In today’s empire of illusions, even foreign policy seems to run on casino credit and campaign donations.

The eternal dance of dragons and tulips continues. Act Two in the China-West boardroom saga: China bars Nexperia from exporting chips from its sprawling 80,000 m² Guangdong factory—not just to the Netherlands, but all of Europe. The Dutch claim heroically to protect sensitive tech, yet the wisdom of Confucius whispers: “He who blocks the river finds the flood redirected.” Guangdong can now finish its chips at home, sidestepping the Dutch entirely, while Europe risks jobs and shortages as demand surges with technological leaps. Meanwhile, China quietly prepares to test and expand on its own soil—proving that in the grand game of chips, patience and scale often outwit pomp and decree.

https://nltimes.nl/2025/10/14/china-imposes-export-ban-dutch-intervention-chipmaker-nexperia

Newly surfaced documents reveal that the U.S. leaned hard on the Dutch to replace Nexperia’s CEO—or face the dreaded entity list. With the Commerce Department now treating all Chinese-owned subsidiaries as extensions of the parent, the pressure was unmistakable: “The CEO remains Chinese—problematic,” the meeting notes sniff. Dutch courts nodded along, approving the seizure, balancing both U.S. influence and their own wariness of Beijing. Europe frets over Russia and suspects China of fuelling Putin’s ambitions, turning economic policy into a battlefield.

In this modern Confucian parable: the free market becomes cannon fodder, while geopolitical manoeuvres masquerade as corporate governance.

https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2025:2752&showbutton=true&keyword=nexperia&idx=1

As the U.S. government stumbles into week three of its shutdown, the swamp’s latest drama centers on whether to keep juicing Obamacare subsidies past 2025 or let the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” boot 10 million Americans off insurance. But behind the curtain, it’s less about healthcare—and more about who gets to play doctor with the national budget.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/10/02/what-are-democrats-demanding-to-reopen-the-government

The Blue, who ran the U.S. Empire into the ground between 2020 and 2024, are now begging the White House to undo the “pocket rescission” Donald Copperfield pulled off in August 2025—one of the few executive tricks that actually deserved a standing ovation.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/08/historic-pocket-rescission-package-eliminates-woke-weaponized-and-wasteful-spending/

The Blue crew refuses to reopen the government unless $5 billion in taxpayer “aid” gets shipped abroad—because apparently, Washington can’t function without funding the world’s problems first. $1.8 billion should flow through USAID and its favorite NGOs (also known as retirement plans for politicians), $900 million should go to global health bureaucrats, and $850 million funds “disaster relief” in war zones no one can find on a map. Add $700 million for failed peacekeeping missions, $600 million to teach others about corruption (from the masters themselves), and $440 million for the usual UN alphabet soup. The fine print? $25 million for Honduras’ “climate resiliency,” $5 million for Balkan LGBTQ grants, and $2 million for feminist programs in Africa. Apparently, the U.S. government can’t reopen until everyone else gets paid first.

https://youtu.be/Bn6r9K9FzI0

The Blue can’t seem to grasp why the Red won’t sign off on another $1.5 trillion spending spree—just a casual 25% boost to an already bloated budget.

Yet they parade around the cameras, pretending the GOP is crushing the “middle-class dream.” In reality, these same politicians already buried the middle class years ago and are now digging up what’s left of the U.S. economy—all while padding their own pockets.

With the government still snoozing through what’s shaping up to be the longest shutdown in U.S. history, Wall Street turned its lonely eyes to the Beige Book — the Fed’s equivalent of watching paint dry, and the paint’s still wet. Economic activity was “little changed,” with a mix of districts reporting either slight growth, no change, or mild softening — thrilling stuff. Consumer spending dipped, manufacturing yawned, and AI is quietly taking people’s jobs while everyone pretends it’s fine. Prices rose “modestly” (translation: not great, but we’ll survive), and the Fed politely noted that wages are ticking up now that illegal labour has thinned out — a rare win for actual workers.

In short, despite the doom merchants screaming “recession,” the Beige Book reads more like a half-empty latte: tepid, overpriced, but still standing.

