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/

Donald Copperfield never misses a trick—one moment blasting the Fed for not cutting fast enough, the next boasting about America’s “booming” economy. Yet the real magic act isn’t in the Central Banker In Chief’s rates, it’s in Washington’s binge spending and dollar weaponization, which keep long-term yields sky-high.

Analysts confidently predicted another housing slump—only to be shocked when existing home sales gasp rose 2% in July. Sure, the “rebound” still leaves sales stuck at 15-year lows and frozen in place for three years.

The median home price slipped slightly from June’s record $432,700 to $422,400, marking a modest 0.2% YoY gain and the 25th consecutive month of year-over-year increases.

Affordability may be “slightly improving,” as wage growth is outpacing home price increase, and buyers have more choices. Sure. Meanwhile, only 2% of sales are foreclosures, half the country is seeing price declines… and yet the median home still costs more than a new build. Oh, and buyers are clearly thrilled: just 21% of homes sold above list, down from 28%. Market healthy? You bet—if by “healthy” you mean painfully overpriced.

Silver lining: with buyers finally saying “enough” on sky-high prices, unsold inventory climbed to its highest level since May 2020. Translation: sellers better start slashing prices—or risk sitting on their homes like expensive paperweights.

The reality: with 87% of mortgage holders locked into rates below today’s levels—and two-thirds paying 2 percentage points less—moving is about as appealing as voluntarily stepping into a pit of lava.

Bees, the fragile pillars of our food supply, pollinate a third of everything we eat—yet America’s colonies are collapsing at staggering rates.

Ravaged by the vampiric Varroa mite, now resistant to the last line of defence, beekeepers are watching hives vanish by the millions. The result is catastrophic: more than 60% of colonies lost in less than a year, billions in economic damage, and a looming threat to global food security. Without bees, ecosystems unravel, harvests collapse, and the very foundation of human survival begins to crack.

Experts are sounding the alarm: without swift action, the collapse of bee colonies could send food costs soaring, disrupt crop production, and wipe out commercial beekeeping operations altogether. In a stark warning this spring, the Honey Bee Health Coalition revealed that by January 2025, U.S. beekeepers were reporting the largest honey bee die-off ever recorded—an unprecedented crisis that threatens both agriculture and the food supply itself.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/650342507631075013d25a2c/t/67eed76409b99b1e0706b8e8/1743705957725/04_03_2025%2BUpdated%2BColony%2BLoss%2BPR.pdf

Bee losses are reaching catastrophic levels, with some keepers losing up to 80% of their hives—an almost impossible setback to recover from. The Varroa mite, a parasite likened to a plate-sized tick on a bee’s chest, spreads lethal viruses and has grown resistant to standard pesticides. Alternatives exist, but heat, timing, and limited effectiveness make them unreliable. The crisis is so severe that Texas has launched its first bee breeding center to engineer mite-fighting queens. Yet with pesticides, poor nutrition, and disease compounding the threat, the survival of bees—and the global food chain they underpin—is now in peril.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1472076/

In a nutshell, America’s bees are dying in record numbers, driven by a supercharged parasite, leaving crops, ecosystems, and the global food supply on the brink of collapse.