While the world eagerly awaits the next grand move on the geopolitical chessboard, the U.S. Treasury decided to thrill markets with a $16 billion 20-year bond auction. The result? A “dramatic” high yield of 4.876%—a whole tick lower than July’s 4.935%—and a stop-through of 0.1 bps.

Riveting stuff… the kind of excitement only bond traders pretend to lose sleep over.

The bid-to-cover ratio came in at 2.54, slipping from 2.79 and marking the weakest showing since May—also below the six-auction average of 2.63. The internals hardly inspired confidence: foreign buyers pulled back, with Indirects taking just 60.6% (down from 67.4% and the lowest since February 2024). The slack was picked up by Directs, who stepped in for a record 26.5%—because nothing says “robust demand” like domestic buyers forced to mop up the leftovers.

Overall, it was a “solid” auction—if you believe the fairy tales Wall Street banksters keep spinning about the mythical risk-free world—while the only truly antifragile asset in a time of war remains PHYSICAL GOLD, not government IOUs.

Dealers were apparently too busy counting their profits elsewhere, managing to scrape together a measly 12.9%—well below their recent “average” of 14.1%.

The so-called “Peacemaker in Chief,” better known as the “Warmonger in Chief,” now sets his sights on Latin America—the last continent not yet engulfed by the West’s Malthusian agenda.

The fire of war spreads fast: Venezuela, long in Washington’s crosshairs, faces US warships circling its coast while Maduro rallies 4.5 million armed militiamen to defend the nation. Russia’s shield has held so far, but every alliance can be broken. The empire sharpens its blades, and Latin America braces for battle.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/19/americas/venezuela-maduro-militia-us-military-deployment-intl-latam

Russia has been Venezuela’s shield, but even that alliance could be bartered away, while China remains distant, focused on Taiwan and trade.

History has shown that August is a flashpoint for wars, and the timing fits: US encirclement, Israel mobilizing reserves, and Venezuela bracing for war.

Oil is the prize, and if Moscow trades Caracas for leverage with NATO, “peace talks” will merely mark the march to another battlefield.

The so-called Magnificent 7 have been worshipped as invincible AI prophets, promising growth to infinity and beyond. Yet anyone glancing at their books knows just how artificial the “Artifiicial Intelligence” really is.

So, it’s hardly shocking that a whistleblower now claims META juiced ad performance by treating shipping fees as revenue, rigging auctions, and sprinkling in secret discounts. Turns out the Maleficent 7’s magic trick is just creative accounting in a shiny AI costume.

https://www.adweek.com/media/whistleblower-alleges-meta-artificially-boosted-shops-ads-performance/

While Wall Street’s banksters—always eager accomplices in accounting fraud when it fattens their pockets—pretend to shrug off the whistleblower’s claims, investors with functioning eyesight might notice the timing. On the very day META was accused of cooking ad numbers, the company also quietly admitted its AI dreams were sputtering: after dangling $100 million signing bonuses to lure OpenAI talent, it’s now freezing hiring in its AI division. Smoke, mirrors, and now… hiring freezes.

Meta may keep silent on the complaint, but there’s rarely smoke without fire. The recent stumble of the so-called Magnificent 7 since August looks like a canary in the coal mine: come the end of 2025, investors may find more reward in the “boring” old Dow than in chasing the YOLO Magnificent 7.

Factories are back from the dead. Just a month after slipping into contraction, the S&P Manufacturing PMI rocketed from 49.8 to 53.3 — not just beating forecasts, but nuking them from orbit, hitting the highest level since May 2022. Services cooled a touch but still ran hot, leaving the composite PMI at 55.4, the best since late 2024.

In a nutshell, US manufacturing sentiment roared back in August, though tariffs kept fanning the flames of rising costs.

