The Chair of the Federal Reserve walked down the hall towards the Oval Office, eyes and hair bright. Under one arm, she carried documents showing all the economic trends and projections her staff had charted under her direction, and a one-page piece of paper detailing her analysis and recommendations. The other arm ended, as is usual, with a hand, and this hand ended, as was usual with her, in a small bag containing cat treats.
Inside the Oval Office, Lex could time her arrival not by his schedule but by the cats' demeanor. Alecto and Tisiphone, the two tabbies, curled together in a circle, limbs wrapped around one another. Meggie lay on her back, seized his hand with her paws in a way that made it very clear that submission or laceration were his two choices, and started to suck on his little finger. No more than two seconds passed before Martha Kent came in, so Lex didn't even have time to issue his usual sardonic comments on their acting skills.
As she approached the desk, Lex helplessly gestured his apology that he couldn't rise to greet her. She kissed him on the cheek and rubbed a hand along Meggie's blissful belly, pursing her lips in amusement at the rumbling purr. "Lex, I still don't know why you call those sweet cats the Furies," she commented yet again.
"I suppose not." He wondered if she realized that she was in fact completing hostage negotiations when she gave Meggie one of the treats and the silvery longhair released his hand. Martha thought that Meggie was remembering how Lex bottle-fed her. Lex knew differently.
The other two stretched, sniffed one another's noses, and turned figure eights around her ankles, purring and rubbing their chins against her in near-ecstasy, and they got their treats as well. Martha tickled them under their chins as Lex read the memo.
"Down one-half of one percent."
"It's paying off, Lex. Keeping the interest rates low is encouraging domestic infrastructure investments. It's also significantly slowing debt purchases, so we don't have to be as concerned about any group playing havoc with federal cash reserves." That had been one possibility for economic attacks against national interests, driven by previous administrations' reckless deficit spending. Vast, deliberate fluctuations in the amount of debt the government carried through its bonds could make it almost impossible to regulate interest rates and control inflation, causing investor insecurity, which usually led to wide-spread layoffs, which further disrupted the economy. "Yes, you're a good kitty," she crooned as Alecto jumped into her lap, rested her paws on Martha's shoulders, and administered a swift lick to her cheek.
Meggie emitted a sweet-toned, "Mew?" and Martha reached across the desk to stroke her, as well. "Such a sweet kitten, aren't you? Who's my little girl?"
"What kind of support do you think we'll get for the layoff provisions in the next sessions?" It was out of Martha's official purview but Lex relied on her finely-honed sense of economic and political quid pro quo as a balance to his own.
"Hard to tell yet, but it's still worth trying." She looked at him fondly. He was going against major business interests with his efforts to get layoff riders attached to supplying government contracts. If a fiscally healthy company, he argued, put its workers on the streets, their actions typically ended up costing government money, and this should be taken into account in their bidding for government contracts. "You're doing the right thing, Lex," she said, firmly.
At least she hadn't, as she'd once done in an absent-minded moment, said that he was a good kitty. Afterwards, the cats had looked like they were snickering for weeks.
Inside the Oval Office, Lex could time her arrival not by his schedule but by the cats' demeanor. Alecto and Tisiphone, the two tabbies, curled together in a circle, limbs wrapped around one another. Meggie lay on her back, seized his hand with her paws in a way that made it very clear that submission or laceration were his two choices, and started to suck on his little finger. No more than two seconds passed before Martha Kent came in, so Lex didn't even have time to issue his usual sardonic comments on their acting skills.
As she approached the desk, Lex helplessly gestured his apology that he couldn't rise to greet her. She kissed him on the cheek and rubbed a hand along Meggie's blissful belly, pursing her lips in amusement at the rumbling purr. "Lex, I still don't know why you call those sweet cats the Furies," she commented yet again.
"I suppose not." He wondered if she realized that she was in fact completing hostage negotiations when she gave Meggie one of the treats and the silvery longhair released his hand. Martha thought that Meggie was remembering how Lex bottle-fed her. Lex knew differently.
The other two stretched, sniffed one another's noses, and turned figure eights around her ankles, purring and rubbing their chins against her in near-ecstasy, and they got their treats as well. Martha tickled them under their chins as Lex read the memo.
"Down one-half of one percent."
"It's paying off, Lex. Keeping the interest rates low is encouraging domestic infrastructure investments. It's also significantly slowing debt purchases, so we don't have to be as concerned about any group playing havoc with federal cash reserves." That had been one possibility for economic attacks against national interests, driven by previous administrations' reckless deficit spending. Vast, deliberate fluctuations in the amount of debt the government carried through its bonds could make it almost impossible to regulate interest rates and control inflation, causing investor insecurity, which usually led to wide-spread layoffs, which further disrupted the economy. "Yes, you're a good kitty," she crooned as Alecto jumped into her lap, rested her paws on Martha's shoulders, and administered a swift lick to her cheek.
Meggie emitted a sweet-toned, "Mew?" and Martha reached across the desk to stroke her, as well. "Such a sweet kitten, aren't you? Who's my little girl?"
"What kind of support do you think we'll get for the layoff provisions in the next sessions?" It was out of Martha's official purview but Lex relied on her finely-honed sense of economic and political quid pro quo as a balance to his own.
"Hard to tell yet, but it's still worth trying." She looked at him fondly. He was going against major business interests with his efforts to get layoff riders attached to supplying government contracts. If a fiscally healthy company, he argued, put its workers on the streets, their actions typically ended up costing government money, and this should be taken into account in their bidding for government contracts. "You're doing the right thing, Lex," she said, firmly.
At least she hadn't, as she'd once done in an absent-minded moment, said that he was a good kitty. Afterwards, the cats had looked like they were snickering for weeks.