Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

In Europe, the early stages of the pandemic led to lower drug consumption and trafficking,

but both quickly got back to normal. We look into how both drugs and drug syndicates on the

continent are getting more potent. And one thing that didn't seem to change with the pandemic

was productivity. Workers got as much done as before.

It's now crystal clear, though, that they worked more hours to get there. For that drop

inefficiency, blame too many meetings.

First up, though.

Today, Jerome Powell, the chairman of America's Central Bank, will be testifying before Congress, one of many officials from the Fed who will be taking the mic this week.

They all have to be careful what they say.

Last week, Mr. Powell merely hinted that interest rates might be raised a little earlier than previous mere hints had suggested.

You can think of this meeting that we had as the talking about talking about meeting, if you like.

That talking sent markets tumbling. The Dow fell more than 500 points Friday. People are going

to panic if they see that the Fed's raising rates. I think there are a lot of grizzled financial

veterans who can't believe their eyes right now. Before rebounding yesterday, it was a reminder of

the fine line that the Fed has to walk as America's economy shakes off the chains of the pandemic.

Last week was a very volatile and rocky week for markets.

Alice Fullwood is the economist's Wall Street correspondent and spoke to us from our New York Bureau.

And this was all triggered by a meeting of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday in 16th,

where they suggested that they might think about tightening policy a little in the future.

So they might consider raising interest rates or scaling back the asset purchases that they've

been doing at some point in the future a little bit sooner than perhaps markets expected.

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