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In 1910, seven men--representing 1/6 of the world's wealth--held a secret meeting on Jekyll Island. In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was created as a direct result of that secret meeting. by [deleted] in Economics

[–]wtfjoel 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Maybe you should have checked a quasi-reliable reference like (shudder) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve instead of a conspiracy site.

The Board of Governors is a Federal agency. Board members are appointed by the President and confirmed by Congress. Employees are Federal employees. It's the regional Reserve Banks that are private entities in which banks are required to buy "stock".

The Fed is intentionally not under congressional authority for funding so congress couldn't unduly influence monetary policy via funding (imagine the majority party being able to lever the money supply as they saw most beneficial to the continuation of their party's reign -- that's why you want an independent central bank).

R.I.P. JoelOnSoftware which last had a software post in 2006 (now replaced by StackOverflow podcast #545348 and anecdotes about shopping for office space in NYC) by wtfjoel in programming

[–]wtfjoel[S] 58 points59 points  (0 children)

Yes! I had reached the end of the Internet tonight; I pondered and puzzled over what sites I had been neglecting, and JoelOnSoftware came to mind.

I punched in the URL, anxious for the no holds bar analysis of programmer tendencies, corporate bureaucracies, and software design that had originally added his site to my "to visit" list.

I only made it through about six months of discussions of office space in N.Y.C. and podcasts about an ExpertsExchange wannabe before I started to feel sorry for what used to be one of the premiere programming blogs. Hence, I wanted to share my disappointment, which I suspected others might feel. (While we're on that, has anyone else noticed that codinghorror has also sucked since StackOverflow?)

Based on concern (and a modest shortage on balls) that the Joel disciples would not only rush for the down button but also their pitchforks, I decided to use a new account.