By Adam Lass

The minutes from October's two-day Fed meeting came out today, and I, for one, smell a rat.

According to the notes, the Fed governors worried mightily whether they should set express parameters as to what might be considered “too much inflation.” In the end, they decided to keep it to themselves.

Here's the real deal: They ought to be concerned, as any real measure of inflation would reveal some real threats. In reality, Bernanke et al are delivering lip service to the subject, so as to appear evenhanded.

What they are really scared of is having their names attached to the next recession, and with growth slowing to a crawl, that's a real threat.

In the end, they will lower rates. Here in the bunker, April is a real popular month for that cut. (In today's TFN Market Assessment meeting, Todd Schoenberger tossed that one on the table, and shot coffee out his nose when I agreed with him. Now he's all confused, which is exactly how I like it.)

Keep in mind that this is an administration that has always been willing to buy success now at the potential expense of later generations. “Heck, those kids are pretty darned smart. I'm sure they'll figure something out.”

Economically, this is blowing my mind. Realistically, I know what a drop in the prime will do for housing, and have put WOW readers into both Weyerhaeuser (WY:NYSE) and Housing SPDR (XHB:AMEX) calls.

It's their bus, folks, I'm just along for the ride.

Meanwhile, there is still no hurricane in the Gulf, and the storm season ends in 15 days. No shock then that our play on AIG (AIG:NYSE) in WOW is up 203% as of this afternoon. This is the group's second triple this fall.

And speaking of plays that are up, those mighty slick guys at Halliburton (HAL:NYSE) are refocusing the company back toward the energy service sector. At least that's what they are saying re: their spin-off of general logistics division Kellogg Brown and Root.

To my mind, these guys are simply avoiding the next two years of congressional investigations of KBR's no-bid Iraq contracts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I love `em for it: The WOW groups' HAL calls just hit 75%.