As financial history books may one day record, Blue Owl Capital is auditioning for the role that New Century Financial played in the subprime debacle — the canary in the private credit coal mine. Having previously allowed a generous 17% quarterly redemption rate — itself a flashing warning sign — the private credit giant has now done what all gated funds eventually do when the cockroaches multiply: slammed the door entirely. Investors in OBDC II will no longer be able to redeem shares quarterly; instead, they will receive their money back through "periodic distributions" — which is financial industry speak for "whenever we manage to sell something."

https://www.reuters.com/business/blue-owl-sells-14-bln-debt-funds-pension-insurance-investors-2026-02-18/

To demonstrate its portfolio's magnificent quality, Blue Owl sold $1.4 billion in loans at 99.7 cents on the dollar — a transaction co-founder Craig Packer heroically described as "putting our money where our mouth is," apparently unaware that selling assets under duress at a haircut is traditionally not considered a flex. The buyers, reassuringly, included North American pension funds and insurance companies — meaning that retail investors fleeing a sinking ship have successfully passed the lifejacket to retirees. The canary, it appears, is not singing.

When the macro storm clouds gather, BFM 89.9 knows who to call.

Summoned for emergency interview duty, The Macro Butler went on air to deliver an inconvenient macro cocktail: higher oil prices and rising unemployment are quietly forming the tag team most likely to derail the Fed’s rate-cutting ambitions in 2026, reignite USD strength, and leave US retailers — caught between a consumer paying more and spending less — looking decidedly icy investments.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-bfm-899-malaysia-20022026

Fresh from his signing ceremony in Davos — where the world's most dedicated globalists gather annually to discuss the common people's problems from the comfort of a Swiss ski resort — ‘The Manipulator In Chief’ convened the Board of Peace for its first board meeting in Washington, an institution whose relationship with actual peace is best described as complicated. As in Munich, the agenda conspicuously avoided the word "peace" in any operational sense, focusing instead on the more pressing question of precisely how many days remain before the Middle East is once again democratized at gunpoint. The answer, delivered with the casual confidence of a man who has done this before: 10 to 15 days.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Cz6_aCaJDoM

Because nothing says "spreading democracy" quite like another carefully orchestrated regime change, brought to you by the same Washington establishment that has been spreading democracy across the Middle East for the past three decades only to promote the Zionist American Imperialistic agenda.

In the paradise islands of Hawaii — still smouldering from the deadliest American wildfire in a century — the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness has concluded that what residents truly need is not better disaster management, but a more efficient legal framework for quarantining them without consent and entering their homes without permission.

HB2236 and SB2151, advancing cheerfully through both chambers, would grant the governor sole authority to declare emergencies based on perceived threats, quarantine individuals merely "believed to have been exposed," enter private property without consent, suspend inconvenient laws beyond the emergency period, seize private infrastructure, and confiscate firearms — all justified, naturally, by another 'Plandemic'.



https://legiscan.com/HI/bill/HB2236/2026

The Senate version helpfully expands the definition of "disaster" to include disease outbreaks and bioterrorism — a timely addition given that Washington is simultaneously pumping $5.5 billion into pandemic preparedness while the FBI, CIA, and German intelligence have confirmed the last pandemic was likely laboratory-engineered. Lawmakers call this a "clarification" of emergency authority — which is precisely what a government pre-assembling a control apparatus would say.

https://legiscan.com/HI/bill/SB2151/2026

In summary: Hawaii is not improvising authoritarianism — it is legislating it in advance, with the careful foresight of a government that prefers its emergency powers pre-assembled and ready for immediate deployment. The bills would permanently codify the authority to quarantine residents on suspicion alone, confiscate firearms, suspend inconvenient laws, and seize private infrastructure — all activated at the sole discretion of a governor judging threats that need not yet exist.
This arrives, entirely coincidentally, as the federal government pumps billions into pandemic preparedness, conducts gain-of-function experiments on influenza viruses, and builds rapid vaccine deployment infrastructure — while Congress, the FBI, the CIA, and German intelligence have quietly confirmed that the last pandemic was likely engineered in a laboratory.
The overlap is, we are assured, merely administrative. The same institutional establishment that may have created the pathogen is now codifying the legal architecture to govern the population when the next one arrives.

https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/trump-finances-the-next-pandemic?utm_source=publication-search

Like a Swiss clock that has quietly lost its mind, the Fed's favourite inflation gauge refused to cooperate in December. Core PCE rose 0.4% MoM — hotter than the expected 0.3% — pushing the YoY reading to 3.0%, the highest since April 2025 and comfortably above the Fed's 2% target, which at this point is less a policy objective and more a fond memory. Headline PCE matched the heat at 0.4% MoM, lifting the annual reading to 2.9% — the highest since March 2024. SuperCore PCE, that most stubborn of inflation measures, printed +3.3% YoY, having barely moved in a year, suggesting that services inflation has no intention of going anywhere.

