Going AWOL earns five to twelve years—unless the state needs bodies more than prisoners. Ukraine is burning through a generation while Europe watches, knowing the script will soon be reused. Training lasts two weeks, compliance is enforced by “busification,” and rotation is a luxury no longer available. With belief gone and manpower exhausted, soldiers are fed into the front line as expendable inputs.
Four years on, peace is absent, escalation is policy, and destruction is demanded by elites safely observing from glass towers while fear does the fighting below.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 Broken currency is never an accident—it’s the first domino in regime change, and history always rhymes. 🌐

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Channelling the European chapter of the Don-Roe Doctrine, Tariff Man has announced that, starting February 1, a 10% tariff will be slapped on some European countries still insisting that Greenland belongs to “Eurostan.” Failure to negotiate its transformation into America’s 51st state will trigger an upgrade to a deluxe 25% tariff—because nothing says diplomacy like a price hike and a real-estate fantasy.

Still auditioning for a Central Banker-in-Chief, Donald Copperfield turned instead to his favourite stage: Truth Social—this time picking a public fight with JPMorgan and ‘Dimon CEO’. He threatened to sue the bank, claiming it “debanked” him after January 6, while also denying a Wall Street Journal report that he once floated Dimon for Fed chair (which Dimon apparently heard as a joke—accurately).

Dimon, for his part, made things crystal clear: Fed Chair? Absolutely not. No way. No how. Treasury? “I’d take the call.” JPMorgan responded with the usual corporate calm, insisting accounts shouldn’t be closed over politics and applauding efforts to curb “political debanking.”

Meanwhile, Donald Copperfield still won’t name who replaces ‘Subpoenaed Powell’ in May, Dimon keeps defending Fed independence, and the whole saga confirms one thing: the magician hasn’t picked his next puppet yet—but the smoke machines are already on full blast.

In Orwellian fashion, yesterday’s enemy has become today’s indispensable friend—and citizens are reminded that this has always been the plan.

‘Marx Carney,’ Canada’s Prime Minister, did not campaign on fixing Canada so much as warning Canadians about the existential menace of Donald Copperfield and, conveniently, the rest of the planet.

Like all well-trained Davos marionettes, convictions are swapped as easily as a bartender flips cocktails.
In 2025, just before the election, China was the paramount security threat; today, a “strategic partnership” with Beijing is suddenly perfectly aligned with the New World Order.

https://x.com/i/status/2012196685481476445

The Macro Butler made a quick pit stop on Asharq Bloomberg TV on a Sunday evening to explain how the world’s ongoing geopolitical chaos is likely to trip over oil supply just as demand refuses to cooperate with the bears—shaking up a perfectly explosive cocktail for prices.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-e1c

🚨 Important Announcement for The Macro Butler Community 🚨

Starting January 24th, The Macro Butler Substack enters a new chapter: it will become member-only

Look for the details here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/important-announcement-for-the-macro

In the latest episode of the slow-motion unmaking of the United States, Minnesota’s governor 'Tampon Tim' —once an aspirant to higher office in the imagined United Socialist Republic—floated the idea of deploying the state’s National Guard against federal agents, solemnly insisting this was all in the name of “community.” Declaring Minnesota done with Washington’s help, he framed a warning order as peacekeeping while carefully reminding everyone the troops were trained and ready.



https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2009006244493681131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2009006244493681131%7Ctwgr%5E026cc325b8282e50ecdc6a3c3324a48e96265732%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.armstrongeconomics.com%2Finternational-news%2Fpolitics%2Ftim-walz-calls-for-an-insurrection%2F

In response to Minnesota’s flirtation with “state sovereignty,” the Peace-Maker-in-Chief took to Truth Social to remind everyone how peace is enforced in modern democracies: obey, or else. If local officials fail to restrain what he labeled “professional agitators” and allow federal agents to be heckled while doing their duty, the INSURRECTION ACT will be unsheathed—because nothing says unity like threatening troop deployments against your own states. In Orwellian tradition, this was framed not as escalation, but as order; not as force, but as patriotism; and certainly not as a warning—just a friendly heads-up from the Ministry of Law and Order.

In a nutshell, as the USA flirts with secession, Washington clutches the 1807 Insurrection Act, and “law & order” means troops at home. Governors vow defiance, presidents hold the switch. Chaos rises, unity falls. Big Brother calls it stability.

While America rested for a long weekend, the Middle Kingdom met its 5% target yet moved more slowly with each step—factories marched on, shoppers hesitated, and markets barely nodded, reminding us that, as Confucius might say, hitting the target is not the same as finding balance when demand walks behind growth.

Consumer spending and investment remain soft as jobs and home prices sag, yet factories hum on, carried by exporters who now contribute a third of growth—the most since the 1990s—thanks to a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus. Beijing offers gentle help but avoids a stimulus feast, leaving supply strong and demand weak. Nominal growth slows, the population shrinks, and births fall to record lows. As Confucius might smile: when the village grows fewer children and sells more goods to strangers, prosperity stands—yet balance quietly slips out the back door.

In a nutshell, China hit its 5% target on the strength of exports and a $1.2 trillion surplus, but with weak consumers, shrinking demographics, and slowing nominal growth, the Middle Kingdom reminds us that meeting the number is easier than restoring balance.

Japan has barely finished printing the business cards for its latest prime minister before she’s calling a snap election, promising the holy trinity of modern politics—more spending, lower taxes, and a shiny new security strategy. Takaichi vows to “stake her future” on giving voters free lunches via tax cuts, sprinkling defense spending up to 2% of GDP, and adding another chunky slab to Japan’s debt pile, all while insisting inflation is someone else’s fault (preferably the BOJ’s).

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-takaichi-dissolve-parliament-friday-call-national-election-2026-01-19/

With no surprise, markets smell a bond crisis, voters hear “free stuff,” and Tokyo once again pretends arithmetic is a Western concept—proving that in Japanese politics the bond market is always the weakest link in the room. As the endgame of Japan’s monetary experiment creeps closer, overnight yields hit fresh records and the long end jumped 10 bps, right on cue as Japan is the new banana empire and investors looks who will swallow the full menu of bond-market poison: more spending, fewer taxes, and a turbocharged defense build-up.

In short, confidence is voted on, debt is expanded, and yields do the only honest thing left—rise.

After shaking hands with the latest Nobel-anointed globalist understudy for Venezuela’s presidency, the self-styled Peace Maker-in-Chief finally dropped the dove and picked up the drumstick. In a letter that read less like diplomacy and more like a casting call for Warmonger-in-Chief, Donald Copperfield unveiled the grand illusion: peace is optional, force is policy, and Greenland is apparently next in line for statehood—because nothing says restraint like annexation with a smile.