RANDOM NOTES

With nearly all eyes set on Fed Chair Janet Yellen's press conference, we thought we'd just spin off some random notes to entertain ourselves until the uproar about what the Fed might do next settles.

Alone those lines, however, we'll just make the following point to reinforce another point about central bankers that we made earlier. In today's FT James Mackintosh discusses in his The Short View column the possible threat of rising inflation and the jump, 0.4%, in month-to-month prices, double what most economists were expecting.

Though as he correctly points out officials should not base their decisions on month-to-month data, he notes there are other signs of rising inflation, ones the doves apparently choose to ignore.

Ms Yellen only has to point to the slowing housing market or stagnant-after-inflation pay to justify keeping money easy. Usually for doves, the Fed prefers an alternative inflation measure which is usually lower than consumer prices.  

So here's the point put in a question: Which do you care most about, what you're paying or some trumped up cockeyed, economic measure central bankers cite?  Let us know what you decide....

--Massive buybacks lent support to stocks and corporate earnings, may be waning

--Surplus of MBAs. What do they do again?
--Technology creates lots of jobs. Hooray!
--Technology kills tons of jobs. Huh?
--Professionals pressured to perform that can create thundering herd
--Retail investors twice burned in a decade remain shy.

--Identify who the cheerleaders are, can be dangerous.
--Market breadth sucks.
--No structural support beneath EU periphery bonds.
--After more than five years of cheapest money world has ever seen and inflated home and paper asset
prices nobody suspects anything.
--New villain in town, shadow banks...check your wallet.

--Cheap money buoys big M&A deals.
--Total U.S. Student loan debt $1.2 trillion.
--U.S govt. spending 42% of GDP.
--Gold doesn't yield anything and neither does euro, dollar, yen.
-Too optimistic about earnings and growth most in general?

--Unemployment in Spain high double digits and Spanish sovereign debt safer than U.S's?
--Entire scheme about avoiding any pain at all cost oath of  global central bankers and politicians and banker friends.
--Utilities and gold sector leaders?
--Greek bank now attractive investments?
--IRS loses two years of e-mails....guess whose?

--U. S. Department of Justice bully runs amok. Will Citigroup grow a pair?
--Oil bulls say $140 possible, bears say $70
--Exit fees benefit whom? Look at who's pushing for them for answer.
--Obama presidency is DOA.
--Italian PM Matteo on next EU commissioner steals a page from Obama.

--NYT columnists Paul Krugman's credibility, attacking UK's austerity program, accusing it of false stimulus, joins Obama's presidency.
--Ecuador's previously noted bond offering may yield 8%, jump on board, Citigroup and Credit Swisse will love you.
--Forget the Russians. The robots are coming. Expand your vocabulary. Hold tip of tongue between thumb and index finger and say out loud as fast as you can:, Cobots, Cobots, Cobots! You are now a certified high tech helper.
--Home prices in China falling as government plans to grow more food. Does that mean food prices will be dropping in few years?
--Shades of Marine Le Pen, Thailand tightens restrictions on migrant labor.