I’m quite possibly the only macro-market documentarian who doesn’t give a damn what Stan Druckenmiller has to say.

Druckenmiller’s an idol to probably three out of four grown men who stare at Bloomberg terminals for a living, which I find sad and emasculating. Idolization is something children do with athletes. You should grow out of it.

Even setting that aside, I find Stan intolerably pompous. And not in the funny sort of way that Jeff Gundlach’s pompous.

However, I do generally take note of what Druckenmiller says when he goes out of his way to make a specific point (note the emphasis; I don’t listen to his infrequent, wide-ranging interviews), because he’s a good communicator, which I can appreciate as a communicator myself.

Early this week, Druckenmiller published an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal excoriating Scott Bessent for bastardizing Treasury buybacks. It’s a good Op-Ed, even as no one steeped in the debate will learn anything new.

“Routine operations aren’t announced off-cycle, at double size, on the heels of the long bond’s hitting a two-decade high, with a signal that they can grow without limit,” Druckenmiller sneered, of Bessent’s gambit. “Judge an intervention by what it responds to. This one responded to a price, not to plumbing, which is exactly how the market read it, and why the effect evaporated within a day.”

Ouch. I bet that stung. I mean, Bessent’s heard some version of that over and over again since last week, but to hear it from Druckenmiller, and to see it spelled out in such concisely terse terms, was probably hard to take.

Druckenmiller also accused Bessent of sacrificing Treasury’s reputation at the altar of the political cycle. “Debt management that even appears to follow the political calendar spends the one asset that took two centuries to accumulate: The credibility of the Treasury market,” he wrote. “That asset doesn’t regain its value so easily.”

Crucially, Druckenmiller — widely considered the greatest trader of all time by an adult fan club that’d qualify as a personality cult if Stan weren’t such a dud in the personality department — warned Bessent off the idea of tapping the TGA to fund the buybacks.

I assume most readers are aware of this, but just in case: Bessent floated a trial balloon to CNBC on Monday, when the outlet cited two sources close to Treasury in suggesting the department might tap its checking account for the buyback operations rather than fund them with Bill issuance.

CNBC, plainly reading straight from the script someone at Treasury handed them, wrote that,

Reducing the TGA would mean the government would have less cash on hand in the event of a new debt ceiling impasse, [b]ut the latest estimates are that a new limit won’t be hit until the winter of next year and perhaps not until the early spring. That would give time to build it back up if needed. Meanwhile, bond yields could be influenced by even a small use of the TGA or even just the recognition that the Treasury would use it to buy government bonds. It also would limit any concern, also voiced by some bond market participants, that the Fed could be asked to help the Treasury in such operations.

See?! Easy-peasy! Fixed it! Only not. There’s no free lunch, and tapping the TGA’s arguably a worse idea than issuing Bills to fund the buybacks.

“This suggestion is interesting, particularly on the back of recent discussions which entertain deploying TGA funds into repo when spreads are attractive and cash in the TGA is excessive [but] how these two policies would coexist is an open question,” BNY Mellon’s John Velis wrote Tuesday.

“It further implies that if Treasury is really committed to keeping the TGA around $850 billion through the end of the year, then T-bill issuance will ultimately fund the buybacks,” Velis continued. “We view this development as dollar negative, not least because financing buybacks from the TGA would read to markets as fiscal expansion pushing the dollar lower.”

But the real danger for Bessent of going the TGA route — and of this whole misadventure in the first place — is that he’ll end up at war with markets, which know that both his capacity and willingness to sustain the fight have limits. That’s a terrible position to be in, and Druckenmiller cautioned Bessent to avoid it.

“Once markets believe Treasury is defending a price, every rise in yields becomes a test of official resolve, and the operations must grow to survive the tests,” Stan wrote, of the TGA idea.

As discussed at some length here late last week, if Bessent keeps at this and fails (i.e., if yields keep rising), he’s going to end up with a mini-crisis on his hands, and in case you haven’t noticed, gold and Bitcoin are front-running that possibility.

“This ‘light’ version of Operation Twist could result in further credibility concerns, especially if the action doesn’t materially alter yield levels,” Velis said. “Indeed, if the operation doesn’t achieve its aim — which we’re told is liquidity support, but we infer is something more ambitious — the debasement trade could accelerate.”

JonesTrading’s Mike O’Rourke offered the most caustic assessment of all, as is his wont. “Have we reached a point where the Treasury Department needs to make a statement defending the bond market on a daily basis?” he wondered, eliciting a out-loud chuckle from yours truly. I kept reading, ignoring for a moment the splendidly affable lawyer with whom I’d struck up a conversation at Luminosa, in Asheville.

“Watching Treasury’s defense of bonds rejuvenate the ‘debasement trade,’ sending Bitcoin and precious metals soaring, we can’t help but consider the reflexive potential,” O’Rourke wrote, in the same note, suggesting the “investor perceptions driving Bitcoin, gold and silver” could end up boomeranging back and influencing Treasurys and/or the dollar.

“We would chalk it up to social media herding among the debasement trade advocates, but Druckenmiller calling [Bessent’s buybacks] ‘a small dose of QE’ carries significant weight,” O’Rourke went on. “If we wind up with a crisis, it will be one of Treasury’s own creation.”