Portal:Business

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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 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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Adam Smith

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published on March 9, 1776 during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and is widely considered to be the first modern work in the field of economics. The work is also the first comprehensive defense of free market policies. It is broken down into five books between two volumes. The Wealth of Nations was written for the average educated individual of the 18th century rather than for specialists and mathematicians. There are three main concepts that Smith expands upon in this work that form the foundation of free market economics: The Division of Labor, The Pursuit of Self Interest, and The Freedom of Trade.

The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, during the Age of Enlightenment. It influenced not only authors and economists, but governments and organisations. For example, Alexander Hamilton was influenced in part by The Wealth of Nations to write his Report on Manufactures, in which he argued against many of Smith's policies. Interestingly, Hamilton based much of this report on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, in part, to Colbert's ideas that Smith wished to respond with The Wealth of Nations. Many other authors were influenced by the book and used it as a starting point in their own work, including Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and, later, Karl Marx and Ludwig von Mises. The Russian national poet Aleksandr Pushkin refers to The Wealth of Nations in his 1833 verse-novel Eugene Onegin.

Irrespective of historical influence, however, The Wealth of Nations represented a clear leap forward in the field of economics, similar to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica for physics or Antoine Lavoisier's Traité Élémentaire de Chimie for chemistry. The Wealth of Nations is also important in a Scottish linguistic context on account of the fact the book is written in English and not in Scots Language, a somewhat rare occurrence for the time.

Smith addresses in The Wealth of Nations a problem that was torturing the best economic minds of his day. This problem was rooted in the means by which objects are valued. The two predominant theories of value in Smith's time were the so-called "Practical Theory of Value" and the labor theory of value, as delineated later by David Ricardo.

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"The New Fred Meyer on Interstate on Lombard" (7404 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217).
Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

In commerce, a hypermarket is a superstore combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise. In theory, hypermarkets allow customers to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip.

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The economy of Denmark is a modern high-income and highly developed mixed economy. The economy of Denmark is dominated by the service sector with 80% of all jobs, whereas about 11% of all employees work in manufacturing and 2% in agriculture. The nominal gross national income per capita was the ninth-highest in the world at $68,827 in 2023.

Correcting for purchasing power, per capita income was Int$57,781 or 10th-highest globally. The income distribution is relatively equal but inequality has somewhat increased during the last decades. In 2017, Denmark had the seventh-lowest Gini coefficient (a measure of economic inequality) of the then 28 European Union countries. With 5,932,654 inhabitants (1 January 2023), Denmark has the 38th largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the 52nd largest in the world measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). Among OECD nations, Denmark has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 26.2% of GDP. (Full article...)

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"Manufacturing is also done through teamwork. It might take 10 or 15 workers, for example, to take a job from raw materials to finished product. The idea is teamwork - not how many parts were machined or drilled by one worker, but how many products were completed by the line as a whole.

Years ago, I used to tell production workers one of my favorite stories about a boat rowed by eight men, four on the left side and four on the right side. If they do not row correctly, the boat will zigzag erratically.

One rower might feel he is stronger than the next and row twice as hard. But this extra effort upsets the boat's progress and moves it off course. The best way to propel the boat faster is for everyone to distribute force equally, rowing evenly and at the same depth.

Today a volleyball team has six players; previously there were nine. If a nine-member team tried to play a six-member team using the same plays, players might be injured bumping into one another. They would probably lose also because having more players is not necessarily an advantage.

Teamwork combined with other factors can allow a smaller team to win. The same is true in a work environment."

Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System, English edition of 1988

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On this day in business history

June 4:

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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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