Europe

Ministers in Germany and Europe are demanding that more authoritarian powers are granted to government’s across the continent following the Brussels terrorist attack – saying that Europe needs its own version of the Patriot Act.  Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that security across Europe needs tightening up and intelligence agencies, police, and the military need to be given more power to combat terrorism. “The most important preventative is information. We must exchange the information that exists”, de Maizière told broadcaster ZDF.

Submitted by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Just over three months after the authorities lifted the four-decade ban on crude oil exports, the U.S. has actually exported less this year than it did over the same period the year before, when the ban was still in place.

Excerpted from Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin,

The 1987 stock market crash raised concerns for the dangers associated with mounting U.S. “twin deficits.” Fiscal and trade deficits were reflective of poor economic management. Credit excesses – certainly including excessive government borrowings – were stimulating demand that was reflected in expanding U.S. trade and Current Account Deficits. Concerns dissipated with the revival of the bull market. These days we’re confronting the consequences of 30-plus years of mismanagement.

On the surface, today's 2Y auction was not too bad: pricing at a 0.877% high yield, this stopped 0.5 bps through the 0.882% When Issued.

That was as good as it got, because the internals were a disaster: the Bid to Cover plunged from 2.907 to just 2.578, the lowest BTC since Dec 2008 and clearly well below the 12TTM average of 3.17. Almost as if investors are no longer too sure in the short end... which makes sense: neither is the Fed, at least until it too unleashes NIRP.

Francois-Xavier de Donnea, former Minister-President of the Brussels region, former mayor of the city and Belgian politician, discusses security in and around Brussels following the terrorist attacks and how to contain radicalism in the European capital. He believes there is a need to work more on an international basis in Europe, saying some kind of European FBI should be established and suggests having a single police and intelligence organisation, working for the whole of the European Union.