The Fed’s 2009 transcripts show 299 ‘instances of laughter’

The Federal Reserve released the transcripts of its 2009 meetings and conference calls today — all 1,648 pages of ’em.

A quick word search this morning revealed the following: In those pages, there are 237 mentions of the word “recession,” 242 mentions of “interest rates,” and, for what it’s worth, 299 instances of laughter being noted in the transcript.

To be fair, sometimes macroeconomics can be kind of funny.

Also, in the March 2009 meeting, Janet Yellen, then the head of the San Francisco Fed, said the economy was so lousy that it needed so much help that the Federal Funds rate, the Fed’s main interest rate, ought to have been at -0.6 percent.

Think about that for a minute.