Business - BusinessWeek

Medicare is on track to consume 7 percent of gross domestic product by 2035, double the current level, according to a Congressional Budget Office scenario that incorporates widely expected developments. On May 13, Medicare's trustees predicted that the program's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which helps cover benefits for future retirees, would be exhausted by 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year. Full Story »

Good companies always strive to be better and a potentially useful way to catalyze such improvement is to consider how analyst and public criticism might be used to institute corporate change. By parallel, managers themselves might similarly benefit from "reverse-engineering" the criticism of not only outsiders but of their own colleagues: considering both parties as their benefactors on the road to greater performance. In both cases, however, constructive use of criticism only requires a dose of humility and an honest desire to make things better. Full Story »

Daniel Wesley knew as soon as he started applying to business school that he wanted to avoid student loans. He'd already racked up about $45,000 in loans from his undergraduate days and didn't relish the idea of adding another $200,000 or so to that debt load, he says. When he found out he got into the Weekend MBA program at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (Booth Part-Time MBA Profile), he turned to his mother and father, a retired construction foreman, for help. ... Full Story »

Not a week passes without headlines that excoriate some corporate executive for mishandling an operational crisis that has mushroomed into a public relations disaster. Despite impeccable credentials and accomplished careers, many chief executives find themselves looking foolish after responding obtusely to common and inevitable threats to their companies' reputations. Full Story »

As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Unfortunately in real estate, value is a trade-off. Someone in Manhattan is willing to pay $2,200 per month to rent a studio apartment so as to be near jobs and cultural amenities, sacrificing square footage. For someone in Las Vegas, where housing is inexpensive -- the city's median home value is about $115,000, according to real estate site Zillow.com -- and the labor market is tough, the reverse is true. What if you could have both proximity to work and quality of life at an affordable cost? Full Story »

Hamdy El Fakhrany didn't set out to strike a blow against Egyptian government corruption when he traveled to a state land auction in 2007. All he wanted was a quarter of an acre to build a house. The auction was canceled, as were the others he tried to attend over the next six months, the 53-year-old engineer says. Full Story »

Two years ago I wrote a column about what I would say to the MBA of 2009 if I were selected to deliver a commencement address. That graduation occurred just as the savage effects of the Great Recession were unfolding. Millions had lost their jobs and millions more would fear losing them. Business confidence was nonexistent. More often than not, you heard executives say they'd not seen anything like that before. Full Story »

Few corporate leaders have as rapt an audience as they do when they speak at commencement, that great rite of spring when graduates get to reflect on the academic life they're leaving behind and the challenges and opportunities ahead. And this year's crop of B-school graduation speakers is no exception. With the job outlook for both college business majors and MBAs improving, the tone this year was generally optimistic -- with a healthy dose of reality thrown in for good measure. Full Story »

Guest: Megan Lynam, director of admissions at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business (Fuqua Full-Time MBA Profile). Full Story »

As the city-run Women's Health and Family Planning Center in Bayonne, N.J., closed its doors last month for the final time, workers hauled away desks, cabinets, and dozens of white boxes labeled "pregnancy tests" and "condoms." The clinic was one of six forced to close after Republican Governor Chris Christie eliminated all of the $7.45 million in state funding for family planning last year as part of an effort to narrow a budget shortfall approaching $11 billion. Full Story »