1.
Business
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A business is an organizational entity involved in the provision of goods and services to consumers. Businesses may also be social non-profit enterprises or state-owned public enterprises operated by governments with specific social, a business owned by multiple private individuals may form as an incorporated company or jointly organise as a partnership. Countries have different laws that may ascribe different rights to the business entities. The word business can refer to an organization or to an entire market sector or to the sum of all economic activity. Compound forms such as agribusiness represent subsets of the broader meaning. Businesses aim to maximize sales to have their income exceed their expenditures, resulting in a profit, the owner operates the business alone and may hire employees. A sole proprietor has unlimited liability for all obligations incurred by the business, partnership, A partnership is a business owned by two or more people. In most forms of partnerships, each partner has unlimited liability for the debts incurred by the business, the three most prevalent types of for-profit partnerships are, general partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships. Corporation, The owners of a corporation have limited liability and the business has a legal personality from its owners. Corporations can be either government-owned or privately owned and they can organize either for profit or as nonprofit organizations. A privately owned, for-profit corporation is owned by its shareholders, a privately owned, for-profit corporation can be either privately held by a small group of individuals, or publicly held, with publicly traded shares listed on a stock exchange. Cooperative, Often referred to as a co-op, a cooperative is a limited-liability business that can organize as for-profit or not-for-profit, a cooperative differs from a corporation in that it has members, not shareholders, and they share decision-making authority. Cooperatives are typically classified as either consumer cooperatives or worker cooperatives, cooperatives are fundamental to the ideology of economic democracy. In contrast, unincorporated businesses or persons working on their own are not as protected. Franchises, A franchise is a system in which entrepreneurs purchase the rights to open, franchising in the United States is widespread and is a major economic powerhouse. One out of retail businesses in the United States are franchised and 8 million people are employed in a franchised business. Real estate businesses sell, invest, construct and develop properties – including land, residential homes, retailers, wholesalers, and distributors act as middlemen and get goods produced by manufacturers to the intended consumers, they make their profits by marking up their prices. Most stores and catalog companies are distributors or retailers, transportation businesses such as railways, airlines, shipping companies that deliver goods and individuals to their destinations for a fee
2.
Corporation
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A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law. Early incorporated entities were established by charter, most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration. Corporations chartered in regions where they are distinguished by whether they are allowed to be for profit or not are referred to as for profit and not-for-profit corporations, there is some overlap between stock/non-stock and for profit/not-for-profit in that not-for-profit corporations are always non-stock as well. A for profit corporation is almost always a stock corporation, registered corporations have legal personality and are owned by shareholders whose liability is limited to their investment. Shareholders do not typically actively manage a corporation, shareholders instead elect or appoint a board of directors to control the corporation in a fiduciary capacity, in American English, the word corporation is most often used to describe large business corporations. In British English and in the Commonwealth countries, the company is more widely used to describe the same sort of entity while the word corporation encompasses all incorporated entities. In American English, the company can include entities such as partnerships that would not be referred to as companies in British English as they are not a separate legal entity. Despite not being human beings, corporations, as far as the law is concerned, are legal persons. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, Corporations can be dissolved either by statutory operation, order of court, or voluntary action on the part of shareholders. Corporations can even be convicted of offenses, such as fraud. However, corporations are not considered living entities in the way humans are. While not a corporation, this new type of entity became very attractive as an alternative for corporations not needing to issue stock, in Germany, the organization was referred to as Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung or GmbH. In the last quarter of the 20th Century this new form of organization became available in the United States and other countries. Since the GmbH and LLC forms of organization are technically not corporations they will not be discussed in this article, the word corporation derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a body of people. By the time of Justinian, Roman law recognized a range of corporate entities under the names universitas and these included the state itself, municipalities, and such private associations as sponsors of a religious cult, burial clubs, political groups, and guilds of craftsmen or traders. Such bodies commonly had the right to own property and make contracts, to receive gifts and legacies, to sue and be sued, private associations were granted designated privileges and liberties by the emperor. Entities which carried on business and were the subjects of rights were found in ancient Rome. In medieval Europe, churches became incorporated, as did local governments, such as the Pope, the point was that the incorporation would survive longer than the lives of any particular member, existing in perpetuity
3.
Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
4.
Rolling stock
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The term rolling stock originally referred to any vehicles that move on a railway. It has since expanded to include the vehicles used by businesses on roadways. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for locomotives, railroad cars, coaches, and wagons. Rolling stock is considered to be an asset, or close to it, since the value of the vehicle can be readily estimated. The term contrasts with fixed stock, which is a term for the track, signals, stations, other buildings, electric wires. In Great Britain, types of rolling stock were given code names and these codes were telegraphese, somewhat analogous to the SMS language of today. List of railway vehicles Great Western Railway telegraphic codes Great Western Railway wagons The dictionary definition of rolling stock at Wiktionary
5.
Berkshire Hathaway
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Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. The company wholly owns GEICO, BNSF Railway, Lubrizol, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Helzberg Diamonds, FlightSafety International, Pampered Chef, and NetJets, and also owns 43. Berkshire Hathaway averaged a growth in book value of 19. 7% to its shareholders for the last 49 years, while employing large amounts of capital. In the early part of Buffetts career at Berkshire, he focused on investments in publicly traded companies. According to the Forbes Global 2000 list and formula, Berkshire Hathaway is the fourth largest public company in the world, Berkshire Hathaway traces its roots to a textile manufacturing company established by Oliver Chace in 1839 as the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island. Chace had previously worked for Samuel Slater, the founder of the first successful textile mill in America, Chace founded his first textile mill in 1806. In 1929 the Valley Falls Company merged with the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company established in 1889, in Adams, the combined company was known as Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates. Hathaway had been successful in its first decades, but it suffered during a decline in the textile industry after World War I. At this time, Hathaway was run by Seabury Stanton, whose investment efforts were rewarded with renewed profitability after the Depression, after the merger Berkshire Hathaway had 15 plants employing over 12,000 workers with over $120 million in revenue and was headquartered in New Bedford. However, seven of those locations were closed by the end of the decade, in 1962, Warren Buffett began buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway after noticing a pattern in the price direction of its stock whenever the company closed a mill. Eventually, Buffett acknowledged that the business was waning and the companys financial situation was not going to improve. In 1964, Stanton made a tender offer of $11 1⁄2 per share for the company to buy back Buffetts shares. A few weeks later, Warren Buffett received the offer in writing. Buffett later admitted that this lower, undercutting offer made him angry, instead of selling at the slightly lower price, Buffett decided to buy more of the stock to take control of the company and fire Stanton. However, this put Buffett in a situation where he was now majority owner of a business that was failing. Buffett initially maintained Berkshires core business of textiles, but by 1967, he was expanding into the insurance industry, Berkshire first ventured into the insurance business with the purchase of National Indemnity Company. In the late 1970s, Berkshire acquired an equity stake in the Government Employees Insurance Company, in 1985, the last textile operations were shut down. Buffett claimed that had he invested that money directly in insurance businesses instead of buying out Berkshire Hathaway, Berkshires class A shares sold for $258,000
6.
