Venezuela was named the giver on the page while its president and former first lady are held in a Brooklyn jail and the recipient seizes its oil revenues.

…(cont) On September 7 the wire filed that Iran, on Sunday, had threatened a "more painful" response to U.S. strikes on three Iranian oil tankers; CBS reported the airstrikes sank three ships in the Gulf. The same day the president called the Iran conflict "small potatoes." The same day, AAA's ledger: the national average for regular gasoline set a record for Labor Day. The Washington Examiner printed $4.15 a gallon. ABC printed $4.14. One cent apart, and both say highest ever for the holiday. Also the same day, the Times reported drivers using "special techniques to maximize their miles per gallon" — the savings on the household side are being produced by the household.

On September 8 oil prices rose again, after Iran said it would impose an "exclusion zone" outside the Strait of Hormuz.

On September 11 the Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, went on television to say the administration is tapping Venezuela's 300 billion barrels of oil reserves to grow supply and cut prices. Fox's headline for that: a 30-minute military operation "unlocked Venezuela oil windfall for US buyers." Note the recipient in that sentence. It is not the holiday traveler.

October 27: the president renewed his call for Venezuela to become a "51st state," after touting the barrels. October 28: he said Venezuela gave him one million barrels as a gift, and that he is giving the oil to "you people," while the United States seizes Venezuela's oil revenues.

So, the table. On the receiving side the booking is 35 percent of another country's oil reserves, entered in the Pentagon's own column. On the giving side the named party is the country whose president and former first lady are held in a Brooklyn jail — the rally outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on September 3 was the ninth month in a row — and whose revenues the United States is seizing. That is not a gift column. That is a receivable somebody relabeled.

Now, whose column gaps like that turn up in. On September 22 DoorDash agreed to pay New York City $131 million, $115 million of it going directly to workers the city found it had short-changed on tips; the mayor called it the largest settlement for food delivery workers ever secured in American municipal history. The New York Post's headline on the deal: "We screwed up." On October 29 the same company announced it is buying Instacart for $17 billion. The money was not missing. It was sitting on the acquisition line.

Same arithmetic in Hendersonville on October 19, where the Vice President announced $858 million in Transportation Department disaster money for people still rebuilding from Helene — at a campaign rally for a Senate nominee, supporters bused in. Two years after the storm, Grist reported on October 28, the recovery is slow enough that voters are frustrated.

Money exists. $858 million. $131 million. $17 billion. And $4.15 at the pump, which is the one figure the household is permitted to carry.