Federal Reserve policy makers faced a dark economic outlook as 2009 began. They cut some of the tension at their Federal Open Market Committee meetings with their usual brand of central banking humor. The FOMC’s 11 meetings and phone calls in 2009 featured 303 moments of laughter–marked in the transcripts, released Wednesday, by a [Laughter] tag. We’ve collected some of the best and worst ones here. Many of these were lame cracks to bring a bit of levity to an otherwise long and dreary gathering. If you read the transcripts for the jokes (Pro tip: Don’t do this) you’d be perplexed by many of the inside jokes about ... (full story)