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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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During the Khrushchev era, from 1956 through 1962, the Soviet Union attempted to implement major wage reforms intended to move Soviet industrial workers away from the mindset of overfulfilling quotas that had characterised the Soviet economy during the preceding Stalinist period and toward a more efficient financial incentive.

Throughout the Stalinist period, most Soviet workers had been paid for their work based on a piece-rate system. Thus their individual wages were directly tied to the amount of work they produced. This policy was intended to encourage workers to toil and therefore increase production as much as possible. The piece-rate system led to the growth of bureaucracy and contributed to significant inefficiencies in Soviet industry. In addition, factory managers frequently manipulated the personal production quotas given to workers to prevent workers' wages from falling too low.

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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.

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Zuidas in Amsterdam

The economy of the Netherlands is a highly developed market economy focused on trade and logistics, manufacturing, services, innovation and technology and sustainable and renewable energy. It is the world's 18th largest economy by nominal GDP and the 28th largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) and is the fifth largest economy in European Union by nominal GDP. It has the world's 11th highest per capita GDP (nominal) and the 13th highest per capita GDP (PPP) as of 2023 making it one of the highest earning nations in the world. Many of the world's largest tech companies are based in its capital Amsterdam or have established their European headquarters in the city, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Cisco, Uber, Netflix and Tesla. Its second largest city Rotterdam is a major trade, logistics and economic center of the world and is Europe's largest seaport. Netherlands is ranked fifth on global innovation index and fourth on the Global Competitiveness Report. Among OECD nations, Netherlands has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 25.3% of GDP.

The Netherlands has a prosperous and open economy, which depends heavily on foreign trade. The economy is noted for stable industrial relations, fairly low unemployment and inflation, a sizable current account surplus (which, compared to the size of the country, is even more than Germany) and an important role as a European transportation hub; Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe; and Amsterdam has one of the biggest airports in the world. Industrial activity is predominantly in food processing, chemicals, petroleum refining, high-tech, financial services, the creative sector and electrical machinery. Its highly mechanized agricultural sector employs no more than 2% of the labor force but provides large surpluses for the food-processing industry and for exports. The Netherlands, along with 11 of its EU partners, began circulating the euro currency on 1 January 2002. (Full article...)

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"In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity. Metals can not only be kept with as little loss as any other commodity, scarce any thing being less perishable than they are, but they can likewise, without any loss, be divided into any number of parts, as by fusion those parts can easily be reunited again; a quality which no other equally durable commodities possess, and which more than any other quality renders them fit to be the instruments of commerce and circulation. The man who wanted to buy salt, for example, and had nothing but cattle to give in exchange for it, must have been obliged to buy salt to the value of a whole ox, or a whole sheep, at a time. He could seldom buy less than this, because what he was to give for it could seldom be divided without loss; and if he had a mind to buy more, he must, for the same reasons, have been obliged to buy double or triple the quantity, the value, to wit, of two or three oxen, or of two or three sheep. If, on the contrary, instead of sheep or oxen, he had metals to give in exchange for it, he could easily proportion the quantity of the metal to the precise quantity of the commodity which he had immediate occasion for."

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

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

... that the first batch of Action Computer Enterprise's Discovery 1600, one of the first multi-user microcomputers, was delivered to a tobacco-growing business in Thailand?
... that women- and minority-owned businesses built the Frequent Express high-capacity bus line in Portland, Oregon?
... that Indian philanthropist and business executive T. Mohandas Pai has been called the "architect of modern Manipal"?
... that the deity in Nakodaji is considered as a business partner by businessmen?
... that small-business leaders such as Guillermo Torrez sympathized with the Movement for Socialism despite its anti-capitalist rhetoric?
... that The Sims 2: Open for Business has been used to teach business students?

On this day in business history

June 9:

1768 - Samuel Slater, an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", was born on this day.

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General images

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

Image 1Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 2McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 3Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 4Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 5Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
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 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 8In 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 9Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 10Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 111/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 12Lindley 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 13Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)

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More did you know

...that French economist A.R.J. Turgot (pictured) served as the intendant of the genéralité of Limoges from 1761 to 1774?

...that in economics, the monetary base is defined as the portion of the commercial banks' reserves that are maintained in accounts with their central bank plus the total currency circulating in the public?

...that Friedrich Hayek was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?

...that Gunnar Myrdal, the 1974 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics was married Alva Myrdal, a Swedish diplomat who won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize?

...that Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daron Acemoglu was the 2005 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal?

...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 postal services of Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom have their own dedicated address to which letters to Santa Claus pleading their good behavior and requesting gifts?

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