Money Talking

It's been nearly eight years since the financial crisis, and interest rates have sat stagnant for just as long. Now, the Federal Reserve is ringing in the New Year early with some long-awaited news: a quarter-point raise in interest rates. This slight hike could be a sign of more moderate rates in the year ahead, and some are watching warily. The news polishes off a year full of business developments: the plunge in oil prices, the Chinese stock market crash, the historic climate plan agreed to in Paris, and the record-making mergers and acquisitions. And that's only a few of the top business stories of the year. Rob Cox with Reuters Breaking Views and Rana Foroohar from Time Magazine join Money Talking's to highlight the year's biggest economic moments and to make some predictions for the year ahead.

"Crazy times" at work are to be expected — busy periods when you're expected to work after hours to stay on top of things are par for the course in a demanding, fast-paced career. But if you're sending emails well into the night at all times of the year, that might actually be a problem. "You’re never taking that opportunity to rejuvenate...that will give you a fresh perspective at work," Maura Thomas, founder of RegainYourTime.com and writer for the Harvard Business Review, tells Money Talking. "If you don't take time to recharge...you’re running on empty all the time." But Thomas explains, there are ways to reclaim your off-time.

The Islamic State makes no secret of its advertisement efforts to recruit new members. Less well-known is how ISIS finances itself from within the territories it occupies. Money Talking host Charlie Herman talks with two reporters who've investigated how ISIS makes money: Stacey Vanek Smith from NPR's Planet Money and Erika Solomon from the Financial Times. They review how the combination of oil and gas, taxes, confiscations and antiquities keep ISIS running — and the ways countries trying to defeat the militants can do so economically.

This week and next, representatives from nearly 200 countries are gathered in Paris to try to write a plan to tackle climate change. It's a daunting task: a final proposal will unanimous support to move forward. Wall Street, investors and businesses won't get to vote, but they're closely following the talks to see how any proposals that emerge could affect global business. Host Charlie Herman talks to Peter Coy from Bloomberg Business and Gregory Zuckerman from the Wall Street Journal about what a new climate plan could mean for businesses and consumers.

The dynamics of authority in an office — figuring out how to be a boss or dealing with your own boss — are tricky enough without throwing age into the mix. How does it feel to have a manager who's younger than you are? Or to manage someone who's older than your parents? Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School tells Money Talking host Charlie Herman that as average life expectancy rises in the U.S., people are choosing to stay in the workforce longer, and not all of them want to be at the upper echelons of corporate America. Meanwhile, as young workers are identified as future leaders of organizations, they can rise through corporate ranks quickly and end up managing older workers. This means being a young boss or having a boss who's younger is becoming more and more inevitable. In his book, Managing the Older Worker, published by the Harvard Business Review Press, Cappelli examines and explains how to navigate the awkward new organizational order.

If you've stepped into a mobile phone store recently, you know the cell phone market is not exactly dummy-proof right now. Carriers have created a series of charts and graphs to explain a newly complicated web of options for cell phone users. On its face, the change to the market makes it look like plans got more convoluted and phones got much more expensive. But the first mover in the market shift, T-Mobile, actually just made phone pricing radically more transparent and plans more customize-able. If you do your homework, it might be the best time to score a deal on the cell phone market. Money Talking host Charlie Herman wades through the details with Tim Stenovec from TechInsider and Ian Kar from Quartz, just in time for your holiday shopping.

After the attacks in Paris last week, leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are under pressure to prevent future violence. In the open-border, economically united Eurozone, there's been a call to close borders. And while the Greek debt crisis created a fiscal wedge between Euro members, the attacks in Paris have presented a cultural threat to the idea of the Eurozone. Meanwhile, in the United States, FBI Director James Comey said that this is a time for U.S. business and government to come together and called on companies to share encrypted information with authorities, where appropriate, to protect against attacks. Host Charlie Herman talks with Rana Four-hour of Time Magazine and Rob Cox of Reuters BreakingViews about how November 13 could affect business and economic policy around the globe.

For outsiders looking in, it seems like fantasy sports are worlds unto themselves. And in the digital age, these worlds are used by millions of Americans, they're fast-moving, and they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. After investigation the two biggest websites that operate these fantasy sports worlds, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has determined they're illegal in this state.

In cease-and-desist notices submitted to FanDuel and DraftKings, the Attorney General's office wrote that much like a lottery, the websites mislead customers into believing they can win big, when the chances of winning are actually slim.  He also cited concerns about public health and economic risks associated with gambling. 

But how different are online fantasy sports games from poker or even trading on the stock market? Money Talking host Charlie Herman talks with Andrew Stern from Business Insider and Tim Fernholz from Quartz about the nuts and bolts of the multimillion dollar industry and who stands to lose if the Attorney General shuts down the two websites.

Everyone can be a creative genius. Right?

In the workplace, that's a dangerous proposition, according to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, CEO of Hogan Assessments and professor of Business Psychology at University College London. Describing an article he wrote for the Harvard Business Review, Chamorro told Money Talking host Charlie Herman that to some degree, creativity levels are hard to change. And that's a good thing.

"Most people, as much as they may not like hearing this, have average creativity," he said.

There needs to be a diverse ecosystem at work made of people with varying degrees of creativity. Creative visions need to be executed, he said. If everyone's in his or her own head about creative ideas, nothing will ever get done. 

That said, there are still small ways to get a little more creative in your everyday tasks at work.

Bosses looking to make their employees think more creatively should assign tasks that tap their employees' interests, and they should also build teams with different kinds of minds: both great idea generators and skilled project managers.

"Creative teams that have too many people who are traditionally creative would never get anything done," Chamorro said. 

Since the financial crisis, the battle cry from many reformers has been "Break up the big banks!" But bankers argue that new rules and regulations are making banks "dramatically safer." So which is it? Are banks boring again? Or is there more to do to limit the activities of the nation's biggest financial institutions? Money Talking host Charlie Herman asks Sheelah Kolhatkar from Bloomberg Businessweek and Heidi Moore from Mashable how far reforms have gone and whether we're protecting ourselves from the next crisis.