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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 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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Odwalla Inc. is an American food product company that sells fruit juices, smoothies and food bars. It was founded in Santa Cruz, California, in 1980 and since 1995 is headquartered in Half Moon Bay, California. Odwalla's products includes juices, smoothies, soy milk, bottled water, organic beverages, and several types of energy bars, known as "food bars".

The company experienced strong growth after its incorporation in 1985, expanding its distribution network from California to most of North America, and went public in 1993. In 2001, Odwalla was acquired by The Coca-Cola Company for US$181 million and became a wholly owned subsidiary.

A period of decline occurred as the result of a fatal outbreak of E.coli-H7 in 1996 that was caused by using bruised fruit that had been contaminated. Odwalla originally sold unpasteurized juices, claiming that the process of pasteurization altered the flavor of the juice. Following the E.coli outbreak, Odwalla adopted flash pasteurization and other sanitization procedures. Odwalla recalled its juices and experienced a 90% reduction in sales following the event. The company gradually recovered and the following year became profitable again.

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Photo credit: Erina

This diagram illustrates how to draw a euro symbol, based on official documentation, and has been prepared specifically for Wikipedia and released to the public domain. ADF and BCDE intersect at D. BCDE, GH, and IJ are parallel. BCDE intersects centerline at C.

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Riyadh, the financial center of Saudi Arabia

The economy of Saudi Arabia is the second-largest in the Middle East and the nineteenth-largest in the world. The Saudi economy is highly reliant on its petroleum sector. Oil accounts on average in recent years for approximately 40% of Saudi GDP and 75% of fiscal revenue, with substantial fluctuations depending on oil prices each year.

The kingdom has the second-largest proven petroleum reserves, and the fourth-largest measured natural gas reserves. Saudi Arabia is currently the largest exporter of petroleum in the world. Other major parts of the economy include refining and chemical manufacturing from the oil reserves, much of which is vertically integrated in the state-owned enterprise, Saudi Aramco. Saudi Arabia is a permanent and founding member of OPEC

In 2016, the Saudi government launched its Saudi Vision 2030 program to reduce its dependency on oil and diversify its economic resources. By 2022, Saudi Arabia had only modestly reduced its dependence on oil. (Full article...)

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"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

They know that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means against him that will prevent his building up a business which they do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him. For if he begins to sell to certain retail dealers, to any retail dealers, the monopoly will refuse to sell to those dealers, and those dealers, afraid, will not buy the new man's wares.

And this is the country which has lifted to the admiration of the world its ideals of absolutely free opportunity, where no man is supposed to be under any limitation except the limitations of his character and of his mind; where there is supposed to be no distinction of class, no distinction of blood, no distinction of social status, but where men win or lose on their merits.

I lay it very close to my own conscience as a public man whether we can any longer stand at our doors and welcome all newcomers upon those terms. American industry is not free, as once it was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the industry and the economic life of this country. No man can deny that the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of industry in this country can have failed to observe that the larger kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain, unless you obtain them upon the terms of uniting your efforts with those who already control the industries of the country; and nobody can fail to observe that any man who tries to set himself up in competition with any process of manufacture which has been taken under the control of large combinations of capital will presently find himself either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be absorbed"

—Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913

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... 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?
... that one of Beverly Robertson's biggest accomplishments as CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber was attracting the Ford Motor Company's US$5.6 billion Blue Oval City complex to Memphis, Tennessee?
... that Francois Massaquoi, who studied economics at New York University, later led the Lofa Defense Force during the First Liberian Civil War?
... that in 1958, Virginia Ali and her husband Ben Ali founded Ben's Chili Bowl, a landmark Washington, D.C. restaurant where Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and Stokely Carmichael would often eat?
... that in 1990, Simon Rimmer bought an existing vegetarian restaurant with his business partner and taught himself to cook – in that order?
... that John Blackinger quit his job as the general manager of a professional football team to work in the dairy business?

On this day in business history

July 4:

1887 - Pio Pion, an Italian entrepreneur, known for founding the first Italian company producing movie projectors, the Fumagalli, Pion & C, was born on this day.

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General images

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

Image 1In 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 2Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 3McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 4"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 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 7Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 8Lindley 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 9Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 10Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 11Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 12Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 13Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)

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More did you know

...that in the United States of America the largest reserve requirement for commercial banks is 10% of liabilities?

...that the United States Federal Reserve System uses six monetary aggregates as components of the money supply?

...that an open market operation is an activity by a central bank to buy or sell government bonds on the open market?

...that, although nominal USA national debt has been steadily increasing since 1940, Debt-to-GDP ratio was actually higher during WWII than it is now?

... that the United States debt ceiling has been steadily raised since 1981?

... the Federal Reserve owns the largest share of the USA national debt?

...the term petrodollars was coined by Ibrahim Oweiss to describe dollars that did not circulate inside the United States, and therefore were not part of the normal money supply, and instead were received by petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) in exchange for oil?

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