These two fine old entities—the New York Fed and Grand Central Terminal—have at least three things in common: they are both about 100 years old, they both feature beautiful vaulting in some part of their structure by the same “designer” masons, and they both go very deep into the ground.

First there was Newspeak (from George Orwell’s book 1984, which intended to bend the thinking of the masses), then there was doublespeak (derived from Newspeak, meaning a deliberate disguising or distortion of meaning, and with its very own achievement award), and then there was Fedspeak (and likely many other “-speaks”).

Amazingly, something resembling a drive-through automated bank teller existed back in 1941 (twenty-six years before the invention of the true ATM, or automated teller machine).

On November 17, 1914, the New York Times reported on Treasury Secretary W. G. McAdoo’s involvement in the authorization of the Federal Reserve System’s operations, including a notice to member Banks, telegrams, and new Reserve notes.

One would be hard-pressed to find a discussion about the timing of retirement these days that doesn’t mention finances.

Imagine yourself a Roman citizen in the 1st Century B.C. You’ve gone shopping with your partner, who’s trying to convince you to buy a particular item.

How do bankers do calculations? Currently, on the computer (or calculator).

These lines come from a 1929 play, Shakespeare in Wall Street, a mash-up of famous Shakespearean characters from various plays set to the story of the stock market crisis just then in motion.