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Portal:Business

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The Business and Economics Portal

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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.
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Small business vendors at a public market

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 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 the basic elements of economies, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of those interactions. Individual agents may include 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...)

Selected article

Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet the demands of modern filmmakers. The company introduced its first products in 1954. Originally a provider of CinemaScope accessories, the company's line of anamorphic widescreen lenses soon became the industry leader. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other groundbreaking cameras such as the Millennium XL (1999) and the digital video Genesis (2004).

Panavision operates exclusively as a rental facility—the company owns its entire inventory, unlike most of its competitors.

Selected image

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An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders.
Photo credit: Indianhilbilly

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. In economic theory, an auction may refer to any mechanism or set of trading rules for exchange.

Selected economy

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The continent's largest economy, South Africa, reflects the region's abundant natural resources, fertile land, and emerging technology use.

The continent of Africa has a diversified developing economy across the second-largest continental land-mass in the world. It is the world's 5th-largest continental economy with 54 national economies and a large informal economy. With a population of 1.47 billion, the African economy generates $2.83 trillion in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and over $10 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP. It is home to many of the world's fastest-growing economies due to its abundant emerging markets. They are economically integrated within their supranational organization, the African Union (AU).

It is the least wealthy inhabited continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, ahead of Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, corruption, as well as colonialism and neocolonialism. Amid this low concentration of wealth, economic expansion and a large youthful population make Africa a large consumer market. Africa has a large quantity of natural resources. The largest sectors of the African economy have been agriculture, trade, and industry. The most developed regions are North Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa. (Full article...)

Selected quote

"The trade of a joint stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of those proprietors seldom pretend to understand anything of the business of the company, and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive contentedly such half-yearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them. This total exemption from trouble and from risk, beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in joint stock companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes in any private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly draw to themselves much greater stocks than any private copartnery can boast of. The trading stock of the South Sea Company, at one time, amounted to upwards of thirty-three millions eight hundred thousand pounds. The divided capital of the Bank of England amounts, at present, to ten millions seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not for their master's honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. It is upon this account that joint stock companies for foreign trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an exclusive privilege, and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without an exclusive privilege they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an exclusive privilege they have both mismanaged and confined it."

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

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On this day in business history

July 23:

General images

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?

Business news

21 July 2026 – Tariffs in the second Trump administration
A spokesperson for Canadian infrastructure minister Gregor Robertson announces that Canada has cancelled a joint opening ceremony for the Gordie Howe International Bridge that will connect Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, after U.S. president Donald Trump announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. (AP) (CBC)
20 July 2026 – Canada–United States relations
U.S. president Donald Trump signs another executive order imposing 50% tariffs on many Canadian goods, including USMCA-covered products, citing alleged discriminatory trade practices. The duties take effect in 30 days, with exemptions for energy, potash, and products under sector-specific tariffs. (AFP via Vanguard) (CBC News)
14 July 2026 – 2024–2026 Cuba blackouts, 2026 Cuban crisis
Cuba suffers its third nationwide blackout in less than 10 days and fifth of 2026, as the state utility reports a complete grid failure amid fuel shortages caused by the ongoing U.S. imposed blockade, that complicate power restoration. (AFP via RFI)
13 July 2026 –
Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez appoints U.S. envoy Félix Plasencia to a foreign relations and overseas trade post, replacing foreign minister Yván Gil, who becomes science and technology minister. (Reuters)
9 July 2026 – Aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Economy of New York City
The proposed 2 World Trade Center breaks ground in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., 25 years after the original building was destroyed during the September 11 attacks. (ABC News) (KTLO)
1 July 2026 – Economic consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian war
Ukraine approves a mechanism for exporting domestically produced weapons and military technologies to raise funds for its defense effort against Russia and attract foreign investment, while requiring that the Ukrainian military's supply needs remain the priority. (AFP via The Straits Times)

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