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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'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 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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The Octopus card is a reusable contactless stored value smart card for making electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong. Launched in September 1997 to collect fares for the territory's mass transit system, the Octopus card system is the second contactless smart card system in the world, after the Korean Upass, and has since grown into a widely used payment system for all public transport in Hong Kong, leading to the development of Oyster Card in London.

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Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet some requirements, of customers or corporations. The resources managed in logistics can include physical items, such as food, materials, animals, equipment and liquids, as well as abstract items, such as time, information, particles, and energy. The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information flow, material handling, manufacturing, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and often security. The complexity of logistics can be modeled, analyzed, visualized, and optimized by dedicated simulation software. The minimization of the use of resources is a common motivation in logistics for import and export.

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Warsaw, central business district

The economy of Poland is an industrialised, mixed economy with a developed market that serves as the sixth-largest in the European Union by nominal GDP and fifth-largest by GDP (PPP). Poland boasts the extensive public services characteristic of most developed economies. Since 1988, Poland has pursued a policy of economic liberalisation but retained an advanced public welfare system. This includes universal free public healthcare and education (including tertiary), extensive provisions of free public childcare, and parental leave. The country is considered by many to be a successful post-communist state. It is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank, ranking 20th worldwide in terms of GDP (PPP), 21st in terms of GDP (nominal), and 21st in the 2023 Economic Complexity Index.

The largest component of Poland's economy is the service sector (62.3%), followed by industry (34.2%) and agriculture (3.5%). Following the economic reform of 1989, Poland's external debt has increased from $42.2 billion in 1989 to $365.2 billion in 2014. Poland shipped US$224.6 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2017, while exports increased to US$221.4 billion. The country's top export goods include machinery, electronic equipment, vehicles, furniture, and plastics. Poland was the only economy in the EU to avoid a recession through the 2007–08 economic downturn. (Full article...)

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"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it.

A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary.

An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye-law with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever."

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

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Business: Accountancy · Actuarial science · Administration · Business continuity planning · Business development · Business ethics · Business intelligence · Business model · Business process · Businesspeople · Commerce · Commercial law · Companies · Companies law · Control · Consumer behaviour · Corporate crime · Corporate social responsibility · Electronic commerce · Entrepreneurship · Family business · Fictional companies · Finance · Globalization · Industry · Information technology management · Insurance · Internal communications · International business · International trade · Logistics · Management · Market · Marketing · Market Research · Mergers and acquisitions · Operations management · Operations research · Organizational studies · Procurement · Project management · Public relations · Quality management · Retailing · Risk management · Sales · Supply Chain Management

Lists: Accounting · Business · Business law · Business management · Business theorists · Economics · Economists · Finance · Important publications · Industrial organization · Information technology management · International trade · Management · Marketing · Production · Project management · Think tanks

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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 Home Depot CEO Ted Decker ran his own landscaping business in high school?
... that topics on Recess Therapy have included the economy, climate change, and peeing your pants?
... that Daniel Davis was the first person in the United States to work with gold and silver electroplating as a business?
... that the creator of Comic Sans also designed a levitating man in a business suit?
... that railroad transportation executive William Phillips Hall was known as the "business millionaire evangelist"?

On this day in business history

May 15:

1863 - Frank Hornby, an English businessman and politician, invented Meccano, was born on this day.

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General images

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

Image 1Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 2Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
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 4Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 5Chart 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 61/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 7In 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 8Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 9Lindley 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 10McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 11Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 12Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)

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More did you know

... that Well No. 4 in the Pico Canyon Oilfield was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States and the longest producing oil well in the world at 114 years?

...that, unlike the accounting systems that help in the preparation of financial reports periodically, cost accounting systems and reports are not subject to rules and standards like the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles?

... that during the Great Depression, violence in Seattle's Smith Cove between longshoremen, strikebreakers and police ultimately resulted in the loss of much of the city's maritime traffic to the Port of Los Angeles?

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