Leucadia National
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The company is sometimes called a baby Berkshire Hathaway for the wide range of its holdings. Leucadia executives Ian Cumming and Joseph S. Steinberg both graduated in the same Harvard Business School Class of 1970, Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg each own about 13% of Leucadias shares. Leucadia is headquartered in New York City, but has offices in Salt Lake City. The companys name comes from the town in Southern California and was chosen randomly after several other choices were rejected during the incorporation process. Cumming and Steinberg spotted the sign along the freeway and suggested it as an alternative, Leucadias highest profile move as of 2005 was a bid in 2004 to acquire 50 percent of telecommunications company MCIs common stock. However, after MCI received higher bids from companies, Leucadia withdrew from the bidding process. Jefferies was valued at $3.8 billion at the time of the acquisition, Jefferies remains independent and is the largest operating company within Leucadia. On March 1,2013, Leucadia bought the Jefferies Group for $3.6 billion, the company’s founders, Ian M. Cumming and Joseph S. Steinberg, stepped down from their management roles after the merger, with Mr. Steinberg staying on as chairman. The number of directors also increased to 11 from eight, including the addition of nine new directors, richard B. Handler became chief executive of Leucadia, while remaining chief executive of Jefferies. WMAC Investment Corp. a subsidiary of Leucadia, is the largest backer of Pershing Square Capital Management L. P. a Delaware-incorporated investment partnership, william Ackman is the founder of the $10 billion+ activist hedge fund Pershing Square. The Fund had 20%+ returns over the past 9 years, a $2.6 billion plant was planned in Indiana, while similar proposals in Illinois have met resistance from state regulators. The project in Indiana was ultimately panned by the legislature in 2013. In January 2015, Leucadia granted a loan to FXCM after it became insolvent due to a rise in the CHF currency after the Swiss Bank stopped pegging its currency to the Euro. The loan value is estimated to be at $300 million, * Leucadia National Corporation Annual Report 2007 Official website
7.
Time Warner
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Time Warner Inc. is an American multinational media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is currently the third largest entertainment company in terms of revenue, after Comcast. It was also once the worlds largest media conglomerate, Time Warner was first founded in 1990 with the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. The current company consists largely of the assets of the former Warner Communications, Time Warner currently has major operations in film and television, with a limited amount in publishing operations. Among its most popular assets are HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, CNN, DC Comics, and as of August 2016, Hulu, owning 10%. In the past, other divisions of Time Warner included Time Inc. AOL, Time Warner Cable, Warner Books and Warner Music Group, all of these operations were either sold to other investors or spun off as independent companies from 2004 to 2014. On October 22,2016, AT&T announced its intent to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, Time Warner consists of three divisions, Home Box Office Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and Warner Bros. Home Box Office Inc. operates the namesake HBO premium television service as well as sister service Cinemax, hBO- and Cinemax-branded channels are currently available in over 70 countries around the world, and HBO programming is licensed to other television networks in over 150 countries. In 2012, HBO was the #1 premium pay television service in primetime television, in 2013, the network received five Golden Globes and 23 primetime Emmy Awards. HBO’s programming includes the airing of feature films, HBO Documentary Films, HBO original films, the network has developed content distribution platforms, like HBO GO and Max GO to help support and deliver programming to users via online and mobile devices. In 2011, Cinemax launched its first original series, Strike Back. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. operates international news, entertainment, animation, young adult, Turner brands include CNN, HLN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, truTV, Turner Sports, and more. Turners brands and sub brands reach broad domestic and international audiences, in addition to television network programming, Turner manages digital sports entities, including bleacherreport. com NBA. com, PGA. com and NCAA. com. Turner Sports produces sports programming and content for the Turner Networks, Turner Sports’ television line-up includes NBA and MLB games, the NCAA Tournament Games, and the PGA Championship. Turner operates PGA. com and related properties of the PGA under agreements with the PGA. Pictures Group grossed 4.3 billion dollars at the box office. Home Video is the leader with a 21% market share in total DVD
8.
Citigroup
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Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational investment banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp, Citigroup ranks 3rd on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets and is one of the Big Four banks in the United States, alongside JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. In addition to U. S. money managers, its largest shareholders include Abu Dhabi, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the company is one of 24 primary dealers in United States Treasury securities. Citigroup has over 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries, Citigroup has 219,000 employees, although it had 357,000 employees at its height before the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Citigroup suffered huge losses during the crisis of 2007-2008 and was rescued in November 2008 in a massive stimulus package by the U. S. government. Citigroup was formed on October 9,1998, following the $140 billion merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group to create the worlds largest financial services organization. As such, the history dates back to the founding of. City Bank of New York was chartered by New York State on June 16,1812, serving a group of New York merchants, the bank opened for business on September 14 of that year, and Samuel Osgood was elected as the first President of the company. The companys name was changed to The National City Bank of New York in 1865 after it joined the new U. S. national banking system, and it became the largest American bank by 1895. The bank changed its name to The First National City Bank of New York in 1955, the bank introduced its First National City Charge Service credit card—popularly known as the Everything card and later to become MasterCard—in 1967. In 1976, under the leadership of CEO Walter B, wriston, First National City Bank was renamed as Citibank, N. A. Shortly afterward, the bank launched the Citicard, which pioneered the use of 24-hour ATMs, john S. Reed was elected CEO in 1984, and Citi became a founding member of the CHAPS clearing house in London. Travelers Group, at the time of merger, was a group of financial concerns that had been brought together under CEO Sandy Weill. Its roots came from Commercial Credit, a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation that was taken private by Weill in November 1986 after taking charge of the company earlier that year. Two years later, Weill mastered the buyout of Primerica—a conglomerate that had bought life insurer A L Williams as well as stock broker Smith Barney. The new company took the Primerica name, and employed a cross-selling strategy such that each of the entities within the parent company aimed to sell each others services and its non-financial businesses were spun off. With the acquisition, the group became Travelers Inc, Property & casualty and life & annuities underwriting capabilities were added to the business. Meanwhile, the distinctive Travelers red umbrella logo, which was acquired in the deal, was applied to all the businesses within the newly named organization
9.
