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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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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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A bazaar is a market: a permanent enclosed merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term originates from the Middle Persian word vāzār. Souq is another word used in the Middle East for an open-air marketplace or commercial quarter. The term bazaar is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers, and craftsmen" who work in that area. Although the current meaning of the word is believed to have originated in native Zoroastrian Persia, its use has spread and now has been accepted into the vernacular in countries around the world. The rise of large bazaars and stock trading centers in the Muslim World allowed the creation of new capitals and eventually new empires. New and wealthy cities such as Isfahan, Golconda, Samarkand, Cairo, Baghdad, and Timbuktu were founded along trade routes and bazaars. Street markets and arcades are European and North American equivalents.

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Karachi, the financial hub of Pakistan

The economy of Pakistan is categorized as a developing economy. It ranks as the 24th-largest based on GDP using purchasing power parity (PPP) and the 46th largest in terms of nominal GDP. With a population of 241.5 million people as of 2023, Pakistan’s position at per capita income ranks 161st by GDP (nominal) and 138th by GDP (PPP) according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (Full article...)

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"However no decentralized pricing system can serve to determine optimally these levels of collective consumption. Other kinds of "voting" or "signalling" would have to be tried. But, and this is the point sensed by Wicksell but perhaps not fully appreciated by Lindahl, now it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has, etc. I must emphasize this: taxing according to a benefit theory of taxation can not at all solve the computational problem in the decentralized manner possible for the first category of "private" goods to which the ordinary market pricing applies and which do not have the "external effects" basic to the very notion of collective consumption goods. Of course, utopian voting and signalling schemes can be imagined. ("Scandinavian consensus," Kant's "categorical imperative," and other devices meaningful only under conditions of "symmetry," etc.) The failure of market catallactics in no way denies the following truth: given sufficient knowledge the optimal decisions can always be found by scanning over all the attainable states of the world and selecting the one which according to the postulated ethical welfare function is best. The solution "exists"; the problem is how to "find" it."

—Paul Samuelson, The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure, 1954

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... that food was left to rot outside after the supermarket Supie went out of business?
... that The Sims 2: Open for Business has been used to teach business students?
... that the studios of a California TV station were converted back into a movie theater after it went out of business?
... that German economist Ingo Böbel became Professor of Economics at International University of Monaco after serving a prison sentence for embezzlement and tax evasion?
... that women- and minority-owned businesses built the Frequent Express high-capacity bus line in Portland, Oregon?
... that due to business closures across California during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the exotic dancers at Jumbo's Clown Room created the Cyber Clown Girls show so they could continue working?

On this day in business history

April 26:

2007 - Jack Valenti, an American businessman, creator of the MPAA film rating system, died 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 21/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
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 4In 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 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 6Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 7McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 8Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 9Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
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 12Lindley 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)

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More did you know

...that Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman of Biocon, is India's richest woman?

...advertising management is a function of marketing starting from market research, continuing through advertising, leading to actual sales or achievement of objectives?

... that a value-added service (VAS) is a telecommunications industry term for non-core services or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls?

...that EID Parry is one of the oldest business entities in the Indian subcontinent and owes its origin to Thomas Parry, a Welshman who came to India in late 1780s?

... that an agrarian society is one that is based on agriculture as its prime means for support and sustenance?

... that the expression Hindu rate of growth is used to refer to the low annual growth rate of the economy of India, which stagnated around 3.5% from 1950 to 1980?

...that Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daron Acemoğlu received the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal for his work on Skill Acquisition and Technological Change, Investment and Growth, Directed Search and Unemployment, The Role of Institutions in Economic Development and Political Economy?

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