Hi Mark! Regarding your question on CPI and Tips, one needs to be very careful. TIPS are indeed tied to CPI, but we can have significant inflation that is not captured by CPI. Just because the Fed is printing $480 billion per year in new money does not mean it necessarily flows into CPI from an economic point of view. For instance, new/easy money could create bubbles in various asset markets (e.g. stocks) or geographies outside the US (e.g Canada, Argentina, etc.). From an accounting perspective, the government has an incentive to understate these numbers because so much of government spending is tied to cost of living (CPI, COLA, etc.). Moreover, by including housing in CPI which has been deflating and food which is inflating creates some offsets which mollify reported CPI, but grossly understate the impact of Fed policy. All that said, it looks like the down side in US housing has abated and the Fed's recent actions should strengthen the upside for inflation considerably.