IBM
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International Business Machines Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States, with operations in over 170 countries. The company originated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and was renamed International Business Machines in 1924, IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware, middleware and software, and offers hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a research organization, holding the record for most patents generated by a business for 24 consecutive years. IBM has continually shifted its business mix by exiting commoditizing markets and focusing on higher-value, also in 2014, IBM announced that it would go fabless, continuing to design semiconductors, but offloading manufacturing to GlobalFoundries. Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the worlds largest employers, with nearly 380,000 employees. Known as IBMers, IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, in the 1880s, technologies emerged that would ultimately form the core of what would become International Business Machines. On June 16,1911, their four companies were amalgamated in New York State by Charles Ranlett Flint forming a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company based in Endicott, New York. The five companies had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York, Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Washington, D. C. and Toronto. They manufactured machinery for sale and lease, ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders, meat and cheese slicers, to tabulators and punched cards. Thomas J. Watson, Sr. fired from the National Cash Register Company by John Henry Patterson, called on Flint and, Watson joined CTR as General Manager then,11 months later, was made President when court cases relating to his time at NCR were resolved. Having learned Pattersons pioneering business practices, Watson proceeded to put the stamp of NCR onto CTRs companies and his favorite slogan, THINK, became a mantra for each companys employees. During Watsons first four years, revenues more than doubled to $9 million, Watson had never liked the clumsy hyphenated title of the CTR and in 1924 chose to replace it with the more expansive title International Business Machines. By 1933 most of the subsidiaries had been merged into one company, in 1937, IBMs tabulating equipment enabled organizations to process unprecedented amounts of data, its clients including the U. S. During the Second World War the company produced small arms for the American war effort, in 1949, Thomas Watson, Sr. created IBM World Trade Corporation, a subsidiary of IBM focused on foreign operations. In 1952, he stepped down after almost 40 years at the company helm, in 1957, the FORTRAN scientific programming language was developed. In 1961, IBM developed the SABRE reservation system for American Airlines, in 1963, IBM employees and computers helped NASA track the orbital flight of the Mercury astronauts. A year later it moved its headquarters from New York City to Armonk. The latter half of the 1960s saw IBM continue its support of space exploration, on April 7,1964, IBM announced the first computer system family, the IBM System/360
10.
Xerox
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Xerox Corporation /ˈzɪərɒks/ is an American global corporation that sells document solutions and services, and document technology products in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, though its largest population of employees is based around Rochester, New York, the company purchased Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion in early 2010. As a large developed company, it is placed in the list of Fortune 500 companies. Xerox completed the separation of Conduent Incorporated effective on Dec.31,2016, creating two market-leading, publicly- traded companies. In connection with the spin-off, Xerox received a transfer from Conduent of $1.8 billion. Xerox continues to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “XRX”, researchers at Xerox and its Palo Alto Research Center invented several important elements of personal computing, such as the desktop metaphor GUI, the computer mouse and desktop computing. These concepts were frowned upon by the board of directors. The concepts were adopted by Apple and, later, Microsoft, with the help of these innovations, Apple and Microsoft came to dominate the personal computing revolution of the 1980s, whereas Xerox was not a major player. Xerox was founded in 1906 in Rochester as The Haloid Photographic Company, in 1938 Chester Carlson, a physicist working independently, invented a process for printing images using an electrically charged photoconductor-coated metal plate and dry powder toner. However, it would more than 20 years of refinement before the first automated machine to make copies was commercialized, using a document feeder, scanning light. Wilson, credited as the founder of Xerox, took over Haloid from his father and he saw the promise of Carlsons invention and, in 1946, signed an agreement to develop it as a commercial product. Wilson remained as President/CEO of Xerox until 1967 and served as Chairman until his death in 1971, looking for a term to differentiate its new system, Haloid coined the term Xerography from two Greek roots meaning dry writing. Haloid subsequently changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958 and then Xerox Corporation in 1961, before releasing the 914, Xerox tested the market by introducing a developed version of the prototype hand-operated equipment known as the Flat-plate 1385. The 1385 was not actually a viable copier because of its speed of operation and it was little more than a high quality, commercially available plate camera mounted as a horizontal rostrum camera, complete with photo-flood lighting and timer. The glass film/plate had been replaced with an aluminum plate. Clever electrics turned this into a developing and reusable substitute for film. A skilled user could produce fast, paper and metal printing plates of a higher quality than almost any other method, having started as a supplier to the offset lithography duplicating industry, Xerox now set its sights on capturing some of offsets market share. The 1385 was followed by the first automatic xerographic printer, the Copyflo, the Copyflo was a large microfilm printer which could produce positive prints on roll paper from any type of microfilm negative
11.
Trade
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Trade, or commerce, involves the transfer of goods or services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. A network that allows trade is called a market, the original form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. Barter is trading things without the use of money, later one side of the barter started to involve precious metals, which gained symbolic as well as practical importance. Modern traders generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money, as a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money greatly simplified and promoted trade, Trade between two traders is called bilateral trade, while trade between more than two traders is called multilateral trade. Trade exists due to the specialization and division of labor, in which most people concentrate on an aspect of production. As such, trade at prices between locations can benefit both locations. Trade originated with human communication in prehistoric times, trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other before the innovation of modern-day currency. Peter Watson dates the history of commerce from circa 150,000 years ago. In the Mediterranean region the earliest contact between cultures were of members of the species Homo sapiens principally using the Danube river, at a time beginning 35–30,000 BCE, Trade is believed to have taken place throughout much of recorded human history. There is evidence of the exchange of obsidian and flint during the stone age, Trade in obsidian is believed to have taken place in Guinea from 17,000 BCE. The earliest use of obsidian in the Near East dates to the Lower, Trade in the stone age was investigated by Robert Carr Bosanquet in excavations of 1901. Trade is believed to have first begun in south west Asia, obsidian was traded at distances of 900 kilometres within the Mediterranean region. Trade in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic of Europe was greatest in this material, networks were in existence at around 12,000 BCE Anatolia was the source primarily for trade with the Levant, Iran and Egypt according to Zarins study of 1990. Melos and Lipari sources produced among the most widespread trading in the Mediterranean region as known to archaeology, the Sari-i-Sang mine in the mountains of Afghanistan was the largest source for trade of Lapis Lazuli. The material was most largely traded during the Kassite period of Babylonia beginning 1595 BCE, ebla was a prominent trading centre during the third millennia, with a network reaching into Anatolia and north Mesopotamia. Materials used for creating jewelry were traded with Egypt since 3000 BCE, long-range trade routes first appeared in the 3rd millennium BCE, when Sumerians in Mesopotamia traded with the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley. The Phoenicians were noted sea traders, traveling across the Mediterranean Sea, for this purpose they established trade colonies the Greeks called emporia
12.
