As you might know, the U.S. Senate voted 70-30 to confirm Ben Bernanke as Chair of the Federal Reserve for another 4 years. Ever wonder who sits on the Federal Reserve, and what they do? Well, here it is. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson when he signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Before the Federal Reserve Act was in place, there wasn’t a consistent central bank in this country — and believe it or not, there wasn’t an official single “thing” representing “money.”  There were two short-lived national banking charters, but they were based on the Bank of England — and as Congress gained more power, they controlled the flow of currency.  So the Federal Reserve Act created a consistent form of currency (the Federal Reserve “Note”) — and a central bank that would have both private and public components. The Board oversees 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, and these are chaired by folks who monitor local bank stability and economic fluctuation — and then make recommendations to the big board which is chaired by Bernanke. Bernanke also chairs the Federal Open Market Committee, which aims to keep the economy stable by monitoring the flow of money. The Federal Reserve — which is the shorthand for this board of directors and also an actual building — also makes sure that your money is safe through the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).  It was created to address market panics — and many (including Milton Friedman) blamed the Fed for the Great Depression.  Bernanke has obsessed on the Depression throughout his career, and even called-out Friedman in a speech one time by thanking him for blaming the Fed for the Depression, and said hey, on behalf of the Fed, sorry about that — but thanks to you it won’t happen again.  Bernanke’s job for the past four years, aside from the task of monitoring the prime interest rate and flow of money, has been to, basically, avoid another Depression.  Job well done, sir.

A fun thing about our company is that we’ve all worked together, here and there, in different capacities in a variety of communities in Chicago. For example, I’ve worked with our film director Steve Delahoyde on numerous film projects with my comedy group Schadenfreude. One of Schad’s co-founders (and star of a Dean Vlamis video) Justin Kaufmann has a younger brother, Josh Kaufmann, who was in a show I directed a few years back in the ‘burbs. It was a fully-staged re-enactment of the original “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, and Nick Keenan, MC’s web project manager, did the sound design. So, there’s that. Check out the original audio from the show — Nick rigged-up metal garbage cans in a live foley set-up that Josh ran every night. Fun, right? I thought so.

Careful what you wish for. The other day, we received our voter registration cards for the upcoming Feb 2 Judicial elections in Chicago, and we were wondering Hey, who are these judges and what’s their story? Well low and behold, our friend Diana Slickman (touting a new offering of the hit show BoyGirlBoyGirl) sent a group email with the exact information I was looking for. So here’s the deal from Diana: “I encourage you to review the bar association evaluations, found at Vote For Judges. Go to the tab called Judicial Evaluations and Results and take a look at the Judicial Evaluation Results Grid (PDF). You can print the list out and take it into the voting booth. This will let you know who’s been rated as qualified or not qualified by about 7 different bar associations. For many of us, this is the only clue we have about this part of our electoral responsibility.” Thanks Diana! Everyone go vote! Sidenote: I posted this image of the Chicago flag and have always been curious as to what the stars stand for. They are: 1.) Fort Dearborn, 2.) The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, 3.) the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and 4.) the Century of Progress Exposition (1833-1933). So, there’s that.

If you Google “Credit Repair,” you’ll probably find at least 20,500,000 results. Having worked in the financial industry for quite a while, one thing I’ve learned is that everyone has an opinion on how to fix your credit — and there are a lot of rumors out there that can sometimes get people into trouble if they’re faithfully following antiquated advice. I sat down with PERL mortgage adviser Barry Schwartz and we discussed the concept of credit repair and what clients can do to raise their scores. For more podcasts, visit the PERL archives.

PERL Podcast 48 / Credit Repair