Financial market historian and author. Former FinTech CEO, hedge fund CIO and Managing Director at Deutsche and Lehman. https://nitter.cf/t.co/U9nHwnGDIE
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Joined April 2012
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International monetary regime change doesn't happen overnight, but the push to introduce #CBDCs just might catalyse a general global remonetisation of #gold. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps not. Listen here for the full story: youtube.com/watch?v=xhnOJ_qL…
In light of today's #MicrosoftOutage I thought it appropriate to re-share the following #TheMachineStops
theamphorareport.substack.co…
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If you have yet to read The Machine Stops by EM Forster, now is the time to do so.
If you think the Microsoft Outlook outage is pretty normal, you are definitely very wrong.
Read this carefully
Most people have no idea what’s coming…
No hackers caused the Microsoft 365 collapse.
Microsoft’s own automated health-check system glitched and started killing healthy servers.
That triggered a global chain-reaction crash across 450 million commercial seats.
For over 9 hours, their emergency fixes failed as rebooted servers died the second traffic returned.
Telehealth clinics, payrolls, and government offices froze overnight.
Even OpenAI and Anthropic workplace AI tools went dark at the exact same time.
Now look at what’s coming next.
Autonomous AI agents are being wired directly into banking, power grids, and global supply chains.
All running on the same 3 centralized cloud monopolies.
When an automated script malfunctions next time, it won't just delay your emails.
It will freeze payment networks, lock hospitals out of patient data, and halt deliveries in seconds.
We handed critical infrastructure to self-running cloud systems with zero human-speed fail safes.
Yesterday wasn't a tech glitch.
It was a preview.
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John Butler retweeted
John on Russia: mass an army in northeastern Ukraine and you can be in Moscow in days.
Once a state decides something is existential, any cost is justified. Russia will not stop, period.
Is that why Ukraine was never winnable?
John Butler retweeted
John: by the third century Rome was losing more battles than it won, and the decline went exponential from there.
His claim is the US is now on the wrong side of that ratio too.
Is America tracking Rome, or is this pattern-matching?
John Butler retweeted
John: clever diplomacy could have normalized relations with Iran, with security guarantees from Turkey and Pakistan.
Instead the US chose a military solution that has failed, and public opinion heads toward 90% against.
Could a deal really have worked?
John Butler retweeted
John: Iran could turn the Gulf into a lifeless desert overnight if it wanted to.
But he argues it doesn't want to. Pakistan, Saudi and Turkey all sent officials to Tehran recently, a sign Iran prefers a diplomatic outcome with its neighbors.
Do you buy that read?
John Butler retweeted
"You're seeing a shift in the demand function for gold vis à vis dollars." — @ButlerGoldRevo
John Butler retweeted
John: failure to control the Gulf is the shot heard round the world.
His claim is that everyone now sees the US is no longer the single top dog everywhere, and behavior changes accordingly.
Overstated, or already happening?
John Butler retweeted
Is it game over or more to come? And if there’s more, what comes next ? 👇
Is Iran the Suez moment that ends US hegemony?
John says yes: the battlefield is Iran, and the US has already retreated from it. Boots on the ground are off the table, public opinion is lost in months not years. Iran only has to survive to win.
Brent pushes back: how is this different from Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam? Every hegemon is always at war on the edge of empire. Too early to call it.
Which side are you on?
Full episode...
John Butler retweeted
John: if the US can't control the Gulf and Red Sea littorals against Yemenis, how does it hold the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait?
Brent keeps asking for the evidence and says he doesn't find it.
Who's reading this right?
John Butler retweeted
It just so happens that @ButlerGoldRevo and I touched on this exact possibility on the latest @TATakeAwayShow which will be released tomorrow.
Stay tuned...! 👇
The U.S. has just announced the total isolation of Iran, in addition to the naval blockade that has been in place against Iranian ports for months.
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper has established Task Force "Iron Gate," a team of around 20 civilian and military personnel based in Tampa, Florida.
Their task is to prevent Iran from using land routes and the Caspian Sea to transport advanced weapons, dual-use technology, and sanctioned materials.
John Butler retweeted
Does the government borrow first and then spend, or spend first and borrow never?
That single question splits the whole debate. Brent says both the free market model and the MMT model can actually work, just not equally well.
Which comes first in your view?
John Butler retweeted
With no gold and no reserves, there is only one realistic way to pay off your debt: devalue against the rest of the world and export your way out.
Butler ties it to the chronic US current account and trade deficit.
Is devaluation the only exit?
Yes, but not 'typically'. Try always instead.
History is clear on this point. Financial repression always gives way in the end, however unpleasant things might be in the interim.
Societies always find ways to rebuild on sounder monetary foundations. Always.
A system dominated by financial repression typically leads to purchasing power being "stolen" over a number of years.
Many hard money advocates (whom I am sympathetic to) argue a revaluation of gold & return to gold standard would eliminate this problem.
Except that doing this now would lead to many losing most of purchasing power all at one time.
So...what is the argument for cutting someone's head off with a guillotine rather than slowly boiling them alive?
Remember, remember the fifth of November...
thedaughteroftime.substack.c… #BonfireNight #GuyFawkesNight
John Butler retweeted
If the central bank just funds deficits at below market rates to hit a GDP target, then drop the charade.
Butler's warning: that puts you on a slippery slope to central planning beyond even what we saw after 2008.
Is honesty about the system worth that risk?
John Butler retweeted
The forgotten near-depression of 1920.
The market crashed hard and Warren Harding, instead of bailing everyone out, slashed the budget and let deflation run. What followed was the Roaring Twenties.
Is this the playbook we abandoned?
John Butler retweeted
Check out my chat with @ButlerGoldRevo about the Polish Constitutional Crisis and the ramifications for Polish gold and the zloty - plus why Aesopian traditions may be making a comeback. Link to full vid in reply.
John Butler retweeted
I was reminded today of the odd public exchange that occurred between Nawrocki and Tusk on Sept 18. I wrote about it in my daily Blind Spot linkfest email at the time...(link in self reply post, and have put it outside the paywall).
Given what's happened since, I think it's fair to speculate that my hunch that they were drawing on Poland's Aesopian communication tradition (mowa ezopowa) might have some substance.
I suspect most geopolitical commentators are unaware of this tradition. Yet, given the path we're going down, it's probably worth familiarising yourself with the concept.
I will be discussing all this and more (notably the implications of the constitutional crisis for the zloty and Poland's gold holdings) at 1pm UK time today with @ButlerGoldRevo.
Join me for the session here:
open.substack.com/live-strea…
John Butler retweeted
Are we currently in MMT purgatory?
And if so, where do we go from here?
Check out the debate and write-up below. 👇
@ButlerGoldRevo
@TATakeAwayShow
transatlantictakeaway.com/p/…
