Taking a chart of the weekly VIX-X (so that just the down bars are visible for clarity's sake)  and overlaying it on a weekly chart of SPX (with just the upstrokes visible) going back to 08 crash lows (around the time when the PPT took over management of all paper assets) it becomes pretty clear that their use of VIX as a pumping tool is wearing out to a point where they get almost nothing at all out of it.  Looks like the PPT tried to crush VIX in a last desperate act to push markets higher lol