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 🤵

🌐 Yields Mobilize Capital Allocation the way YMCA once mobilized a generation — they set the rhythm of power; if you want to know what’s next, follow the yield. 🌐

Read more here: https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/yields-mobilize-capital-allocation

Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/yields-mobilize-capital-allocation-0b4

Having absorbed a Supreme Court ruling striking down his IEEPA tariffs with all the grace of a man told his favourite weapon is unconstitutional, ‘Tariff Man’ took to Truth Social to announce that he had completed a "thorough, detailed, and complete review" of the "ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision" — a review that apparently took less than 24 hours — and would immediately raise his new global tariff from 10% to 15%, the maximum permitted under the 1974 Trade Act. In other words: The Supremes took away his bazooka, so he reached for the next largest weapon in the drawer before the ink was dry. The delicious irony, naturally, is that for some countries, the new 15% baseline is actually higher than the tariffs that were just struck down — meaning the court ruling that was supposed to bring relief has, in practice, delivered the opposite.

The new tariff applies for 150 days without congressional approval, after which the administration will need either legislative support — a tall order given bipartisan opposition — or alternative legal authorities that will take months to prepare. The left is presumably already filing the paperwork.

As Confucius might observe: "The ruler who loses one tariff before breakfast and imposes a larger one before lunch has not lost the trade war — he has merely changed uniforms."

In “Eurostan,” where sovereign debt is apparently a growth industry, the ECB has thoughtfully decided to make its crisis-era repo facility, EUREP, permanent and global—just in case liquidity “unexpectedly” evaporates. Starting Q3 2026, central banks can park up to €50 billion in euro collateral at the ECB for ready cash, a reassuring move that would be entirely unnecessary if everything were fine. With Germany and France borrowing enthusiastically, long-end yields drifting upward, and the euro still aspiring to dollar status from a comfortable second place, the message seems clear: when demand for euro bonds wobbles, expand the backstop and call it stability. What began as an emergency umbrella now looks more like a standing invitation to absorb an ever-growing pile of sovereign debt—because nothing says confidence in a currency quite like preparing the lifeboats in advance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260214~076e09a6cc.en.html

While Donald Copperfield waves the Iranian bogeyman like a shiny Weapon of Mass Distraction, the real plot twist is happening in the leveraged loan market — and this one doesn’t require special effects. As default fears creep in, investors are suddenly remembering that “high yield” occasionally comes with… high risk. The biggest buyers of leveraged loans — the great alchemists of finance who transform debt into collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) — are feeling the squeeze, especially in the magical realm of CLO equity, where dividends are now being trimmed faster than a hedge fund bonus in a downturn.

Following the latest gathering of guardians of “peace” in the Bavarian mountains—where security was preserved by promising more of it through force—China unveiled its tailless J-36, a benevolent flying command centre that ascends higher, sees farther, and shoots sooner, all in the name of harmonious balance. Said to cruise above 65,000 feet and armed with missiles that travel twice as far as their Western equivalents, the aircraft has inspired urgent reflections in Washington on the importance of maintaining superiority by redefining it. While the F-22 remains an excellent platform for yesterday’s dominance, the J-36 is presented as a system for tomorrow’s managed skies—where altitude is clarity, range is stability, and whoever detects first preserves peace. Naturally, officials insist there is no cause for alarm, merely a renewed commitment to ensuring that all sides remain equally secure—some, of course, more equally than others.

High above the glittering skyline of the Lion City, The Macro Butler sat down with Arigato Investors to decode the ultimate question: what is gold, why does it keep shining when the world gets wobbly, and why the financial center of gravity may be quietly packing its bags for Asia — with Hong Kong, China ready to host the afterparty in the next decade.

So grab your popcorn, polish those gold bars, and enjoy the show — because this isn’t just an interview, it’s a front-row seat to the next chapter of global finance.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-arigato-investor-04022026