Tax
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A tax is a financial charge or other levy imposed upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state to fund various public expenditures. A failure to pay, or evasion of or resistance to taxation, is punishable by law. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as its labour equivalent, the legal definition and the economic definition of taxes differ in that economists do not regard many transfers to governments as taxes. For example, some transfers to the sector are comparable to prices. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments, governments also obtain resources by creating money and coins, through voluntary gifts, by imposing penalties, by borrowing, and by confiscating wealth. In modern taxation systems, governments levy taxes in money, but in-kind and corvée taxation are characteristic of traditional or pre-capitalist states, the method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised is often highly debated in politics and economics. Tax collection is performed by a government agency such as the Canada Revenue Agency, when taxes are not fully paid, the state may impose civil penalties or criminal penalties on the non-paying entity or individual. The levying of taxes aims to raise revenue to fund governing and/or to alter prices in order to affect demand, States and their functional equivalents throughout history have used money provided by taxation to carry out many functions. A governments ability to raise taxes is called its fiscal capacity, when expenditures exceed tax revenue, a government accumulates debt. A portion of taxes may be used to service past debts, governments also use taxes to fund welfare and public services. These services can include education systems, pensions for the elderly, unemployment benefits, energy, water and waste management systems are also common public utilities. A tax effectively changes relative prices of products and they have therefore sought to identify the kind of tax system that would minimize this distortion. Governments use different kinds of taxes and vary the tax rates, historically, taxes on the poor supported the nobility, modern social-security systems aim to support the poor, the disabled, or the retired by taxes on those who are still working. A states tax system often reflects its communal values and the values of those in current political power. To create a system of taxation, a state must make choices regarding the distribution of the tax burden—who will pay taxes and how much they will pay—and how the taxes collected will be spent. In democratic nations where the public elects those in charge of establishing or administering the tax system, in countries where the public does not have a significant amount of influence over the system of taxation, that system may reflect more closely the values of those in power. All large businesses incur administrative costs in the process of delivering revenue collected from customers to the suppliers of the goods or services being purchased. Taxation is no different, the resource collected from the public through taxation is always greater than the amount which can be used by the government, the difference is called the compliance cost and includes the labour cost and other expenses incurred in complying with tax laws and rules
13.
Legal liability
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In law, liable means esponsible or answerable in law, legally obligated. Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, the claimant is the one who seeks to establish, or prove, liability. Claimants can prove liability through a myriad of different theories, known as theories of liability, which theories of liability are available in a given case depends on nature of the law in question. Each theory of liability has certain conditions, or elements, that must be proven by the claimant before liability will be established, theories of liability can also be created by legislation. For example, under English law, with the passing of the Theft Act 1978, payment of damages usually resolves the liability. A given liability may be covered by insurance, in general, however, insurance providers only cover liabilities arising from negligent torts rather than intentional wrongs or breach of contract. In commercial law, limited liability is a form that shields its owners from certain types of liability. A limited liability form separates the owner from the business and this means that when a business is found liable in case, the owners are not themselves liable, rather, the business is. Thus, only the funds or property the owner have invested into the business are subject to that liability, if, for example, a limited liability business goes bankrupt, then the owner will not lose unrelated assets such as a personal residence. This is the model for larger businesses, in which a shareholder will only lose the amount invested. This is known as piercing the veil, manufacturers liability, a legal concept in most countries, reflects the fact that producers have a responsibility not to sell a defective product. Economists use the legal liability to describe the legal-bound obligation to pay debts
14.
James Bond
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The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015, additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The character has also adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games. As of 2017, there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series, the most recent Bond film, Spectre, stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond, he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also two independent productions of Bond films, Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. In 2015, the franchise was estimated to be worth $19.9 billion, the Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bonds cars, his guns, the films are also noted for Bonds relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as Bond girls. Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond as the central figure for his works. Bond is an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is known by his number,007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway. Aside from Flemings brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bonds make up, including Conrad OBrien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill Biffy Dunderdale. The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. He further explained that, When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be a dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, is the dullest name I ever heard. On another occasion, Fleming said, I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, James Bond was much better than something more interesting, like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is certainly good-looking. Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way and that black hair falling down over the right eyebrow
15.
Morgan Motor Company
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The Morgan Motor Company is a family-owned British motor car manufacturer that was founded in 1910 by Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan. Morgan is based in Malvern Link, an area of Malvern, Worcestershire, Morgan has stated that they produce in excess of 1300 cars per year, all assembled by hand. The waiting list for a car is approximately six months, although it has been as long as ten years in the past. A visitor centre and museum exhibits about the companys history from Edwardian times until the present day, developments in automobile technology. There are also guided tours of the factory, Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan, generally known as HFS, was an employee of the Great Western Railway, who bought his first car in 1902 at the age of 21. In 1904, he left his job and co-founded a motor sales. In 1909 he designed and built a car for his own use and he began production a year later and the company prospered. Morgan continued to run it until he died at age 77 in 1959, Peter Morgan, son of HFS, ran the company until a few years before his death in 2003. He was replaced as chairman by Alan Garnett, a non-family director, after Mr. Garnetts resignation, a four-man management team was set up. Charles Morgan, son of Peter, Matthew Parkin, Tim Whitworth, Steve Morris made up the new management team, however, in January 2013, Charles Morgan was removed as Managing Director, replaced by Steve Morris. He continued as director until October 2013 when he was removed both as an employee, and from the Board of Directors. At the end of 2013, the shareholders appointed Andrew Duncan, in 2016, he resigned as Chairman and company director and was replaced as Chairman by a new director by Dominic Riley, a business turnaround expert. The early cars were two-seat or four-seat three-wheelers, and are considered to be cyclecars. Three-wheeled vehicles avoided the British tax on cars by being classified as motorcycles, competition from small cars like the Austin 7 and the original Morris Minor, with comparable economy and price and better comfort, made cyclecars less attractive. Morgans first car design was a single-seat three-wheeled runabout, which was fabricated for his use in 1909. Interest in his runabout led him to patent his design and begin production, the Morgan Motor Company was registered as a limited private company only in 1912 with H. F. S. Morgan as managing director and his father, who had invested in his sons business, Morgan established its reputation via competition such as winning the 1913 Cyclecar Grand Prix at Amiens in France. This became the basis for the Grand Prix model of 1913 to 1926, from which evolved the Aero and these models used air-cooled or liquid-cooled variations of motorcycle engines
16.