Big props to GoldSilver.com for highlighting The Macro Butler’s weekly dispatch—where we break down how BRICS are flipping the global trade script, hoarding gold like pros, and quietly rewriting the rules of the gold market.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/goldsilvercom-brics-gold-glory-the

Breaking news: Italian police, in a stunning display of detective work, have finally arrested Serhii K., a retired Ukrainian military officer—because apparently it took international warrants and a year for anyone to notice who might have blown up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines back in September 2022. Who could’ve seen that coming?


https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainian-suspected-of-leading-nord-stream-sabotage-arrested-in-italy-3f648838?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAhMWaxBSgzyDgM5dS4IV0xEPeBNPMfuGF_NMo4Yjd3O6rNHbdIZ-jaAIeIXzf4%3D&gaa_ts=68a750cf&gaa_sig=EcE8wOQ6YwBtc2IMj9_6CFX6WISwo-x979zuFdSbqwBYyxKj-oYP4wK0KMTFlnLEPsF2n2CfKlgVCX-I8QqZcA%3D%3D

German investigators say Serhii K. led a team of two soldiers and four civilian divers—recruited by a Ukrainian special unit—to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, sparking Europe’s largest-ever NatGas leak (equivalent to Denmark’s annual CO₂ emissions).

The operation, “Diameter,” was reportedly initiated by Ukraine Cokehead’s leader as a false-flag operation, upending Europe’s energy supply.

Meanwhile, past conspiracies blaming Russia are collapsing under new evidence. At this point, it seems the world is running out of plausible villains outside those still in power in Kiev.

Under Governor ‘Grewsom’, California isn’t just the wokest altar of the Union—it’s the full-blown Keynesian cathedral, where bureaucrats chant net-zero hymns while strangling what’s left of free enterprise.
Energy firms have already fled the temple, and now retailers are being ritually sacrificed. Bed Bath & Beyond just announced the closure of all its California stores.

“This isn’t politics—it’s reality.” Translation? The Golden State has morphed into a bureaucratic inferno: overregulated, overpriced, and engineered to devour businesses whole.

Welcome to the Keynesian Church, where prosperity is burned as an offering on the altar of ideology.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/major-retailer-says-no-california-pulls-zero-punches-outlining-economic-reality

Like the ghost of communist Europe, California has become a state where entrepreneurs aren’t so much welcomed as bled dry.

Employers face payroll taxes well above the national average, thanks to layers of “social programs” like State Disability Insurance (SDI) and the Employment Training Tax (ETT)—all piled on top of Unemployment Insurance (UI). Add a personal income tax withholding of up to 14.63%, and the message to business is clear: California doesn’t just dislike you making money, it actively punishes you for trying.

Capital doesn’t stick around to be strangled—when regulation and taxes pile up, it’s a no-brainer for corporations to pack their bags and move to states where the cost of doing business isn’t a slow bleed but a competitive advantage.

The masterminds of global progress have done it again, slapping a shiny new label, “inclusive capitalism,” on the same old ESG/DEI garbage that everyone with a functioning neuron already knows is a joke.
Apparently, prosperity now comes not from cheap energy and free markets, but from an ideological kumbaya where governments, NGOs, banks, and corporations all hold hands in one giant woke circle. It’s basically socialism with a PowerPoint presentation.

https://youtu.be/VBtjzVUu9iY

For ten years the globalists pumped out woke propaganda, only to trip over their own arrogance. Instead of obedience, they sparked resistance. Now ESG and DEI are so toxic that even Lynn Forester de Rothschild had to bury the corpse and call for a rebrand.

https://youtu.be/eZzZubPKPrw

“Stakeholder Capitalism” is just global communism rebranded in corporate jargon—profit replaced by forced “equal outcomes,” meritocracy erased, and compliance with climate, DEI, and social justice dogma made the price of entry into the global system.
Companies that resist face government pressure, while those that comply form a cartel of state-backed ESG beneficiaries. Though ESG is retreating in the US, it thrives in the EU, Canada, and Australia where governments enforce it. The globalists have lost the information war, but they continue pushing from the shadows, advancing their agenda through corporations and NGOs. The only way to end this farce is to dismantle the structures that sustain their influence.

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/07/29/esg-mid-year-update-who-still-cares-and-why-you-should/