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.

After finally admitting he is the Warmonger-in-Chief rather than the Peace Maker-in-Chief of his own marketing brochure, Donald Copperfield unveiled phase two of his real estate-driven “peace plan” for the Gaza Riviera—to be announced, naturally, from the globalist capital of Davos. Peace, it turns out, now comes with a board, a badge, and a $1 billion price tag for permanent membership—because nothing secures harmony quite like luxury geopolitics with an entry fee.

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-palestinians-board-peace-hamas-5f902ea2b1158f0a806c247d139ff62f

Beyond the usual imperial cheerleaders, even Russia has been invited to join the Gaza “Board of Peace,” exposing what was never about defence but always about control. NATO long ago outgrew its Cold War alibi and became a power machine that requires enemies to justify careers, budgets, and relevance—hence why every peace plan is sabotaged by those who profit most from permanent war.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/kremlin-says-trump-invited-putin-join-board-peace-2026-01-19/

What the history books politely mumble—and the media prefers to forget—is that Russia was once invited to join NATO in the 1990s, an offer that looked less like a handshake and more like a velvet-gloved surrender. Inside Moscow it detonated backlash, as Yeltsin-on-a-tank marked not a Hollywood finale, but the moment Russia realized the Cold War was being “won” behind closed doors. The West had a brief chance to end the saga gracefully; instead, it chose expansion—because a unipolar world pays better, keeps Europe dependent, and requires Russia to stay permanently cast as the villain. Decades later, the same architects act shocked that Russia refuses to audition for the role of obedient extra.

The so-called “Board of Peace” is less a peace plan than a glossy crisis-management brochure for an alliance trapped by its own debts, demographics, and decades of fiscal malpractice. Europe can’t pay, can’t grow, and can’t reform—so war becomes the preferred distraction, complete with emergency powers and a fresh excuse to pass the bill to someone else. Donald Copperfield, treating alliances like contracts rather than charities, simply makes the accounting explicit: pay for permanence or rotate out. NATO was never meant to be a welfare system, yet it survived the Cold War by inventing new threats to justify old budgets. Peace, inconveniently, would force voters to ask where the money went—so conflict remains the most reliable line item.

The underlying backdrop is an accelerating sovereign debt crisis: governments are losing the ability to fund themselves credibly and predictably. As confidence erodes, states historically revert to coercive tools—war, capital controls, surveillance, and emergency powers—to preserve authority and delay fiscal reckoning, which explains the rising global hostility. This dynamic transcends any single leader or election; it reflects the recurring cycle of governance when trust collapses. A genuinely new peace architecture would therefore threaten entrenched interests built around perpetual conflict, making it deeply unpopular with the establishment. Even the mere discussion of integrating Russia into a broader security framework would expose a central fiction of the past three decades—that expansion was about defence rather than dominance—and highlight that a real opportunity for peace was deliberately rejected in the 1990s because it conflicted with prevailing incentives.