Caterham Cars
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Caterham Cars is a British manufacturer of specialist lightweight sports cars established in Caterham, Surrey, with their headquarters in Crawley, Sussex. Their current model, the Caterham 7, originally launched in 1973, is an evolution of the Series 3 Lotus Seven designed by Colin Chapman. In the 1990s the company made the Caterham 21, a soft top alternative to the MGF. A track-only car, the SP/300. R, a joint project with Lola was released for testing in 2010 and was scheduled for release in 2013. On 27 April 2011, Team Lotus owner Tony Fernandes announced that he had purchased Caterham, Colin Chapmans Lotus Cars launched the Series 1 Lotus Seven in 1957. The car was immediately embraced by enthusiasts as a low-cost, lightweight sports car, revised Series 2, Series 3 and Series 4 versions were subsequently launched in 1960,1968 and 1970 respectively. Caterham initially restarted manufacture of the Lotus Seven Series 4, however, in 1974, under the name of Seven Cars Limited, Caterham built 20 production cars with chassis numbers 1-20 and one prototype, with chassis number 0. The Lotus/Caterham 7 is widely regarded by car enthusiasts and the media as one of the sports cars of the 20th century. With 2007 marking the 50th year of production, the Seven still enjoys strong support. Since 2006 Caterham Cars has been run by a management team led by Ansar Ali. In June 2012 Ansar Ali announced he was to leave Caterham Cars, as with its Lotus Seven precursors, Caterhams are constructed of aluminium sheet attached to a tubular steel chassis. Nosecone and wings are either GRP or carbon fibre depending on specification, all Sevens are front engined with rear-wheel drive and two seats. Their extremely high performance is achieved through light weight rather than particularly powerful engines, Chapman and Lotus helped to pioneer the British kit car industry. The Lotus Seven was offered in kit form to allow buyers to avoid new car tax in the UK, subsequently Caterham continued offering cars in complete knock down kit form as the tradition of hand building your own Seven was well established amongst enthusiasts. Today, all Caterham Sevens are still offered in kit form in the UK except the CSR model, modern Caterham kits differ from the majority of kit cars as all parts are supplied ready to assemble, not requiring a donor car, fabrication or any special skills. As a result, the combinations, specifications, pricing. In the past in the United States Caterhams were sold as only, lacking some modern safety features required of manufacturers. Buyers could either choose to construct the cars themselves or pay their regional dealers or local builders to assemble them, typically the engine and transmission are sourced separately as a unit - often from Caterham - but all other components were provided in kit form
17.
Ford Motor Company
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The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16,1903, the company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and most luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. Ford also owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer, Troller, and Australian performance car manufacturer FPV, in the past, it has also produced tractors and automotive components. Ford owns an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom, and it also has a number of joint-ventures, one in China, one in Taiwan, one in Thailand, one in Turkey, and one in Russia. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family, Fords former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989 and 2000 respectively, were sold to Tata Motors in March 2008. Ford owned the Swedish automaker Volvo from 1999 to 2010, in 2011, Ford discontinued the Mercury brand, under which it had marketed entry-level luxury cars in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East since 1938. During the financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century, it was close to bankruptcy, Ford is the second-largest U. S. -based automaker and the fifth-largest in the world based on 2015 vehicle production. At the end of 2010, Ford was the fifth largest automaker in Europe, Ford is the eighth-ranked overall American-based company in the 2010 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2009 of $118.3 billion. In 2008, Ford produced 5.532 million automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants, the company went public in 1956 but the Ford family, through special Class B shares, still retain 40 percent voting rights. The Ford Motor Company was launched in a factory in 1903 with $28,000 in cash from twelve investors, most notably John. During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at its factory on Mack Avenue and later its factory on Piquette Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Groups of two or three men worked on car, assembling it from parts made mostly by supplier companies contracting for Ford. Henry Ford was 39 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company and it has been in continuous family control for over 100 years and is one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world. The first gasoline powered automobile had been created in 1885 by the German inventor Carl Benz, between 1903 and 1908, Ford produced the Models A, B, C, F, K, N, R, and S. Hundreds or a few thousand of most of these were sold per year, in 1908, Ford introduced the mass-produced Model T, which totalled millions sold over nearly 20 years. In 1927, Ford replaced the T with the Model A, Ford launched the first low-priced car with a V8 engine in 1932. In an attempt to compete with General Motors mid-priced Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Henry Ford purchased the Lincoln Motor Company in 1922, in order to compete with such brands as Cadillac and Packard for the luxury segment of the automobile market. The creation of a laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan in 1951, doing unfettered basic research
18.
Dearborn, Michigan
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Dearborn is a city in the State of Michigan. It is located in Wayne County and is part of the Detroit metropolitan area, Dearborn is the eighth largest city in the State of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 98,153 and it later grew into a manufacturing hub for the automotive industry. The city was the home of Henry Ford and is the headquarters of the Ford Motor Company. It has a campus of the University of Michigan as well as Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn has The Henry Ford, the United States largest indoor-outdoor museum complex and Metro Detroits leading tourist attraction. Dearborn residents are primarily of European or Middle Eastern heritage, descendants of 19th, Middle Eastern ancestries make up the largest ethnic grouping with Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, Syrian and Palestinian groups present. The primary European ethnicities are German, Polish, Irish and Italian, the area had been inhabited for thousands of years by varying indigenous peoples. Historical tribes belonged mostly to the Algonquian-language family, although the Huron were Iroquoian speaking, French colonists had a trading post and developed Detroit during the colonial period, trading with numerous regional tribes. This settlement was ceded to Britain in 1763 after its victory in the Seven Years War, the Dearborn area was settled permanently by Europeans in 1786, after the American Revolutionary War. The town of Dearborn was incorporated in 1893, in 1927 it was established as a city. Its current borders result from a 1928 consolidation vote that merged Dearborn and neighboring Fordson, the area between the two towns was, and still remains in part, undeveloped. Once farm land, this was bought by Henry Ford for his estate, Fair Lane, the open land is planted with sunflowers and often with Henry Fords favorite soybeans. The Arab American National Museum opened in Dearborn in 2005, the first museum in the devoted to Arab-American history. Arab Americans in Dearborn include ethnic Lebanese Christians who immigrated in the twentieth century to work in the auto industry as well as more recent Arab immigrants from other nations. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 24.5 square miles. The Rouge River runs through the city with an artificial waterfall/low head dam on the Henry Ford estate to power its powerhouse, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Branches of the river come together in Dearborn. The river is widened and channeled near the Rouge Plant to allow freighter access. Fordson Island is an 8.4 acre island about three miles inland from the Detroit River on the River Rouge, Fordson Island is the only major island in a tributary to the Detroit River
19.
