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Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

A business entity is not necessarily separate from the owner and the creditors can hold the owner liable for debts the business has acquired. The taxation system for businesses is different from that of the corporates. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business.

A distinction is made in law and public offices between the term business and a company such as a corporation or cooperative. Colloquially, the terms are used interchangeably. (Full article...)

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses the economy as a system where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production, such as labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. (Full article...)

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A Bank run (also known as a run on the bank) is a type of financial crisis. It is a panic which occurs when a large number of customers of a bank fear it is insolvent and withdraw their deposits.

A run on the bank begins when the public begins to suspect that a bank may become insolvent. As a result, individuals begin to withdraw their savings. This action can destabilize the bank to the point where it may in fact become insolvent. Banks retain only a fraction of their deposits as cash (see fractional-reserve banking): the remainder is issued as loans. As a result, no bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with more than the fraction of deposits being taken out at once, and will 'call in' the short term deposits itself has made. This can cause a shortage of Market liquidity in the short term money market.

As a bank run progresses, it generates its own momentum. As more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, so other individuals have more incentive to withdraw their own deposits. If many or most banks were to suffer runs at the same time, then the resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession.

To prevent bank runs, Central banks can prevent financial institutions from failing by:

Deposit insurance systems insure each depositor up to a certain amount, therefore the depositors' savings are protected even if the bank fails. This removes the incentive to withdraw deposits simply because others are withdrawing theirs if consumers trust the insurance system.
Central banks act as a lender of last resort. To prevent a bank run, the Central Bank guarantees that it will make short-term, high-interest loans to banks, to ensure that, if they remain economically viable, they will always have enough liquidity to honour their deposits.
Reserve ratios and Tier 1 capital thresholds both limit the proportion of deposits which a bank can loan out.

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Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies.)

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Empire World, Erbil City

The economy of Iraq is dominated by the oil sector, which has provided about 99.7% of foreign exchange earnings during its modern history. As of 2021, the oil sector provides about 92% of foreign exchange earnings. Iraq's hitherto agrarian economy underwent rapid development following the 14 July Revolution (1958) which overthrew the Hashemite Iraqi monarchy. It had become the third-largest economy in the Middle East by 1980. This occurred in part because of the Iraqi government's successful industrialization and infrastructure development initiatives in the 1970s, which included irrigation projects, railway and highway construction, and rural electrification. (Full article...)

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"That part of the thing which he is only just induced to purchase may be called his marginal purchase, because he is on the margin of doubt whether it is worth his while to incur the outlay required to obtain it. And the utility of his marginal purchase may be called the marginal utility of the thing to him. Or, if instead of buying it, he makes the thing himself, then its marginal utility is the utility of that part which he thinks it only just worth his while to make. And thus the law just given may be worded:

—The marginal utility of a thing to anyone diminishes with every increase in the amount of it he already has.

There is however an implicit condition in this law which should be made clear. It is that we do not suppose time to be allowed for any alteration in the character or tastes of the man himself. It is therefore no exception to the law that the more good music a man hears, the stronger is his taste for it likely to become; that avarice and ambition are often insatiable; or that the virtue of cleanliness and the vice of drunkenness alike grow on what they feed upon. For in such cases our observations range over some period of time; and the man is not the same at the beginning as at the end of it. If we take a man as he is, without allowing time for any change in his character, the marginal utility of a thing to him diminishes steadily with every increase in his supply of it."

—Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 1890

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Home Depot CEO Ted Decker ran his own landscaping business in high school?
... that Eleanor Hadley, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in economics, was recruited by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to implement antitrust policies in occupied Japan?
... that Roddie Fleming was expecting to inherit the family business, but it was sold to Chase Bank instead?
... that businessman and activist Matthew Glover's charity challenged Pope Francis to become a vegan for Lent?
... that according to witnesses, the plutonium charge in the bomb used in the nuclear weapons test Gerboise Verte was transported in an economy car?
... that JetBlue's CEO, Robin Hayes, flew in an airplane for the first time aged 18?

On this day in business history

June 1:

1980 - Arthur Nielsen, an American businessman, founder of the ACNielsen company, died on this day.

More on this day

General images

The following are images from various business-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 2Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 3In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 4Lindley LJ was the leading expert on partnerships and company law in the Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case. The landmark case confirmed the distinct corporate identity of the company. (from Corporation)
Image 5Chart of the South Sea Company's stock prices. The rapid inflation of the stock value in the 1710s led to the Bubble Act 1720, which restricted the establishment of companies without a royal charter. (from Corporation)
Image 6"Jack and the Giant Joint-Stock", a cartoon in Town Talk (1858) satirizing the 'monster' joint-stock economy that came into being after the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 (from Corporation)
Image 7Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 81/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 9Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 10Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 12Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 13Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)

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More did you know

...that in the United States of America the largest reserve requirement for commercial banks is 10% of liabilities?

...that the United States Federal Reserve System uses six monetary aggregates as components of the money supply?

...that an open market operation is an activity by a central bank to buy or sell government bonds on the open market?

...that, although nominal USA national debt has been steadily increasing since 1940, Debt-to-GDP ratio was actually higher during WWII than it is now?

... that the United States debt ceiling has been steadily raised since 1981?

... the Federal Reserve owns the largest share of the USA national debt?

...the term petrodollars was coined by Ibrahim Oweiss to describe dollars that did not circulate inside the United States, and therefore were not part of the normal money supply, and instead were received by petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) in exchange for oil?

More did you know facts