DL Open Thread: Monday, March 9, 2026

Oil Prices Soar Due To Trump’s War.  Who could possibly have foreseen this?:

Oil prices spiked near $120 per barrel before falling back Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading near $106 per barrel, up 14%, before the opening bell.

Oil prices have surged as the war, now in its second week, ensnares countries and places that are critical to the production and movement of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf.

Roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil — about 20% of the world’s oil — typically are shipped every day through the Strait of Hormuz, according to independent research firm Rystad Energy. The threat of Iranian missile and drone attacks has all but stopped tankers carrying oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iran from traveling through the strait, which is bordered in the north by Iran.

Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE have cut oil production as storage tanks fill due to the reduced ability to export crude. Iran, Israel and the United States also have attacked oil and gas facilities since the war started, worsening supply concerns.

This ‘Oopsie’ From Trump Won’t Help. Trump failed to refill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve before starting his war, meaning just what you think it does.

Trump Causing A ‘Stagflation’ Crisis?:

But one thing is clear: The economic and social effects of this conflict are going to be far-reaching, and also well beyond the scope that was initially laid out by Trump. As the war is prolonged, oil and gas infrastructure is being bombed, with production either halted or the resources redirected to storage. Fuel storage infrastructure is now rapidly approaching capacity. Cuts to production, if not full shutdowns, are going to have to occur within the next several days. Global energy prices will skyrocket, causing massive ripple effects throughout various industries.

Fossil fuel–intensive sectors, such as automobiles, semiconductors, manufacturing, aviation, and agriculture, will all face severe supply shocks as energy costs and other inputs jump in price. Bonds and financial assets will also come under increasedscrutiny, with the likely effect being a credit crunch that limits liquidity and investment. The sorts of conditions that tend to lead to job losses will flow from these events, alongside other forms of economic insecurity. Akin to the stagnation crisis of the 1970s, the economy will face inflationary pressures and job losses concurrently, delivering a crisis that lingers far beyond the individual acts of the war.

Iran’s military strategy is now centered around attrition and disruption. Through drawn-out and unrelenting attacks, Iran is attempting to degrade both munition supplies and energy resources and cause strain through a thousand cuts. Security expert Kelly Greico at the D.C.-based Stimson Center recently estimated that for every $1 Iran spends on drones, the UAE spends “roughly $20–28 shooting them down.” The asymmetry in costs here is rather stark, and when replicated regionally, the level of anxiety emerging from America’s partners does indeed make sense.

Iranian leaders don’t need to win militarily; they just have to inflict enough damage and buy time until supply pressures and shocks become too substantial. They can’t out-bomb the U.S., but they can cause pain to allies and markets that will eventually force Trump to the negotiating table. The U.S. and Israel now need to figure out how to help themselves and regional allies absorb these shocks—and the financial and political turmoil they’re causing.

The Absolute Corruption Of This Administration–ProPublica connects the dots:

Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States.

But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection.

At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.

Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project, which is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Feinberg filed paperwork saying he divested from Cerberus and its related businesses. But his government ethics records contain an unusual clause: He is allowed to continue contracting with the company for tax compliance and accounting services as well as health care coverage, a financial relationship that documents show could continue indefinitely.

Feinberg’s financial statements and ethics agreement are part of a trove of nearly 3,200 disclosure records that ProPublica is making public today. The disclosures, which can be viewed in a searchable online tool, detail the finances of more than 1,500 federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Records for Trump and Vice President JD Vance are also included.

On his first day back in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that required his appointees to comply with an ethics pledge. The pledge barred them from working on issues related to their former lobbying topics or clients for two years. Weeks later, Trump fired 17 inspectors general charged with investigating fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest across the federal government. Around the same time, he removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, the agency that oversees ethics compliance throughout the executive branch. The office is currently without a head or a chief of staff.

No Office Of Government Ethics, no ethics required.

Yep, We Killed Those Schoolkids.  No matter what Trump says.

Bill Seeks To Address Hospital Healthcare Costs:

Weeks after Delaware ended a bruising fight with the state’s biggest hospital systems, a new bill introduced Thursday threatens to bring back the battle over whether the state should regulate how hospitals set their prices.

Senate Bill 1, filed ahead of lawmakers’ return this week for the remainder of this year’s legislative session, quickly drew the ire of Delaware’s powerful and litigious hospital apparatus.

Introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend (D-Newark/Glasgow), the bill is, on the surface, an attempt to bolster primary care in Delaware and better compensate providers proactively working to improve Delawareans’ health outcomes.

But under the bill’s hood, it is a referendum on hospital pricing in a state that has some of the highest costs in the country. If passed as is, SB 1 could deal a major blow to hospitals’ bottom lines.

Within the bill are changes that would regulate the rate at which insurers carrying plans for state employees and some commercial plans regulated by the Department of Insurance can reimburse hospitals for covered services.

Health care providers generally earn the bulk of their revenues by negotiating with insurers who represent large groups of patients. The negotiations  determine how much money the insurer will pay for the  health care services, and in turn what costs will later be passed onto patients.

By setting a reimbursement ceiling, the state could rein in insurance payments to large-scale hospital systems while also providing more negotiating power to smaller providers, like private medical practices, to seek higher rates than they may have otherwise been able to secure in the past.

Brian Frazee, CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association, a trade group that represents the state’s hospitals, said his organization has “major concerns” with Senate Bill 1. He homed in on the rate-setting, saying it would cut hospital funding and “severely” limit resources.

“Put simply, it threatens health care quality and access in our state,” Frazee said. “We have been doing the real work in good faith to improve access and develop value-based solutions that lower costs without sacrificing quality and access.”

Frazee’s lamentations would be just a tad more believable if Christiana Care didn’t litigate any threat to its exorbitant pricing, but that’s just me.

This reminds me–the General Assembly is back in session tomorrow.

What do you want to talk about?