The Macro Butler, ever the dutiful sage, returned to Asharq Bloomberg TV to dispense what the ancient masters would recognize as self-evident wisdom: peace, in the presence of active warfare, remains a decorative concept best admired from a distance. The superior investor, therefore, prepares for the worst, hopes for the best, and quietly accumulates oil exposure as the crude of the Middle East finds itself detained behind what history will record as the world’s most expensive toll booth.

As Confucius might have said ‘The man who controls the gate controls the road’. Iran, it appears, has read the classics.

The interview has been translated into Arabic.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-asharq-bloomberg-tv-289

After spreading illusionary hope of peace, the Ministry of Peace announces, with its customary confidence, that the war which was won decisively in the first hour continues to require winning. The Warmonger-in-Chief, having declared total victory over an adversary that is still launching missiles, has taken to Truth Social — that hallowed organ of official reality — to inform the public that Iran is negotiating in bad faith, a conclusion reached after American strikes eliminated the previous delegation Iran had dispatched to Geneva for talks before the start of ‘Epstein Fury’. The Ministry wishes to clarify that bombing a negotiating party does not constitute bad faith. It constitutes winning.

The next phase of the operation, which does not yet officially exist, will involve deploying ground forces to Persia — a development that the Ministry prefers to describe as boots on the ground rather than young Americans sent to die in a country their Commander-in-Chief has already defeated every day since day o the military excursion. The public was once again reminded that the war is going extremely well. It has always been going extremely well. Doubting this is, of course, negotiating in bad faith.

The mystery of gold's precipitous decline since Operation Epic F**k-Up commenced has been partially solved, and the culprit is, appropriately, a country that has spent a decade loudly de-dollarizing only to quietly liquidate $8 billion worth of gold the moment things got uncomfortable. Turkey's central bank sold and swapped approximately 60 tons of bullion in two weeks — more than 10% of its total holdings — to defend a lira that is, despite the best efforts of state-run banks and creative accounting, not enjoying the war. The irony is exquisite: Ankara spent years aggressively accumulating gold to reduce its dependence on the US dollar and has now pledged that same gold as collateral to borrow US dollars. The de-dollarisation strategy, one notes, has been temporarily suspended for dollar-denominated emergencies.

Turkey's predicament is, structurally, a preview of what awaits any energy-importing nation caught between $100 oil, a weakening currency, and 31.5% inflation. Officials have responded with the traditional toolkit — liquidity tightening, currency intervention, and hoping nobody notices — while sitting on an estimated $30 billion of gold reserves at the Bank of England, which JPMorgan has helpfully identified as available for intervention "without logistical constraints." In other words, there is more where that came from. The broader message, which markets are beginning to absorb, is that the war in Iran is not merely an energy shock — it is a balance-of-payments stress test for every country that imports oil and exports optimism.

As peace negotiations performed their customary role of theatrical distraction for the second act of the Persian Gulf excursion, the Empire quietly passed around the hat for another $44 billion — this time in 7-year paper. The auction cleared at a high yield of 4.255%, a brisk leap from February's 3.790% and the highest since January 2025, while tailing the When Issued by 0.8 basis points — the biggest tail since August 2024.

The internals maintained the week's proud tradition of disappointment. The bid-to-cover fell to 2.432 from 2.498 — the lowest since September 2025. Indirects dropped to 62.56%, the lowest since December 2025. Dealers rose to 12.41%, the highest since November, absorbing what foreigners and directs declined to take with their usual absence of enthusiasm. Three auctions this week, three sets of ugly internals, three polite messages from the bond market that the Empire's credit remains acceptable — at an increasingly non-trivial premium. A slow puncture, as always, until it isn't.

Another ugly auction, completing a week of Treasury issuance that will not be remembered fondly by anyone whose job involves selling American debt. Foreign demand was not catastrophic — merely anaemic, which in the current context passes for reassuring.

The trajectory, however, is unambiguous: more and more investors are quietly arriving at the conclusion that financing a holy war with no exit strategy, no peace negotiations, and no functioning fiscal restraint requires compensation that the 4.255% yield on offer only partially provides.

The asset that once enjoyed the theological status of risk-free is being gradually, politely, and quite expensively repriced as precisely the opposite — the riskiest altar at which the Empire is currently sacrificing its creditors.

The Ministry of Victory announces, with its customary confidence, that Operation Epic F**k-Up has now completed its first month of decisive, uninterrupted success. The Iranian military, which was obliterated in the first hour, has responded to its own destruction by rendering thirteen American military bases across the Gulf "all but uninhabitable" — a development the Pentagon neglected to mention for three weeks, satellite imagery firms agreed to not photograph, and the New York Times has only now been permitted to describe as "a war that is much harder to prosecute." The Ministry wishes to clarify that this is not a setback. It is remote work.

https://archive.ph/e7yOL#selection-835.0-849.174

Some 40,000 American troops, dispersed as far as Europe by Iran's supposedly non-existent ballistic missile capability, are now conducting the war from hotels and civilian office complexes — a tactical innovation the IRGC has thoughtfully responded to by inviting local Muslims to report on American "hiding places" and clarifying that hotels sheltering US personnel will henceforth be considered military targets. The troops are reminded that this is not a retreat. It is flexible working arrangements. The Pentagon further notes that while Bagram and Baghdad were occasionally inconvenienced by suicide bombings, neither the Taliban nor Iraqi militias possessed the ballistic missile arsenal that Iran — which has been obliterated — apparently still operates with considerable enthusiasm.

The Ministry reports that everything is going extremely well. It has always been going extremely well. The hotels, meanwhile, are fully booked.