reviving the Angkor Sentinel joint military exercises, conveniently mothballed in 2017 during its flirtation with China.
By November 12, 2025, Washington rewarded this renewed enthusiasm by lifting its four-year arms embargo, praising Cambodia’s “diligent pursuit of peace and security.” The decision was sealed at the ASEAN Summit by Donald Copperfield and the Casino mogul turned prime minister Hun Manet, proving once again that obedience is sovereignty, exercises are diplomacy, and embargoes are temporary misunderstandings.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2025/11/12/us-lifts-cambodian-arms-embargo-after-resuming-military-exercises/

Harmony follows those who understand the direction of the current. ASEAN’s future will be shaped by its proximity to China and Russia, whose gravity is steadily increasing. States that choose dependency over balance, mistaking obedience for virtue, risk the fate of those who ignore the seasons: they find themselves isolated as the world moves on.

History teaches that nations which fail to adapt to shifting power alignments do not merely lose influence—they fade from relevance, and from memory itself.

In Eurostan, the Educated Yet Idiots have refined freedom into a spreadsheet. In Greece, citizens must now spend 30% of their income electronically to prove they are honest, modern, and suitably observable. Wages, pensions, businesses—everything counts, up to a merciful €20,000 cap.

The measure, we are assured, fights tax evasion. Translation: swipe enough or be fined. Miss the target, and a 22% penalty is imposed on your lack of digital enthusiasm. Spend too much cash, and you are guilty—not of hiding income, but of insufficient obedience.

https://minfin.gov.gr/en/tax-policy/tax-guide/income-taxation/

In Orwell’s Europe, spending is liberty, surveillance is trust, and punishment is care.

Sanctions were supposed to erase Huawei. Instead, they erased the script.

Post–Donald Copperfield 1.0 trade war: Huawei sells better phones than Apple for less, leads in tech, launches the Avita 12 with ADS 3.3.2 that drives itself better than an F1 driver—and does it without Nvidia chips.

Turns out sanctions don’t kill innovation, they just make it angry. 🍿🚗💨

https://x.com/XueJia24682/status/2000528171641557439

After the longest U.S. government shutdown on record, the BLS is finally emptying the data closet: November payrolls rose a modest 64k after October’s revised faceplant of –105k, while unemployment politely climbed to 4.6%. October’s collapse was “explained” by 162k federal workers vanishing from payrolls after deferred resignations—proof that jobs can be lost by spreadsheet. November’s rebound came from healthcare, social assistance, and construction, while transportation, leisure, and hospitality quietly exited stage left. In short: the labour market isn’t broken, just heavily edited.

The rise in unemployment from September to November came with a silver lining: more people re-entered the workforce, pushing participation higher—especially among prime-age workers. Less comforting, however, is that long-term unemployment is back near post-2021 highs, involuntary part-time work just logged its biggest jump since the pandemic. Job openings ticked up, hiring slowed, layoffs rose, and corporate pink slips from Verizon and Amazon did wonders for consumer confidence (in the wrong direction). With unemployment now well above its two-year average, the economy’s “boom” is starting to look suspiciously like the opening act of a bust.

In conclusion, after the shutdown smoke cleared, the jobs report reads like creative accounting—modest gains, rising unemployment, more part-timers and layoffs—making today’s “boom” look suspiciously like tomorrow’s bust in rehearsal.

Adding to the growing pile of warning lights for the U.S. consumer, October retail sales barely moved—unless you count scrolling for discounts as growth. Spending held up in eight of thirteen categories, helped by department stores and online shopping, but motor vehicle sales skidded 1.6% as EV subsidies expired and gas got cheaper (bad for receipts, good for drivers). Wealthier households are still carrying the shopping bags, while lower-income consumers browse cautiously, calculator in hand. Even restaurants felt the pinch, with sales slipping 0.4%. Translation: the holidays may start with deals, but economists expect consumer momentum to fade as the year ends.

Since these retail figures ignore inflation, a “gain” might just be shoppers paying more rather than buying more. Plus, goods account for only a third of household spending. Adjusted for the so-called ‘CP-Lie,’ sales actually fell 0.1% month-over-month—a subtle but ominous hint that the U.S. economy’s current boom is edging toward an inevitable bust.

In a nutshell, October retail sales barely budged, with higher prices masking weaker demand, signaling that the U.S. consumer’s holiday cheer may be the calm before an inevitable economic bust.

Despite all the hype about an AI-fueled business boom, U.S. activity in December barely crawled along at a six-month low while input costs soared to a three-year high—proving once again that innovation doesn’t pay the bills. The S&P Global composite index nudged down to 53 (expansion, but just barely), even as the prices-paid gauge shot up to 64.1. Firms grumbled about tariffs and rising costs spreading from manufacturing to services, sending selling prices higher and hiring confidence lower. Orders slowed, service-sector growth stalled, and employment barely budged—all while output keeps ticking up for 35 months, like a treadmill no one asked for.