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The time required to start a business is the number of calendar days needed to complete the procedures to legally operate a business. This chart is from 2017 statistics.

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, ˌkə-/) 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 within economies, 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 economies as systems 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. It also seeks to analyse and describe the global economy. (Full article...)

Selected article

A swarm gathers on Wall Street during the bank panic in October 1907

The Panic of 1907 was a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when its stock market fell close to 50 percent from its peak the previous year. Primary causes of the run included a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks, a loss of confidence among depositors, and the absence of a statutory lender of last resort. The crisis occurred after the failure of an attempt in October 1907 to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When this bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs which later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company—New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. The panic would have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J.P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. By November the contagion had largely ended. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

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The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.
Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded, and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s were major factors leading to changes in the system.

Selected economy

Mumbai, the financial centre of India

The economy of India is a developing mixed economy with a notable public sector in strategic sectors. It is the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP); on a per capita income basis, India ranked 141th by GDP (nominal) and 125th by GDP (PPP). From independence in 1947 until 1991, successive governments followed the Soviet model and promoted protectionist economic policies, with extensive Sovietization, state intervention, demand-side economics, natural resources, bureaucrat driven enterprises and economic regulation. This is characterised as dirigism, in the form of the Licence Raj. The end of the Cold War and an acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 led to the adoption of a broad economic liberalisation in India and indicative planning. Since the start of the 21st century, annual average GDP growth has been 6% to 7%. India has about 1,900 public sector companies, with the Indian state having complete control and ownership of railways and highways. The Indian government has major control over banking, insurance, farming, fertilizers & chemicals, airports, defense, essential utilities, and the energy sector. The state also exerts substantial control over digitalization, Broadband as national infrastructure, telecommunication, supercomputing, space, port and shipping industries, which were effectively nationalised in the mid-1950s but has seen the emergence of key corporate players. (Full article...)

Selected quote

"That is just what happened in 1893. Wall Street expected it and was ready with actual cash to buy in at nominal prices what the public was forced by the panic to sacrifice.

The banks got their share of the plunder, the repeal of the silver purchasing clause, and increase of Govemtnent currency was stopped. But Wall Street had to wait for its share, the gold standard. The banks, however, were loyal to the conspiracy. They stood with Wall Street in the campaign of 1896, and on March 14, 1900, Wall Street and its foreign bond-holding clients got their share of the plunder, the adoption by Congress of the single gold standard.

Writer is not hereby attacking the gold standard or advocating its repeal. That law is an accomplished fact. Nor is he favoring free and unlimited coinage of silver at sixteen to one. He is a republican, and never believed free silver coinage to be the proper remedy. But he is trying plainly to state without political bias certain historic facts and seemingly fair deductions of great significance because such facts have a most important bearing tending to reveal the true character and methods of the national banking system and Wall Street and throw a flood of needed light upon the present attempt of these interests to still further increase their profits and power at the expense of the people."

Alfred Owen Crozier, U.S. Money Vs. Corporation Currency, "Aldrich Plan.", 1930

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On this day in business history

December 10:

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

More did you know

  • ...that, as of August 2008, more than 113 countries around the world, including all of Europe, required or permitted IFRS reporting and 85 required IFRS reporting for all domestic, listed companies?
  • ...that in the circular flow model, the inter-dependent entities of producer and consumer are referred to as "firms" and "households" respectively and provide each other with factors in order to facilitate the flow of income?
  • ...that the balance of payments of a country is the record of all economic transactions between the residents of a country and the rest of the world in a particular period?

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