Money Talking

We tend to have a love/hate relationship with meetings. As employees, colleagues, and supervisors, we can't help ourselves when it comes to scheduling copious amounts of meetings. But once we're all in a room together, we hate having our time wasted, and our minds eventually wander (or we start catching up on our e-mail). So what are we getting so wrong about meetings? A guide to helping make the most out of meetings you attend.

Candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are gaining traction in the presidential election without the help of Wall Street. Is that worrying the Masters of the Universe?

For a short time, Google's parent company Alphabet surpassed Apple as the most valuable company in the world. 

Many of us have been told that "being true to ourselves" is a key to success. But in the workplace, being "authentic" might actually wreak havoc. "The more one looks at the notion of authenticity, the more one realizes, or the more I realize, it's a crock and it's nonsense, and it's more likely to be self-destructive than value-added," says Michael Schrage, contributor to the Harvard Business Review and a research fellow at MIT Sloan School. So if you shouldn't be your utterly unfettered authentic self, what should you be then?

In early January, an armed group took over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, in protest of the federal government's control of the land. 

The standoff, led by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, came to a head this week when several militia members were arrested. After a nearly month-long stalemate, Ammon Bundy urged the remaining protesters to "go home." Even so, the situation continues to evolve.  

So what's at the heart of this standoff? About a century of history, some suspected arson, and a whole lot of economics.

Over the course of it, the militia members have been demanding that the Malheur land controlled by the federal government be turned over to the local government. In more basic terms: give the land back to the ranchers and loggers who can then live off and prosper from it. Unfortunately in today's economy, that might not work.

This week on Money Talking, host Charlie Herman talks with James Surowiecki with The New Yorker and Zoë Carpenter from The Nation about the motivations fueling the militia movement and what benefits, if any, the protest has prompted.

Recently, it seems like you have more chances of winning the Powerball jackpot than getting tickets to see Adele or Hamilton. 

When Adele's pre-sale tickets went on sale in December of last year, so many fans were locked out of the 56-date tour that a social media frenzy erupted. (Including the meme: "Hello from the ticket line. I've clicked refresh a thousand times.") 

Soon after, tickets appeared online for hundreds and even thousands of dollars over face value. But who's snatching up all those tickets? And while Adele fans lament, there are plenty of other sporting events, plays, and concerts that we're getting locked out. So it begs the question: Why do the re-sellers and the scalpers seem to have all the luck? And is there ever a way to beat them at their own game?

This week on Money Talking, Charlie Herman talks with Jason Abbruzzese from Mashable and Ethan Smith from the Wall Street Journal about the economics of online ticket sales and what you can do to get a ticket.

Work can be full of things that just set you off. In fact, the office itself might even be the trigger. And once that trigger is pulled, your response could turn into raised voices or in your wildest dreams (or nightmares) thrown phones and flying chairs.

But you can break the habits of counterproductive and even detrimental behavior without spending years lying on a couch.

"It doesn't take long to change a habit. But it's hard. Really hard," writes Peter Bregman, CEO of Bregman Partners a leadership consulting and coaching firm, in a recent Harvard Business article "Quash Your Bad Habits by Knowing What Triggers Them."

In the article, he suggests a simple a three-step process to change your behavior in the office. 

[Click on "Listen" to hear Bregman talk through these steps with Money Talking host Charlie Herman.]

Think of your reactions as if they were a train and you were riding it to get to a final destination. Instead of sleeping through all the stops until the moment you arrive when you are forced to sprint off the train and completely forget your bag, consider five or six places to stop before you arrive at the destination. Maybe one stop is taking a deep breath and another is cracking your knuckles; identify what each stop is, get off on at each one, hop back on afterwards, and you'll arrive at a much more productive destination.

Oil prices have dramatically dropped to levels not seen since 2004. This week, the price of a barrel of oil traded below $30, down more than 60 percent from the recent highs in June 2014. For consumers, that's translated into a little money in their pocket: the average price of gasoline is $2.00 a gallon. So, cheap oil is good, right? This week on Money Talking, Rana Foroohar with Time Magazine and Gregory Zuckerman with the Wall Street Journal review the good, and the bad, about low oil prices and what it means for the economy in 2016.

Puerto Rico is in serious financial trouble. The government is struggling with $72 billion dollars in debt and it’s running out of cash. How the search for a solution to the island’s debt crisis could have ripple effects on the mainland.

There are a lot of bad bosses out there.

"As I like to say, there are different flavors of bad bosses," adds Amy Gallo, an editor at the Harvard Business Review. When the flavor is "dumber than you," it's hard to know how to proceed. You don't want to be disrespectful, but you don't want to sit stagnant in a job where you're not learning. 

If you think you're smarter than your boss, Gallo set out specific strategies about what you might do in her article, What To Do If You're Smarter Than Your Boss.

1. Accentuate the Positive: Have some humility and think about the ways your boss might actually have an edge on you. "It's your job, as his direct report, to unearth that expertise or unearth that experience you can learn from," Gallo said.

2. Cool down: Don't lead a coup. Your boss likely reached the heights where they currently sit for a reason. Trying to replace them or getting them fired not work out as you plan.

3. Find a stand-in: If you're not learning anything from your boss, go to other people in your organization. Don't be disrespectful to your boss, but ask some of his/her other colleagues for advice and mentorship. 

4. Consider an exit. Only after you make good efforts to learn from the people in the building, if you're still having a hard time, it might be time to leave the company.

[Listen to Gallo talk through these steps with Money Talking host Charlie Herman.]