The Consumer Price Index was at the root of the market's weakness for Friday as total CPI and core-CPI, which excludes food and energy, were higher than expected for November. Apparently, inflation woes worry investors that the Federal reserve won't lower rates any farther.

What the Fed has done as reported by the L.A. Times as "an act of global economic cooperation ...[is announce] an agreement with four foreign central banks to create a new method for injecting billions of dollars into the world's financial system to break up a potentially crippling logjam in credit.

The Fed said that it would lend at least $40 billion to cash-strapped U.S. banks starting next week and could supply considerably more. In addition, it will temporarily make $24 billion available to the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank to help meet demand for dollars in Europe.

By acting in conjunction with those institutions, as well as the Canadian and British central banks, the Fed is seeking to alleviate a problem that could hurt the United States as it struggles to avoid slipping into recession. "

Hey, what's a few more billion dollars pumped out to devalue the dollar--I mean alleviate the credit crunch and save world financial institutions? Now that everyone else's money is worth more, we might see some of the wholesale buying of U.S. property that we saw with Japanese investors in the 1980's. From housing bubble to commercial bubble, what will the "experts" at the Fed think of next? How about calling a recession a recession? Or how about bailouts as bailouts for only the big financial institutions? When will the big institutions really pay the price of bad management? Not while there is a Federal Reserve, period.