Beneath the headline surprise, the consumer is quietly reshaping spending habits in ways that tell a more nuanced story. Real goods spending contracted 0.5%, with tariff-exposed categories leading the retreat — recreational goods down 1.8%, clothing off 0.9%, and furnishings declining 0.8%, suggesting that consumers are already voting with their wallets against imported discretionary items. Services picked up the slack, accelerating to 0.3% from November's tepid 0.1%, driven by healthcare and a remarkable 2.5% jump in household utilities — apparently Americans are prioritising staying warm over staying fashionable. The soft spot was food services and accommodations, which contracted 0.7%, hinting that even the dinner-out habit is beginning to fray.

The income picture is less encouraging than the headline suggests. Personal income grew 0.3% in December, but nearly half of that increase came from transfer payments rather than earned wages — with employee compensation accounting for only a third of aggregate income growth. More troubling is the savings rate, which fell to 3.6% — the lowest since late 2022 — as spending persistently outpaced income throughout the second half of 2025. Unlike the post-pandemic period, consumers can no longer draw on excess savings to bridge the gap, and with labour demand softening, the spending outlook is increasingly dependent on an improvement in the jobs market that is far from guaranteed.

In a nutshell, inflation refuses to retreat, consumers are trading steaks for utility bills, and the savings cushion is gone — the Fed's 2% target is now less a policy objective and more a work of historical fiction.

In a ruling that Confucius would have appreciated for its elegant confirmation of the obvious, the American Supreme Court has determined that a law authorizing the president to "regulate, direct, and compel" importation does not — in fact — authorize him to impose tariffs, because nowhere in the text does the word "tariff" appear. The administration, which had collected nearly $99 billion in tariff revenue this fiscal year alone, argued that regulating imports during a national emergency implicitly includes taxing them — a creative interpretation that multiple courts found unconstitutional and the Supreme Court ultimately declined to rescue.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-1287/363533/20250618160616885_24-1287response.pdf

As for ‘Tariff Man’ — the Master would remind us that the wise ruler does not mourn a door that closes, for other doors remain open: tariff authority under alternative statutes survives intact, and the great tariff framework shall endure, merely wearing different legal clothing. Donald Copperfield, never one to accept a legal setback gracefully, announced plans to impose a new 10% global tariff under alternative authority within approximately fifteen minutes of the ruling — suggesting the administration had packed a spare set of tariffs just in case.

In a ruling that the bond market received with all the enthusiasm of a surprise tax audit, the Supreme Court's decision to strike down President's sweeping tariffs sent 30-year Treasury yields up 6 basis points to 4.75% and the dollar promptly lower — because eliminating $1 trillion in projected revenue from an already $1.8 trillion deficit tends to concentrate minds. The irony, of course, is exquisite: the tariffs that were supposedly strangling the economy were also quietly keeping the deficit from becoming even more catastrophic. ‘Uncle Scrooge Bessent’ assured markets that revenue would remain "virtually unchanged," while analysts quietly noted that $170 billion in collected tariffs may need to be refunded and short-term T-bill issuance will likely surge to plug the gap. As Confucius might observe: "The ruler who loses one tariff simply finds another — but the bond market, unlike the Supreme Court, keeps score."

In a nutshell, the American Supreme Court told 'Tariff Man' his legal clothing was unconstitutional — so he changed outfits in fifteen minutes, while the bond market quietly sent everyone the bill.

While Donald Copperfield raided the constitutional lost-and-found for a replacement trade weapon, American consumers delivered a sentiment reading so underwhelming it barely registered a pulse — 56.6 in February, up from 56.4 in January, missing even the modest estimate of 57.3. The K-shaped economy remains on full display: wealthier Americans cheered their stock portfolios while the 46% who told surveyors that high prices are actively destroying their finances remained decidedly less festive. One-year inflation expectations fell to 3.4% — encouraging, until one remembers that 'Tariff Man' announced a replacement tariff approximately fifteen minutes after the Supreme Court struck down the last ones.

In a nutshell, American consumer sentiment is flatlining, the K-shaped economy is alive and well, and Donald Copperfield replaced his unconstitutional tariffs by another weapon of mass distraction before the ink on the Supreme Court ruling was dry.

🤵 The Macro Butler Weekly Digest 🤵

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