BusinessWeek

A number of vocal deficit-hawks are in attendance, including Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to appoint the world's first governmental Chief Technology Officer (CTO). On its transition Web site, www.change.gov, the incoming Administration has published a list of goals for the soon-to-be anointed CTO: broadband expansion, boosting science/tech education, health-care computerization, patent reform, and e-government.

This may be the season of giving, but it sure feels like everybody is suddenly on the take. 

Siemens, the German engineering giant, agreed this month to pay a record $1.6 billion to U.S. and European authorities to settle charges that it routinely used bribes and kickbacks to secure public works contracts across the globe. Prominent New York attorney Marc Dreier--called by one U.S. prosecutor a "Houdini of impersonation and false documents"--has been accused by the feds of defrauding hedge funds… more

The layoff announcements are mounting by the day: 50,000 at Citigroup, 12,000 at AT&T, 6,000 at Sun Microsystems, 2,500 at DuPont, 1,200 at United Airlines, 850 at Viacom .

In the mid-1970s, Peter Drucker stood before a group of executives at New York University and listened to one of them gripe about his struggles in a difficult economy. Drucker offered a bit of advice, but the executive evidently was not persuaded.

"I don't think that will work for me," the man said in an exchange recounted in John Tarrant's book, Drucker: The Man Who Invented the Corporate Society.

"Then you had better go out of business," Drucker replied. "There is no law that says… more

President-Elect Barack Obama has made plenty of promises about what he's going to do: provide tax relief to the middle class, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, invest in renewable energy, ensure that all children receive a first-rate education, and make health care accessible and affordable for every American--all while taming the nation's monstrous deficit.

But as Peter Drucker made clear, Obama's success may well hinge on what he chooses not to do.

It is absolutely crucial, Drucker wrote in a 1993 piece in which he dispensed a… more

With the economy sputtering and the future unclear, managers everywhere are looking for answers. Or, more precisely, many are bent on finding the answer--the single strategy that will allow them to weather these turbulent times.

Is this the moment to scale back? Or is this an opportunity to swallow up assets on the cheap? Should the organization stay the course? Or should it tack in a new direction? To Peter Drucker, the answer to such questions could always be summed up in three words: It all… more

As the financial crisis went from bad to worse last week, policymakers and business executives fussed and fretted over the drying up of credit around the world. The bigger problem, though, is a severe shortage of something else entirely: leadership. Peter Drucker--who began writing on the topic in the 1940s, long before it became fashionable--considered true leaders those who bring accountability, consistency, and a sharp sense of what must be accomplished to all they do. When it comes to the current mess, those in charge on… more

Assignee liability would radically reshape that market by making everyone involved potentially responsible when things go bad. Investment banks that created mortgage-backed securities and investors who bought them would be liable for financial damage if mortgages turned out to be fraudulent. The financial industry opposed assignee liability, maintaining that it would cripple the market for asset-backed securities. Major ratings agencies later agreed that allowing unlimited damages would be disruptive. The agencies threatened to stop evaluating many bonds tied to mortgages covered by the Georgia law.

But some banking experts speculate… more

Peter Drucker didn't have a whole lot of nice things to say about those on Wall Street, at one point likening them to "Balkan peasants stealing each other's sheep."

Given the magnitude of the latest crisis to grip Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, American International Group, Lehman Brothers, and their friends, one can only imagine what kind of acid analogy he might have used today.

Or perhaps he would have simply said, "I told you so." After all, so much of the trouble that has befallen… more