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Portal:Business

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Business and Economics Portal

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 an 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 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 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. It also seeks to analyse and describe the global economy. (Full article...)

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The Mark of Excellence is the original name of the logo of the General Motors Corporation.

General Motors Company (GM) is an American multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing four automobile brands: Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick. By total sales, it has continuously been the largest automaker in the United States, and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008.

General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. In addition to its four core brands, GM also holds interests in Chinese brands Baojun and Wuling via SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile. GM further owns the BrightDrop delivery vehicle manufacturer, a namesake defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military, the vehicle safety, security, and information services provider OnStar, the auto parts company ACDelco, a namesake financial lending service, and majority ownership in the self-driving cars enterprise Cruise LLC.

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The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.
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.

Selected economy

The economy of Macau is a highly developed market economy. Macau's economy has remained one of the most open in the world since its handover to China in 1999. Apparel exports and gambling-related tourism are mainstays of the economy. Since Macau has little arable land and few natural resources, it depends on mainland China for most of its food, fresh water, and energy imports. Japan and Hong Kong are the main suppliers of raw materials and capital goods. Although Macau was hit hard by the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and the early 2000s recession, its economy grew approximately 13.1% annually on average between 2001 and 2006. Macau is a full Member of the World Trade Organization. Public security has greatly improved after handover to the People's Republic of China. With the tax revenue from the profitable gambling industry, the Macau government is able to introduce the social welfare program of 15 years of free education to all Macau citizens. In 2015, Macau's economy saw a sharp decrease (-26.4% year-on-year in Q2 2015) due to the reduced spending by visitors from Mainland China since the Anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping. (Full article...)

Selected quote

" I have already quoted in Marx's own words the passages relative to the subject. The line of argument divides itself clearly into three steps.

First step. Since in exchange two goods are made equal to one another, there must be a common element of similar quantity in the two, and in this common element must reside the principle of Exchange value.

Second step. This common element cannot be the Use value, for in the exchange of goods the use value is disregarded.

Third step. If the use value of commodities be disregarded there remains in them only one common property—that of being products of labour. Consequently, so runs the conclusion, Labour is the principle of value; or, as Marx says, the use value, or "good," only has a value because human labour is made objective in it, is materialised in it.

I have seldom read anything to equal this for bad reasoning and carelessness in drawing conclusions.

The first step may pass, but the second step can only be maintained by a logical fallacy of the grossest kind. The use value cannot be the common element because it is "obviously disregarded in the exchange relations of commodities, for"—I quote literally—"within the exchange relations one use value counts for just as much as any other, if only it is to be had in the proper proportion." What would Marx have said to the following argument?

In an opera company there are three celebrated singers—a tenor, a bass, and a baritone—and these have each a salary of £1000. The question is asked, What is the common circumstance on account of which their salaries are made equal? And I answer, In the question of salary one good voice counts for just as much as any other—a good tenor for as much as a good bass or a good baritone—provided only it is to be had in proper proportion; consequently in the question of salary the good voice is evidently disregarded, and the good voice cannot be the cause of the good salary.

The fallaciousness of this argument is clear. But it is just as clear that Marx's conclusion, from which this is exactly copied, is not a whit more correct. Both commit the same fallacy. They confuse the disregarding of a genus with the disregarding of the specific forms in which this genus manifests itself. In our illustration the circumstance which is of no account as regards the question of salary is evidently only the special form which the good voice assumes, whether tenor, bass, or baritone. It is by no means the good voice in general. And just so is it with the exchange relations of commodities. The special forms under which use value may appear, whether the use be for food, clothing, shelter, or any other thing, is of course disregarded; but the use value of the commodity in general is never disregarded. Marx might have seen that we do not absolutely disregard use value from the fact that there can be no exchange value where there is not a use value—a fact which Marx himself is repeatedly forced to admit."

Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, Capital and Interest, 1884

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On this day in business history

September 2:

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photo of a large brown snail with white markings on its shell
a live adult Limicolaria flammea
  • ... 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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