Michigan
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Michigan /ˈmɪʃᵻɡən/ is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit, Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, the two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The state has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, as a result, it is one of the leading U. S. states for recreational boating. Michigan also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds, a person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline. What is now the state of Michigan was first settled by Native American tribes before being colonized by French explorers in the 17th century, the area was organized as part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Eventually, in 1805, the Michigan Territory was formed, which lasted until it was admitted into the Union on January 26,1837, the state of Michigan soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region and a popular immigrant destination. Though Michigan has come to develop an economy, it is widely known as the center of the U. S. automotive industry. When the first European explorers arrived, the most populous tribes were Algonquian peoples, which include the Anishinaabe groups of Ojibwe, Odaawaa/Odawa, the three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires. The Ojibwe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the largest, French voyageurs and coureurs des bois explored and settled in Michigan in the 17th century. The first Europeans to reach what became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlés expedition in 1622, the first permanent European settlement was founded in 1668 on the site where Père Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a base for Catholic missions, missionaries in 1671–75 founded outlying stations at Saint Ignace and Marquette. Jesuit missionaries were received by the areas Indian populations, with relatively few difficulties or hostilities. In 1679, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph, in 1691, the French established a trading post and Fort St. Joseph along the St. Joseph River at the present day city of Niles. The hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent, cadillacs wife, Marie Thérèse Guyon, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first European women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. The town quickly became a major fur-trading and shipping post, the Église de Saint-Anne was founded the same year
20.
Delaware
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Delaware is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic and/or Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, to the northeast by New Jersey, the state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginias first colonial governor. Delaware occupies the portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest, the sixth least populous. Delaware is divided into three counties, the lowest number of counties of any state, from north to south, the three counties are New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. While the southern two counties have historically been agricultural, New Castle County has been more industrialized. Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Delaware was inhabited by groups of Native Americans, including the Lenape in the north. It was initially colonized by Dutch traders at Zwaanendael, near the present town of Lewes, Delaware was one of the 13 colonies participating in the American Revolution. On December 7,1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, the Delaware Indians, a name used by Europeans for Lenape people indigenous to the Delaware Valley, also derive their name from the same source. The surname de La Warr comes from Sussex and is of Anglo-Norman origin and it came probably from a Norman lieu-dit La Guerre. This toponymic could derive from the Latin word ager, from the Breton gwern or from the Late Latin varectum, the toponyms Gara, Gare, Gaire also appear in old texts cited by Lucien Musset, where the word gara means gore. It could also be linked with a patronymic from the Old Norse verr, Delaware is 96 miles long and ranges from 9 miles to 35 miles across, totaling 1,954 square miles, making it the second-smallest state in the United States after Rhode Island. Delaware is bounded to the north by Pennsylvania, to the east by the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean, small portions of Delaware are also situated on the eastern side of the Delaware River sharing land boundaries with New Jersey. The state of Delaware, together with the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the definition of the northern boundary of the state is unusual. Most of the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania was originally defined by an arc extending 12 miles from the cupola of the courthouse in the city of New Castle and this boundary is often referred to as the Twelve-Mile Circle. This is the only nominally circular state boundary in the United States, to the west, a portion of the arc extends past the easternmost edge of Maryland. The remaining western border runs slightly east of due south from its intersection with the arc, the Wedge of land between the northwest part of the arc and the Maryland border was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921, when Delawares claim was confirmed. Delaware is on a plain, with the lowest mean elevation of any state in the nation. Its highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, near Concord High School, the northernmost part of the state is part of the Piedmont Plateau with hills and rolling surfaces
21.
Brentwood, Essex
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Brentwood is a town in and the principal settlement of the Borough of Brentwood, in the county of Essex in the East of England. It is located in the London commuter belt,20 miles east-north-east of Charing Cross, according to the 2011 Census the town had a population of 49,463. It is a town with a small but expanding shopping area. Beyond this are residential developments surrounded by countryside and woodland. Brentwood has been twinned since 1978 with Roth, Germany and since 1994 with Montbazon and it also has a relationship with Brentwood, Tennessee in the United States. The name was assumed by antiquaries in the 1700s to derive from a corruption of the burnt and wood. However, brent was the middle English for burnt, the name describes the presumed reason for settlement in the part of the Forest of Essex that would have covered the area, where the main occupation was charcoal burning. An alternative meaning of brent is holy one, which could refer to the dedicated to Thomas Becket. Rather, it is believed that despite the Roman road between London and Colchester passing through, the Saxons were the earliest settlers of the area. Robert Graves, in his book Claudius the God, refers to Brentwood as the site of the battle where Claudius defeated the Ancient Britons in 44 AD, however, Graves also states that names and places in the book are sometimes fictitious. The borough began as a clearing in the middle of a dense forest, created by fire, giving it the name of Burntwood. A chapel was built in or around 1221, and in 1227 a market charter was granted, the new township, occupying the highest ground in the parish, lay at the junction of the main London-Colchester road with the Ongar-Tilbury road. The ruin stands in the centre of the street, next to the tourist information office. Pilgrims Hatch, or Pilgrims gate, was named from pilgrims who crossed through on their way to the chapel. It is likely, however, that Brentwoods development was due chiefly to its main position, its market. Early industries were connected mainly with textile and garment making, brewing, during the Peasants Revolt of 1381, Brentwood was the meeting place for some of the instigators, such as John Ball and Jack Straw. They, apparently, met regularly in local pubs and inns, Bampton insisted that the peasants pay what was demanded of them. The peasants refused to pay and a riot ensued as Bampton attempted to arrest the peasants, the peasants moved to kill Bampton, but he managed to escape to London
22.
Essex
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Essex /ˈɛsᵻks/ is a county in England immediately north-east of London. It borders the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, the county town is Chelmsford, which is the only city in the county. Essex occupies the part of the old Kingdom of Essex, before this. As well as areas, the county also includes London Stansted Airport, the new towns of Basildon and Harlow, Lakeside Shopping Centre, the port of Tilbury. Originally recorded in AD527, Essex occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex and its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea. In changes before the Norman conquest the East Saxons were subsumed into the Kingdom of England and, following the Norman conquest, Essex became a county. During the medieval period, much of the area was designated a Royal forest, including the county in a period to 1204. Gradually, the subject to forest law diminished, but at various times included the forests of Becontree, Chelmsford, Epping, Hatfield, Ongar. County-wide administration Essex County Council was formed in 1889, however County Boroughs of West Ham, Southend-on-Sea and East Ham formed part of the county but were unitary authorities. 12 boroughs and districts provide more localised services such as rubbish and recycling collections, leisure and planning, parish-level administration – changes A few Essex parishes have been transferred to other counties. Before 1889, small areas were transferred to Hertfordshire near Bishops Stortford, Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. Two unitary authorities In 1998 the boroughs of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock were granted autonomy from the county of Essex after successful requests to become unitary authorities. Essex Police covers the county and the two unitary authorities. The county council chamber and main headquarters is at the County Hall in Chelmsford, before 1938 the council regularly met in London near Moorgate, which with significant parts closer to that point and the dominance of railways had been more convenient than any place in the county. It currently has 75 elected councillors, before 1965, the number of councillors reached over 100. The highest point of the county of Essex is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, the pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. Epping Forest also acts as a barrier to the further spread of London. Part of the southeast of the county, already containing the population centres of Basildon, Southend and Thurrock, is within the Thames Gateway
23.
