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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."

Having a business name does not separate the business entity from the owner, which means that the owner of the business is responsible and liable for debts incurred by the business. If the business acquires debts, the creditors can go after the owner's personal possessions. 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.

The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or public officials) to refer to a company, such as a corporation or cooperative. (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 analyzes 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 analyzes the economy as a system where production, consumption, saving, and investment interact, and factors affecting it: employment of the resources of labour, capital, and land, currency inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. (Full article...)

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In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is "out of control," a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value. No precise definition of hyperinflation is universally accepted. One simple definition requires a monthly inflation rate of 20 or 30% or more. In informal usage the term is often applied to much lower rates.

The definition used by most economists is "an inflationary cycle without any tendency toward equilibrium." A vicious circle is created in which more and more inflation is created with each iteration of the cycle. Although there is a great deal of debate about the root causes of hyperinflation, it becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply or drastic debasement of coinage, and is often associated with wars (or their aftermath), economic depressions, and political or social upheavals.

The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive imbalance between the supply and demand of a certain currency or type of money, usually due to a complete loss of confidence in the currency similar to a bank run. First, the enactment of legal tender laws prevent discounting the value of paper money vis-a vis gold, silver or a hard currency, by forcing acceptance of a paper money which lacks intrinsic value. If the entity responsible for printing a currency then promotes excessive money printing, with other factors contributing a reinforcing effect, hyperinflation usually occurs. Often the body responsible for printing the currency cannot physically print paper currency faster than the rate at which it is devaluing, thus neutralising their attempts to stimulate the economy.

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Detail from Labor, Charles Sprague Pearce (1896).

Manual labour (manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word "manual" comes from the Latin word for hand), and, by figurative extension, it is work done with any of the muscles and bones of the body. For most of human prehistory and history, manual labour and its close cousin, animal labour, have been the primary ways that physical work has been accomplished. Mechanisation and automation, which reduce the need for human and animal labour in production, have existed for centuries, but it was only starting in the 19th century that they began to significantly expand and to change human culture. To be implemented, they require that sufficient technology exist and that its capital costs be justified by the amount of future wages that they will obviate.

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Downtown Astana

The economy of Kazakhstan is the largest in Central Asia in both absolute and per capita terms. In 2021, Kazakhstan attracted more than US$370 billion of foreign investments since becoming an independent republic after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

It possesses oil reserves as well as minerals and metals. It also has considerable agricultural potential, with its vast steppe lands accommodating both livestock and grain production. The mountains in the south are important for apples and walnuts; both species grow wild there. Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources. (Full article...)

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"What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

—Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Chance for Peace , 1953

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

... that Roddie Fleming was expecting to inherit the family business, but it was sold to Chase Bank instead?
... that Stan Lee modeled Tony Stark after 20th-century business magnate Howard Hughes?
... that the studios of a California TV station were converted back into a movie theater after it went out of business?
... that the 2017 acquisition of Katz Broadcasting by the E. W. Scripps Company was seen as a validation of the business of diginets?
... that businessman and activist Matthew Glover's charity challenged Pope Francis to become a vegan for Lent?
... that the piano businessman Edwin Bechstein received a Nazi state funeral, and his wife Helene taught Hitler table manners?

On this day in business history

October 4:

1922 - Shin Kyuk-ho, founder of the Lotte group, was born on this day.

More on this day

General images

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

Image 1Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 2McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 3"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 4Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 5In 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 6Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 7Lindley 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 8Apple co-founder and longtime leader Steve Jobs (pictured in 2010) led the introduction of many innovations in the computer, smartphone and digital music industries. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 9Chart 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 10Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 11Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 121/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
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 Luca Pacioli, codified the double-entry bookkeeping system in his mathematics textbook Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità published in Venice in 1494?

...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 IFRS financial statements consist of a statement of financial position, a statement of comprehensive income, a statement of changes in equity, a Statement of Cash Flows and a Notes to the Financial Statements?

...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 Wassily Leontief was the first to use a matrix representation of a national economy, in his input-output model?

...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?