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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's 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 Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) covered jade cup with gilt bronze fittings, Sackler Museum

The economy of the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) of ancient China experienced upward and downward movements in its economic cycle, periods of economic prosperity and decline. It is normally divided into three periods: Western Han (206 BC – 9 AD), the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD), and Eastern Han (25–220 AD). The Xin regime, established by the former regent Wang Mang, formed a brief interregnum between lengthy periods of Han rule. Following the fall of Wang Mang, the Han capital was moved eastward from Chang'an to Luoyang. In consequence, historians have named the succeeding eras Western Han and Eastern Han respectively.

The Han economy was defined by significant population growth, increasing urbanization, unprecedented growth of industry and trade, and government experimentation with nationalization. Another large component of the government is that it was run by influential families who had the most money. In this era, the levels of minting and circulation of coin currency grew significantly, forming the foundation of a stable monetary system. The Silk Road facilitated the establishment of trade and tributary exchanges with foreign countries across Eurasia, many of which were previously unknown to the people of ancient China. The imperial capitals of both Western Han (Chang'an) and Eastern Han (Luoyang) were among the largest cities in the world at the time, in both population and area. Here, government workshops manufactured furnishings for the palaces of the emperor and produced goods for the common people. The government oversaw the construction of roads and bridges, which facilitated official government business and encouraged commercial growth. Under Han rule, industrialists, wholesalers, and merchants—from minor shopkeepers to wealthy businessmen—could engage in a wide range of enterprises and trade in the domestic, public, and even military spheres.

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Ford Motor car assembly line: the classical example of a manufacturing production system.

Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. It is concerned with managing the process that converts inputs (in the forms of raw materials, labor, and energy) into outputs (in the form of goods and/or services). The relationship of operations management to senior management in commercial contexts can be compared to the relationship of line officers to highest-level senior officers in military science. The highest-level officers shape the strategy and revise it over time, while the line officers make tactical decisions in support of carrying out the strategy. In business as in military affairs, the boundaries between levels are not always distinct; tactical information dynamically informs strategy, and individual people often move between roles over time.

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Skyline of Singapore's Downtown Core

The economy of Singapore is a highly developed mixed market economy with dirigiste characteristics. Singapore's economy has been consistently ranked as the most open in the world, the joint 4th-least corrupt, and the most pro-business. Singapore has low tax-rates and the highest per-capita GDP in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is headquartered in Singapore.

Alongside the business-friendly reputation for global and local privately held companies and public companies, various national state-owned enterprises play a substantial role in Singapore's economy. The sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings holds majority stakes in several of the nation's largest bellwether companies, such as Singapore Airlines, Singtel, ST Engineering and Mediacorp. With regards to foreign direct investment (FDI), the Singaporean economy is a major FDI outflow-financier in the world. In addition, throughout its history, Singapore has benefited from the large inward flows of FDI from global investors, financial institutions and multinational corporations (MNCs) due to its highly attractive investment climate along with a stable and conducive political environment throughout its modern years. (Full article...)

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"The laws of economics are to be compared with the laws of the tides, rather than with the simple and exact law of gravitation. For the actions of men are so various and uncertain, that the best statement of tendencies, which we can make in a science of human conduct, must needs be inexact and faulty. This might be urged as a reason against making any statements at all on the subject; but that would be almost to abandon life. Life is human conduct, and the thoughts and emotions that grow up around it. By the fundamental impulses of our nature we all—high and low, learned and unlearned—are in our several degrees constantly striving to understand the courses of human action, and to shape them for our purposes, whether selfish or unselfish, whether noble or ignoble. And since we must form to ourselves some notions of the tendencies of human action, our choice is between forming those notions carelessly and forming them carefully. The harder the task, the greater the need for steady patient inquiry; for turning to account the experience, that has been reaped by the more advanced physical sciences; and for framing as best we can well thought-out estimates, or provisional laws, of the tendencies of human action.

The term "law" means then nothing more than a general proposition or statement of tendencies, more or less certain, more or less definite. Many such statements are made in every science: but we do not, indeed we can not, give to all of them a formal character and name them as laws. We must select; and the selection is directed less by purely scientific considerations than by practical convenience. If there is any general statement which we want to bring to bear so often, that the trouble of quoting it at length, when needed, is greater than that of burdening the discussion with an additional formal statement and an additional technical name, then it receives a special name, otherwise not."

—Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 1890

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

... that Harry Steele purchased the Albatross Hotel in a bankruptcy sale and ultimately owned it for over half a century until his death?
... that Garretson, South Dakota, was named after businessman Arthur Samuel Garretson?
... that the developer of Citizen Sleeper was inspired by the feeling of people coming together and their own experiences as a non-binary person struggling to make ends meet through the gig economy?
... that Gerald Willis, after working as a bus driver at age 15, started a business that earned $2 million per year and built a replica of the Hermitage after watching The President's Lady?
... that during the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003, all but one of Venezuelan chocolatier María Fernanda Di Giacobbe's ten businesses went bankrupt?
... that the 2017 acquisition of Katz Broadcasting by the E. W. Scripps Company was seen as a validation of the business of diginets?

On this day in business history

May 19:

1928 - Colin Chapman, English engineer and businessman, founder of Lotus Cars, was born on this day.

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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 21/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 3Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 4Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 5Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 6In 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 7Chart 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 8"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 9Lindley 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 10Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 12Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 13Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)

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More did you know

...that Gold Fixing is the procedure by which the price of gold is set on the London market by the five members of the London Bullion Market Association?

...that the Heroninos Archive contains examples of a complex and standardized system of accounting used in 3rd century Roman Egypt?

...that Jerry White, cofounder of the Landmine Survivors Network, delivered the 2005 commencement address at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business?

...that the melting and export of cents and nickels can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five years?

...that the Vatican City, has an Automated teller machine (ATM) with instructions in Latin?

... that the GDP deflator (implicit price deflator for GDP) is a price index measuring changes in prices of all new, domestically produced, final goods and services in an economy.