In the latest episode of “Who Still Buys This Stuff?”, the Treasury managed to unload $22 billion of 30-year paper. The yield edged up to 4.773%—because apparently investors demanded just a tiny bit more pain than in November’s auction. And in a rare plot twist, the auction actually stopped through the When-Issued yield by a whopping 0.1 bps. Yes, truly groundbreaking—only the second time in six months that buyers pretended to be enthusiastic.

The bid-to-cover ticked up to 2.365%—a heroic improvement from November’s 2.295% and barely above the six-auction average, so everyone can pretend demand is “strong.” Indirects took 65.4%, down from the November spike but still the best foreign showing since January once you remove that one magical outlier. Directs grabbed their usual ~23%, and dealers were stuck with just 11.2%—apparently even they’re getting tired of absorbing Washington’s endless IOUs.

In short, it was another “strong” auction—solid demand, smooth execution, and just enough optimism to reassure those still hypnotized by Wall Street pundits. Never mind that long-end yields keep flashing warning signs, or that under the enlightened leadership of the Educated Yet Idiots, the former “risk-free” asset has quietly transformed into the riskiest bet in the coming Trump-era stagflation. After all, why face reality when you can keep buying the fairy tale?

A day after the Central Banker-in-Chief announced its latest round of QE—sorry, not QE… sorry again, “Reserve Management Purchases”—the New York Fed dutifully released its POMO—sorry, not POMO—schedule. But because they’re buying T-bills instead of longer maturities, we’re told it’s definitely not QE… by some truly Olympic-liquidity management operation. In any cases, between Dec. 12 and Jan. 14, the Fed will scoop up $40 billion in T-bills for “reserve management,” including $8.2 billion this Friday, plus another $14.4 billion from agency reinvestments. Totally not QE, of course—just the Fed doing “non-QE” things for “non-QE” reasons.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/domestic-market-operations/monetary-policy-implementation/treasury-securities/treasury-securities-operational-details#monthly-details

There’s a real risk that the Fed will have to keep its “not-QE” purchases running hot for longer, since the current pace of RMPs only restores about $80 billion of liquidity by mid-April—barely half of the $150 billion BofA estimates is needed for the “ideal outcome.” And if bill investors start feeling “adversely affected,” the Fed will simply migrate into coupons out to three years—because nothing says totally not QE like expanding into longer-dated Treasuries to avoid market disruption. Good luck to the pro-Fed commentariat trying to spin that away.

In a nutshell, the Fed’s latest “not-QE” stunt is just QE in a fake mustache—$40B in bill buys, more to come, and likely a quiet slide into longer maturities once markets squeal.

The great AI round-tripping circus rolls on, and now Mickey Mouse has waddled into the ring. Disney and OpenAI have patched up their video-rights spat and inked a three-year deal that lets Sora churn out fan-prompted clips starring 200+ Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters—basically the entire childhood IP vault. In return, Disney will shovel $1 billion into OpenAI and snag some equity warrants, because nothing says “innovation” like paying a fortune to license back your own characters.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openai-disney-sora-ai-videos-rcna248617

In short: Uncle Scrooge hands OpenAI a billion dollars so he can hopefully make back… a billion dollars. The AI bubble’s round-tripping game lives on.

This isn’t some forgotten outpost in the Sahel or one of the “third countries” the Educated Yet Idiots in charge of Europe love to lecture.
No—this is Brussels: the proud capital of Eurostan’s bureaucratic Keynesian empire and the home base of the North Atlantic Terror Organization, better known as NATO.

Europe’s downfall isn’t a mystery; it’s the predictable result of letting incompetent Keynesian visionaries run the show while waving in waves of unchecked immigration that have turned the EU’s capital—and much of its periphery—into sprawling shantytowns where the rule of law died quietly, unreported.

To anyone still residing in Eurostan: the hourglass is nearly empty… time to leave before the gate slams shut.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX16UxlT0fU

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

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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/