Federal Reserve policy meetings typically feature 19 central bank officials sitting around a table for a day or two, discussing the state of the economy at great length. They’re important gatherings, but they also can be long and dull affairs. So it’s only natural for officials to crack a joke or two.

The Fed’s transcripts include a convenient [Laughter] tag to mark when central bank officials acted amused by a colleague’s comment — whether it was intended as a joke or not. We’ve been compiling them for years in our coverage of Federal Open Market Committee transcripts (read last year’s edition off the 2007 transcripts). Here are some of the best – and worst – jokes from the 2008 Fed meetings.

– Compiled by Eric Morath, Sarah Portlock, Sudeep Reddy and Jeffrey Sparshott