A Week's Worth

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average never recovered from the midweek plunge on Wall Street and lost 4.2 percent of its value, an amount equal to about $837 billion.

• If the roughly 16.5 million heads of households who quit high school had stuck it out and graduated, the economy would be $74 billion wealthier, the Alliance for Excellent Education estimates. Using Census Bureau data, it says the wealth gap (assets other than housing that appreciate in value) is even wider than the income gap between graduates and dropouts. Thus, a diploma increases a person's capacity to invest in a higher education or a business while reducing the demand for public assistance.

• Once again, an impending sporting event can disrupt workplace productivity and perhaps compromise computer security, the software developer Websense warns. Last month, it was the Super Bowl. Now it's the "March Madness" college basketball tournament, as employees stream the video of games during office hours or place bets with online gambling sites.

• Any risqué wisecrack you may make at work probably will echo and can harm morale and even productivity, results of a recent telephone survey suggest. One in 3 respondents told the Novations consulting group of overhearing remarks that were sexually inappropriate or demeaning to a coworker, especially about their age, ethnicity, or disability.