Courtney Brown

Yes, absolutely.

And I was talking with Amos Hochstein, who is an advisor to President Biden on economic issues, energy issues, and he said, the market is pricing in risk at this moment, but they haven't priced in the kind of disruption that we're getting, that we really haven't seen something like this in an extremely...

long period of time.

You know, I think about the move that we saw in the equity markets today.

I think it probably stems from the fact that you've had a president who has felt that he has a lot of determinism over the course of this conflict.

He thinks that he can set a deadline.

He thinks that he can end this war when he wants to end this war.

We even saw that pronouncement earlier this week.

He was going to extend a pause on attacking power plants.

Lo, Israel went ahead and did that today.

I think it's an indication that there are limits to what he's able to do in terms of shaping the trajectory of this conflict.

And while he's been somewhat successful, I think, kind of managing the equity markets over the course of the first few weeks of this conflict, there's a reaction function that he has been unable to manage, and that's oil prices and gas prices.

And that's only gone in one direction since the start of this war.

And so you're right.

It's trickling across the economy.

There are, of course, the first-order effects.

We see those at the gas pump, if you're pumping gas or diesel.

But then there are all these other effects that I think everyone is now really having to reckon with, the fact that transportation costs are going to go up, capital costs for businesses are going to go up, fertilizer is going to be more expensive.

Consumer spending is bound to be impacted by all of this, and we're going to see kind of broader supply chain issues.

So I think that there is, if not a reckoning at this point, a recognition of the fact that this duration variable is really something that's going to be squishier and squishier as all of this goes on, and that that's bound to have this adverse effect on markets and on all of us.