Retail sales may look strong on the surface, but that’s just nominal growth ignoring inflation. Adjusted for prices, June barely nudged above last February and still lags behind the April 2022 peak. Historically, real retail sales peaks often align with S&P 500-to-Oil ratio highs, which then fall below their 7-year average—signaling rising recession risks. In other words, trouble’s brewing, even if Wall Street is still in denial.

In a nutshell, US retail sales bounced back in June, but beneath the nominal gains lurks inflation-adjusted weakness signaling rising recession risks—even if Wall Street isn’t ready to admit it.

The University of Michigan’s early-July survey showed a slight uptick in consumer sentiment, largely thanks to a buoyant stock market—not rising wages. But the usual partisan split deepened: Republicans are riding high, while Democrats saw their optimism fade after Trump’s tariffs and his flashy One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Inflation expectations dipped, but the Fed is more interested in Wall Street's calmer signals than what average consumers think. Buying conditions held steady, housing sentiment remains split between hopeful buyers and grumpy sellers.

In a nutshell, consumer sentiment rose on Wall Street gains, but Trump’s tariffs, partisan whiplash, and sticky #inflation fears kept the optimism in check.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 Tariffs, Sanctions, & Green Myths have turned Germany’s economic miracle into a slow-motion crash, and with debt piling up like red tape files, the sovereign crisis is just waiting for its cue. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/deutschland-unter-allen

You can now also listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/deutschland-unter-allen-podcast

Former BlackRock banker turned German Chancellor Friedrich Merz just handed Russia yet another reason to drag out the war. With a straight face, he blamed Russia for Europe’s energy mess, economic slump, and overloaded welfare systems—because apparently, none of that existed before the war. And in a heroic display of tone-deaf optimism, he insisted that Ukraine’s daily survival is thanks to Europe’s endless aid. Oh, and Russia should cough up €500 billion in reparations—declared at the same summit where von der Leyen proudly unveiled a fantasy €2 trillion fund for Ukraine’s “reconstruction.”

https://kyivindependent.com/russia-must-pay-ukraine-500-billion-euros-in-damages-germanys-merz-says-06-2025/

The G7 has already looted $300 billion in Russian assets, and now Merz, the BlackRock bishop of global finance, demands €500 billion more in blood money. As if Versailles never happened. Back then, they crushed Germany with shame, starvation, and debt so brutal it conjured a demon—Adolf Hitler. Now they’re casting the same curse on Russia, fueling the flames with every arrogant speech and “reconstruction” fund promise.

Putin, for all his faults, has reached for peace—but peace was never part of the plan. The Western priesthood of war wants chaos, not compromise. And behind Putin stand far darker forces, hardliners with no patience for diplomacy, only vengeance.

Keep pushing, and the West won’t just wake the bear—they’ll summon something far worse.

According to Eurostat’s ever-reliable Stalinist-style propaganda, Europe’s renewable electricity prices have now plummeted to just three times the cost of conventional power—what a bargain!

Of course, once you strip out carbon taxes on fossil fuels and factor in the generous subsidies (like the UK’s recent top-up), the true cost of renewables is probably still over five times higher. Meanwhile, the more renewables are added, the worse their capacity factor becomes—dropping 20% since 2015. Funny how that works. Once renewables exceed 16% of the mix, capacity starts falling off a cliff. And when output regularly exceeds demand, as it already does 10% of the time in Germany, each shiny new windmill just makes the whole system less efficient.

Result? Higher unit costs, shrinking energy use, and good old-fashioned deindustrialisation. All in the name of progress.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the electricity component of the U.S. CPI rose 0.97% month-over-month in June—more than triple the headline CPI increase of 0.3%. On a year-over-year basis, electricity prices surged 5.8%, marking the third consecutive month of outpacing broad inflation.

So much for the promise of cheaper energy, while “Drill, Baby, Drill” remains a devout campaign promise.

While Donald Copperfield chanted #MAHA to seduce the #MAGA flock, and the theatrically devout ‘Anti-Vax-in-Chief’ performed his righteous duet—all in a bid for a throne in the bureaucratic inferno—the truth slithers beneath: the FDA continues to anoint mRNA concoctions with its unholy seal.

