The balance of trade and security became a battle that we really lost to trade years ago. Customs has become an honor system where the industry controls it, and periodically the government comes in and monitors.

We did expect a sharp deterioration of the trade balance. The real story on the trade numbers is that the import surge reflects very solid domestic demand.

Any upside in the greenback today may be mitigated by tomorrow's (Friday's) trade balance figures, which are the key release of the week. If they show a larger-than-expected deficit for June, dollar selling will dominate the theme in the currency markets.

The nation that buys commands, the nation that sells serves; it is necessary to balance trade in order to ensure freedom; the country that wants to die sells only to one country , and the country that wants to survive sells to more than one.

When Homeland Security came, everything became terrorism. There's no balance.

The issue is what is the balance between security and our Constitutional rights to assemble? We think the city of Boston has gone way overboard in the name of security.