I Was Briefed This Morning: On the Matter of Banks and Oil

I was briefed this morning on the matter of international finance and oil. The briefing was interrupted — twice — by a sparrow on the windowsill outside the war room. I want to be clear: I noted the sparrow, I did not act on the sparrow, and I have instructed the staff to file a separate sparrow brief by Thursday. The banking briefing resumed. I listened. I relayed what I understood back to the deputy of strategic listening, who confirmed that I had understood most of it, and two things correctly.

Here is what I understood. There were banks. The banks were connected to oil. The oil was connected to money that was going places the treasury would prefer it did not go. I asked how the money was travelling. The staff said: offshore institutions. I asked if offshore meant in the water. The staff said not literally. I said I would need a moment. The moment was four minutes, and involved the window again. I am not made of stone.

Now. The reason this ends up on my desk — and I have a desk now, the staff insisted — is that energy is not abstract. Energy is whether the furnace starts. It is whether the drive to work costs a week's groceries or a month's worth. When the channels that move oil money become tangled up in intermediaries and offshore accounts and lenders that do not technically have addresses, the price that suffers is not a number in a briefing. It is the number on the pump. That number, in real terms, is measured in steak. A spike of this kind costs roughly a sirloin per tank. I find that clarifying.

Consistent with my position on the Steak-Backed Economy: energy costs translate directly into ribeye-denominated hardship for working families, and any monetary disruption that moves the pump price by more than half a sirloin triggers an automatic review. I have ordered the staff to begin designing the review form. It will have four questions. One of them will be about whether the household has a dog, because I have found that this is always relevant and I am tired of pretending otherwise.

My orders, issued at the close of the briefing and acknowledged by at least two staff members who were not checking their phones: one, continue monitoring. Two, prepare the follow-up brief in language that assumes I will be interrupted. Three, do not schedule another briefing during sparrow hours. The staff asked what sparrow hours were. I said they would know them when they saw them. We adjourned. I went to the window. The sparrow was gone. I have escalated this to the Squirrel Question team, on the grounds that it is the same general category of concern.