The Macro Butler was back at Piggo’s Trading Desk for another round of financial mischief — dissecting the chaos brewing in U.S. regional banks and how the Fed might reach for the liquidity firehose (again).

We also uncorked why Oil Is Well, and why the smart money is rotating from energy consumers to producers — all while gold polishes its throne on the road to $6,000 by the end of 2026.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-piggos-trading-desk-1b8

In a rare plot twist of competence, Donald Copperfield did something useful: he sent the National Guard to clean up the Democrat-run “sanctuary cities,” where chaos had become a form of governance. The result? Crime rates nosedived faster than Sleepy Joe’s approval ratings — D.C. saw violent crime drop 50%, burglaries 48%, homicides 57%, and auto thefts 36%. Citizens finally feel safe walking their own streets again. Naturally, the media is howling about “military dictatorship,” but Orwell would note — it’s only tyranny when chaos replaces order.

https://www.wisn.com/article/washington-dc-crime-national-guard-numbers/66041799

Funny how history plays tricks — ‘The Barack’, the self-styled humanitarian, deported more people than Donald Copperfield ever did, back when borders still meant something. The Democrats’ sudden concern for “freedom” isn’t about liberty at all — it’s about control over a restless crowd they themselves destabilized.

They now insist the police are enough, conveniently forgetting their own party led the “defund the police” crusade and sparked nationwide chaos.

Meanwhile, Americans are simply relieved to see their streets safe again. There’s something chilling about how “folks” like The Barack seem to prefer America in ruins — as long as they’re the ones ruling the ashes.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

🌐 Bitcoin, hailed as “digital gold,” is in reality the ‘Block Chain’ designed to trap investors in a digital gulag. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/bitcoin-the-gold-of-digital-fools

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https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/bitcoin-the-gold-of-digital-fools-638

After Fitch’s slap, France got another love letter from S&P Global — a downgrade from AA– to A+, because apparently “budget uncertainty remains elevated.” Translation: Paris can’t stop spending. Investors are now watching the political farce of yet another “Le-Corniaud” government, where socialists flirt with power just long enough to keep the lights on until the next episode of French Politics: The Comedy Continues.

With two downgrades in barely a month, France has now joined Spain and Portugal in the A+ club — six steps above junk, but sinking fast. The government survives by handing out deficits like candy, shelving pension reform, and praying Moody’s doesn’t show up on October 24 with more bad news.

France’s 39-year-old twice lamed duck prime minister has nobly decided to give up Article 49.3 — the constitutional cheat code every government used to push budgets through without a vote. Admirable, perhaps, but it now leaves him trying to herd a parliament that can’t agree on lunch, let alone spending cuts. The goal is to trim the deficit to 4.7% of GDP next year from 5.4%, though lawmakers have plenty of “latitude” to negotiate it wider — because nothing says fiscal discipline like flexibility on deficits. S&P, ever the realist, expects the shortfall to barely budge to 5.3% and warns that France is going through its worst political chaos since 1958. Even fresh elections wouldn’t guarantee anything but more noise and no credible reform plan. Finance Minister insists the downgrade is simply “a call to be serious” — which, in Parisian fiscal terms, means debating austerity over croissants until year-end and hoping the bond market doesn’t lose its patience first.

In a nutshell, France just got another downgrade love letter as Paris keeps spending like a socialist on vacation, proving once again that fiscal discipline in France is mostly a theoretical concept discussed over croissants.

As the CCP rolls out its annual plenum red carpet, China’s consumer engine keeps sputtering along. Retail sales tiptoe around 4 trillion yuan a month—up slightly from 4.2 trillion-yuan last month, setting a record for September… if you squint hard enough.

Growth? Barely keeping pace with a toddler on a tricycle, far below pre-pandemic highs or the economy’s own lofty ambitions.

The tale of China’s two-speed economy rolls on: consumer spending slows while industrial output keeps chugging. The shocker? Fixed-asset investment tumbled 0.5% through the first nine months of the year—the worst performance since 2020—highlighting that even the industrial engine can’t fully offset flagging investment.

In a nutshell, China’s economy slams the brakes on consumers and investment, leaving only industrial output to keep the two-speed engine sputtering toward “Make China Great Again.”