The ritual approvals march on, as promised in this grand pharmaco-theocratic farce.

https://www.vaccineadvisor.com/news/fda-fully-approves-modernas-covid-19-vaccine-for-some-young-children/

While its vaccine continues to receive tacit backing from a government increasingly weary of maintaining its election-fuelled illusions, Moderna has now joined forces with IBM.

The aim? To harness quantum computing in the development of the next generation of mRNA vaccines—an innovation hailed as progress by its architects but seen by many as yet another calculated stride in a broader agenda of population control, cloaked in the language of science and salvation.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-moderna-partnership-could-lead-181500263.html

A riveting and eye-opening exchange between Glenn Diesen and Henry Tillman reveals how China and Russia are not just participating—but leading—the next great nuclear revolution. As the West drowns in stagnation and bureaucratic decay, the East rises with relentless ambition. The emerging triumvirate of China, Russia, and India is fast reshaping the global power map, setting the stage to seize the economic throne by the dawn of the next decade. This is more than a shift—it’s the making of a new world order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSlnZGlHxig

The ‘Regime Changer In Chief’ Lindsay Graham, John McCain’s eager heir, seems hell-bent on torching ties with America’s top trading partners to fuel his war fever. He’s vowed to “crush” the economies of China, Brazil, and India for daring to buy Russian oil—because, naturally, only Western fools gutted their energy stability for Ukraine’s cause. “Keep buying that cheap Russian oil,” Graham sneered in a recent interview, “and we’ll tear your economies apart—it’s blood money, and Trump’s done playing nice.” Oh, the irony: everyone was guzzling Russian oil before 2022, but now it’s a global sin.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-senator-lindsey-graham-warns-india-china-and-brazil-over-russian-oil-crush-your-economy-putin-trump-tariffs-101753118019844.html

Graham, that sly neocon serpent, slithers into the Oval Office, hissing praises for Trump’s tariff schemes and warlike deals, exalting the president as a harbinger of chaos. Trump, once a neutral voice scolding Zelensky’s endless begging, has fallen to the neocon chant.



https://sputnikglobe.com/20250721/hit-russia-hurt-yourself---economist-slams-lindsey-graham-tariff-threats-1122468839.html

Neocon puppeteer Lindsay Graham thinks tariffs can whip China and India—whose combined GDP rivals the U.S.—into submission, as if they’re wayward colonies.

Good luck with that. These nations, wisely staying neutral, have zero reason to care about a war that’s not theirs.



https://www.newsweek.com/russia-china-india-bloc-2100179

Hey there, you beach loungers—yeah, we see you sipping those fruity drinks, and we’re totally jealous but forgiving! The Macro Butler made waves on BFM 89.9 Malaysia’s The Morning Run, diving headfirst into the juicy details of how markets are bracing for a “tarrified” twist and why the great escape from bonds to stocks is still the hottest ticket in town!

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-bfm-899-malaysia-23072025

In a world trembling under the shadow of “tarrified” markets, where government bonds fester as cursed relics to be shunned, the US Treasury dared to unleash $13 billion through a reopened 20-year auction. This infernal offering priced at a high yield of 4.935%, a sinister retreat from last month’s 4.942% and the lowest clearing yield since April’s dark days. The auction clawed through the 4.951% When-Issued rate by 1.6 basis points, marking the most malevolent Stop Through since June 2024.

In the shadowed depths of a “tarrified” realm, the bid-to-cover ratio surged with malevolent force to 2.79, up from June’s feeble 2.68, marking its most infernal peak since April 2024 and far surpassing the six-auction average of 2.62. The auction’s dark heart revealed unyielding strength: Indirects claimed a sinister 67.4%, rising from last month’s 66.7% and aligning with the recent average of 68.0%. Directs seized a voracious 21.9%, the most since March’s unholy rites, leaving Dealers to clutch a mere 10.7%, the smallest share since that same cursed month.

Oh, what a shocking triumph for the US Treasury’s latest auction—a real Wall Street fairy tale! While the bankster brigade and their loudmouth pundits keep herding their clients into the so-called "risk-free" asset of yesteryear, this bond bonanza is poised to become the riskiest bet in town once wars start popping off globally.

Bravo, geniuses!