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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 except for limited liability company. 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 behavioral 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 the factors of production affecting them, such as: labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that impact these elements. It also seeks to analyse and describe the global economy. (Full article...)

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Actuaries are business professionals who deal with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries are highly trained experts with a deep understanding of financial security systems, their reasons for being, their complexity, their mathematics, and the way they work. They evaluate the likelihood of future events and design creative ways to quantify the contingent outcomes in order to minimize losses associated with uncertain undesirable events. These risks can impact both sides of the balance sheet and require asset management, liability management, and valuation skills. It takes a combination of strong analytical skills, business knowledge and understanding of both human behavior and the vagaries of information systems to design and manage programs that control risk. Actuaries work in a number of insurance disciplines, which may be classified as life, health, pensions, annuities, and asset management, social welfare programs, property, casualty, liability, general insurance and reinsurance.

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Barter is a system of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is distinguishable from gift economies in many ways; one of them is that the reciprocal exchange is immediate and not delayed in time. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral (i.e., mediated through barter organizations) and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a very limited extent. Barter usually replaces money as the method of exchange in times of monetary crisis, such as when the currency may be either unstable (e.g., hyperinflation or deflationary spiral) or simply unavailable for conducting commerce.

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1000 CVE bank note issued in 1992
The economy of Cape Verde is a service-oriented economy that is focused on commerce, trade, transport and public services. Cape Verde is a small archipelagic nation that lacks resources and has experienced severe droughts. Agriculture is made difficult by lack of rain and is restricted to only four islands for most of the year. Cape Verde's economy has been steadily growing since the late 1990s, and it is now officially considered a country of average development, being only the second African country to have achieved such transition, after Botswana in 1994. Cape Verde has significant cooperation with Portugal at every level of the economy, which has led it to link its currency (the Cape Verdean escudo) first to the Portuguese escudo and, in 1999, to the euro. (Full article...)

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"The process chart is a record of present conditions. It presents, in simple, easily understood, compact form, data which must be collected and examined before any improvement in existing conditions and methods is undertaken. Even if existing conditions are apparently satisfactory, the chart is useful as presenting much information in condensed form.

The process chart serves as an indicator of profitable changes. It assists in preventing "inventing downward," and stimulates invention that is cumulative and of permanent value. It is not only the first step in visualizing the one best way to do work, but is useful in every stage of deriving it.

This paper presents established working data used successfully in numerous installations for many years."

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. and Lillian Gilbreth, Process Charts, 1921

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Did you know (auto-generated) -

  • ... that the British political theorist Chris Armstrong has called for a "blue new deal" to secure ecological resilience for the ocean and a just blue economy?
  • ... that new employees of a business headquartered in the Editors Building chose their office decorations from a 7,000-piece collection of historic memorabilia of Washington, D.C.?
  • ... 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 the Darwin Rocksitters Club had "no funny business" as their first, third, and fifth rules?
  • ... that YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim has updated the description of his video "Me at the zoo" on multiple occasions to criticize the website's business decisions?
  • ... that Celine-Marie Pascale's work focuses on how race and class impact the way "business practices and government policies create, normalize and entrench economic struggles" to benefit the wealthy?

On this day in business history

August 12:

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

More did you know

  • ... that at the time of her completion in 1918, American cargo ship West Lianga held the distinction of being both the fastest-launched and the fastest-constructed ocean-going ship in the world?

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