Ford of Britain
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Ford of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Europe, itself a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its office in Brentwood. It adopted the name of Ford of Britain in 1960, Ford of Britain operates three major manufacturing sites in the UK, in Bridgend, Dagenham and Halewood. It also operates a research and development facility in Dunton, Essex. Ford has been the UKs biggest-selling car and commercial brand for 34 and 45 consecutive years respectively. The first Ford cars, three Model As, were imported into the UK in 1903 and the first dealership in Southampton opened in 1910. In 1909 the Ford Motor Company Limited was established under the chairmanship of Percival Perry opening an office at 55 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, on 8 March 1911. An assembly plant in an old Tram factory in Trafford Park, Manchester, was opened in 1911 employing 60 people to make the Model T and this was the first Ford factory outside North America. At first the cars were assembled from imported chassis and mechanical parts with bodies sourced locally, six thousand cars were produced in 1913 and the Model T became the countrys biggest selling car with 30% of the market. In 1914 Britains first moving assembly line for car production started with 21 cars an hour being built, after the First World War, the Trafford Park plant was extended, and in 1919, 41% of British registered cars were Fords. In 1917, a plant opened in Cork, Ireland, initially for tractor manufacture and this factory was the first to be purpose built by Ford in Europe. The company of Henry Ford and Son Limited–Fordson– was officially incorporated on April 17,1917 and its first registered office was at 36 South Mall, Cork. This company had acquired all Fords European and Middle Eastern business in exchange for 60% of its capital, the balance of 40% of the capital of the new Ford Motor Company Limited,2.8 million shares of £1 each, was now available for public subscription. There was considerable investing interest from America as US investors had had no opportunity of investing in a Henry Ford business. The new chairman, Sir Percival Perry, had been, and now was again, perrys association with Henry Ford dated from 1905 when Perry became a shareholder of Fords first British agency but the very first link between them was earlier, in 1903. The two men first met in 1906 in Detroit, from Britain Perry envisioned Ford making vehicles outside USA and selling them across the British Empire and Europe. He raced the cars, organized a chain of exclusive dealers. In 1919 Henry Ford chose to run operations from Detroit, Perry was determined to run all European business himself and his American managers having failed him Henry Ford offered Perry the chairmanship of this new Ford Motor Company Limited in 1928
24.
Corporate law
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Corporate law is the practice or study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community, and the environment interact with one another. Corporate law is a part of a broader companies law, other types of business associations can include partnerships, or trusts, or companies limited by guarantee. Under corporate law, corporations of all sizes have separate legal personality, shareholders control the company through a board of directors which, in turn, typically delegates control of the corporations day-to-day operations to a full-time executive. Corporate law deals with firms that are incorporated or registered under the corporate or company law of a state or their subnational states. Corporate law is divided into corporate governance and corporate finance. The word corporation is generally synonymous with large publicly owned companies in the United States, in United Kingdom, company is more frequently used as the legal term for any business incorporated under the Companies Act 2006. Large scale companies will be PLCs in the United Kingdom and will usually have shares listed on a Stock Market. In British legal usage any registered company, created under the Companies Act 2006 and previous equivalent legislation, is, strictly, such a company is created by the administrative process of registration under the Companies Act as a general piece of legislation. A corporation, in this British sense, can be a corporation sole which consists of an office occupied by one person e. g. the monarch or certain bishops in England. Here, the office is recognized as separate from the individual who holds it, in the United States, a company may or may not be a separate legal entity, and is often used synonymously with firm or business. A corporation may accurately be called a company, however, a company should not necessarily be called a corporation, which has distinct characteristics. According to Blacks Law Dictionary, in America a company means a corporation — or, less commonly, the defining feature of a corporation is its legal independence from the people who create it. If a corporation fails, its shareholders will lose their money, shareholders are not liable for any remaining debts owed to the corporations creditors. This rule is called limited liability, and it is why corporations end with Ltd, in the words of British judge, Walton J, a company is. only a juristic figment of the imagination, lacking both a body to be kicked and a soul to be damned. But despite this, under just about every system in existence and as per international norms, corporations have the same legal rights. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, just as they are born into existence through its members obtaining a certificate of incorporation, they can die when they lose money into insolvency. Corporations can even be convicted of offences, such as fraud. Although some forms of companies are thought to have existed during Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, with increasing international trade, Royal charters were granted in Europe to merchant adventurers
25.
Competition law
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Competition law is a law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement, Competition law is known as anti-trust law in the United States, and as anti-monopoly law in China and Russia. In previous years it has known as trade practices law in the United Kingdom. In the European Union, it is referred to as both antitrust and competition law, the history of competition law reaches back to the Roman Empire. The business practices of market traders, guilds and governments have always been subject to scrutiny, since the 20th century, competition law has become global. The two largest and most influential systems of regulation are United States antitrust law and European Union competition law. National and regional competition authorities across the world have formed international support, modern competition law has historically evolved on a country level to promote and maintain fair competition in markets principally within the territorial boundaries of nation-states. National competition law usually does not cover activity beyond territorial borders unless it has significant effects at nation-state level, countries may allow for extraterritorial jurisdiction in competition cases based on so-called effects doctrine. The protection of competition is governed by international competition agreements. These obligations were not included in GATT, but in 1994, with the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of GATT Multilateral Negotiations, the Agreement Establishing the WTO included a range of limited provisions on various cross-border competition issues on a sector specific basis. Competition law, or antitrust law, has three elements, prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business. This includes in particular the repression of trade caused by cartels. Banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position, Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others. Supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including joint ventures. Substance and practice of competition law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, protecting the interests of consumers and ensuring that entrepreneurs have an opportunity to compete in the market economy are often treated as important objectives. In recent decades, competition law has been viewed as a way to better public services. An early example of competition law can be found in Roman law, the Lex Julia de Annona was enacted during the Roman Republic around 50 B. C. To protect the trade, heavy fines were imposed on anyone directly, deliberately
26.
