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Unproductive never ending Zoom meetings, exhausting Zoom meetings, which could be handled with an email or in other ways, need to be deleted from the calendar, says Kathryn Dill in the WSJ. Status updates should be done in one on one conversations, or over email. Knowing the objective of a meeting is essential. Ideas from work experts at Microsoft and Accenture are shown here suggesting that managers take charge of meetings by setting ground rules for good behaviour and moderating, and being active players in all meetings. Allowing casual interaction before a meeting to make a decision for flow of ideas also helps, and holding questions till the end of the meeting where appropriate.

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Uki Goni writes from Buenos Aires, Argentina, describing the chaos and poverty of the years 2001-2003 following Argentina's default on its debt. At one point half of the population was below the poverty line. Argentina eventually recovered in 2004 under a new government of Nestor Kirchner, but had already incurred a terrible cost. This was especially hard on the lower middle class who had only their savings to live on and could not access their accounts at banks which were closed. Barter stores were common in those days as the barter currency gained wide usage for exchange of services. It is not clear whether this was due to badly implemented economic policy or defaulting on the debt. Goni says Greeks should seriously consider the cost of such a steep decline in the economy as they consider exit from the eurozone, and carefully evaluate the policies of Syriza politicians who risk a break with the EU.

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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman, Janet Yellen, says the Fed's promise to be "patient" before raising interest rates means it will hold off for 2 months to check economic conditions before taking action. This would put the decision off till June 2015. The Fed will look at a range of factors including inflation, says Yellen. Yellen's comments to the Senate Banking Committee on Feb. 24, 2015 were- "I don't want to set down any single criterion that's necessary for rate increases to occur. We will be considering a range of evidence that pertains to the inflation outlook." In testimony Yellen said she wanted to be "reasonably confident" that inflation will return to 2% before raising rates. The Fed's measure of inflation, Commerce Department's personal consumption expenditures price index is below the 2% inflation target of the Fed for 52 of the past 68 months, and for 34 consecutive months.

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The foreign ministers of Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia meet in Riyadh March 22-24 to discuss ways to give more time before a US effort to open the Straits of Hormuz to shipping by a proposed attack on Iranian energy infrastructure as a last resort. Speaker of Iranian parliament and other officials do not support a move to end the war at this time, says the WSJ reporting. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt do not support a Suez Canal type solution that gives Iran a fee for the shipping in the Straits. Other solutions are being looked at that are acceptable to all sides.