Accounting
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Accounting or accountancy is the measurement, processing and communication of financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. The modern field was established by the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in 1494, practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms accounting and financial reporting are often used as synonyms, Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, external auditing, and tax accounting. Accounting information systems are designed to support accounting functions and related activities, Accounting is facilitated by accounting organizations such as standard-setters, accounting firms and professional bodies. Financial statements are audited by accounting firms, and are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAAP is set by various standard-setting organizations such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the United States, as of 2012, all major economies have plans to converge towards or adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards. The history of accounting is thousands of old and can be traced to ancient civilizations. By the time of the Emperor Augustus, the Roman government had access to detailed financial information, double-entry bookkeeping developed in medieval Europe, and accounting split into financial accounting and management accounting with the development of joint-stock companies. The first work on a double-entry bookkeeping system was published in Italy, both the words accounting and accountancy were in use in Great Britain by the mid-1800s, and are derived from the words accompting and accountantship used in the 18th century. In Middle English the verb to account had the form accounten, which was derived from the Old French word aconter, which is in turn related to the Vulgar Latin word computare, meaning to reckon. The base of computare is putare, which meant to prune, to purify, to correct an account, hence, to count or calculate. The word accountant is derived from the French word compter, which is derived from the Italian. Accountancy refers to the occupation or profession of an accountant, particularly in British English, Accounting has several subfields or subject areas, including financial accounting, management accounting, auditing, taxation and accounting information systems. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of a financial information to external users of the information, such as investors. It calculates and records business transactions and prepares financial statements for the users in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAAP, in turn, arises from the agreement between accounting theory and practice, and change over time to meet the needs of decision-makers. This branch of accounting is also studied as part of the exams for qualifying as an actuary. It is interesting to note that two professionals, accountants and actuaries, have created a culture of being archrivals
27.
Merger control
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Merger control refers to the procedure of reviewing mergers and acquisitions under antitrust / competition law. Over 60 nations worldwide have adopted a regime providing for merger control, national or supernational competition agencies such as the EU European Commission or the US Federal Trade Commission are normally entrusted with the role of reviewing mergers. Merger control regimes are adopted to prevent anti-competitive consequences of concentrations, accordingly, most merger control regimes normally provide for one of the following substantive tests, Does the concentration significantly impede effective competition. Does the concentration substantially lessen competition, does the concentration lead to the creation or strengthening of a dominant position. In practice most merger control regimes are based on similar underlying principles. In simple terms, the creation of a dominant position would result in a substantial lessening of or significant impediment to effective competition. The large majority of modern merger control regimes are of an ex-ante nature, the vast majority of significant competition issues associated with mergers arises in horizontal mergers. A horizontal merger is one between parties that are competitors at the level of production and/or distribution of a good or service. There are two types of anticompetitive effects associated with mergers, unilateral effects and coordinated effects. In homogeneous markets, unilateral effects can be pronounced when two significant competitors merge to create a large, dominant player with only a few or no other competitors. In these markets, an important role in the assessment is played by market shares, in differentiated markets, unilateral effects tend to arise particularly when the two merging companies have highly substitutable goods. Such a price increase does not depend on the firm being the dominant player in the market. The likelihood and magnitude of such an increase will instead depend on the substitutability of the products supplied by the two firms – the closer the substitute, the greater the unilateral effects. As in the case of unilateral effects, the most common form of coordinated effects is in the case of horizontal mergers, the task is to identify what factors are likely to lead to coordination taking place between firms post-merger. Under the European Union merger control regime, in order for coordinated effects to arise the so-called Airtours criteria have to be fulfilled. According to the Airtours criteria, coordination is more likely to emerge in markets where it is simple to reach a common understanding on the terms of coordination. In addition, three conditions are necessary for coordination to be sustainable, first, the coordinating firms must be able to monitor to a sufficient degree whether the terms of coordination are being adhered to. Second, discipline requires that there is form of credible deterrent mechanism that can be activated if deviation is detected
28.
Companies Act 2006
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The Companies Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which forms the primary source of UK company law. The Act was brought into force in stages, with the provision being commenced on 1 October 2009. It superseded the Companies Act 1985, the Act provides a comprehensive code of company law for the United Kingdom, and made changes to almost every facet of the law in relation to companies. The key provisions are, the Act codifies certain existing common law principles and it implements the European Unions Takeover and Transparency Obligations Directives. It introduces various new provisions for private and public companies and it applies a single company law regime across the United Kingdom, replacing the two separate systems for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It otherwise amends or restates almost all of the Companies Act 1985 to varying degrees, the Bill for the Act was first introduced to Parliament as the Company Law Reform Bill and was intended to make wide-ranging amendments to existing statutes. Lobbying from directors and the legal profession ensured that the Bill was changed into a consolidating Act, the reception of the Act by the legal professions in the United Kingdom has been slightly lukewarm. Concerns have been expressed that too much detail has been inserted to seek to cover every eventuality, whereas a complete overhaul of company law was promised, the Act seems to leave much of the existing structure in place, and to simplify certain aspects only at the margins. In other areas, it is said to have complicated and obfuscated previously settled law, a small portion of the Act came into effect on Royal Assent in November 2006. The first and second Commencement Orders then brought further provisions into force in January 2007, the implementation timetable for the remainder of the Act was announced in February 2007, by Margaret Hodge, Minister for Industry and the Regions. The third and fourth Commencement Orders brought a further tranche of provisions into force in October 2007, the eighth commencement order, made in November 2008, brought the remainder of the Act into force with effect from October 2009. The staggered timetable was intended to give sufficient time to prepare for the new regime under the Act. Implementation of the Act is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Innovation, traditional common law notions of corporate benefit have been swept away, and the new emphasis is on corporate social responsibility. This was one of the most controversial aspects of the new legislation at the drafting stage, there will be an additional statutory obligations to declare interests in relation to existing transactions.7 leaves the door open for common law principles, previously the only guide on this. Under the Act, directors who are shareholders, or persons connected to them, are not entitled to vote in relation to any ratification resolution concerning their actions. The current age restriction of 70 for directors of companies has been abolished. A new minimum age of 16 has been introduced for all directors who are natural persons and it will become possible for a single person to form a public company. Constitutional documents - a companys articles of association will become its main document
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Oceania
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Oceania, also known as Oceanica, is a region centred on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The term is used more specifically to denote a continent comprising Australia. The term was coined as Océanie circa 1812 by geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, the word Océanie is a French word derived from the Latin word oceanus, and this from the Greek word ὠκεανός, ocean. Natives and inhabitants of this region are called Oceanians or Oceanicans, as an ecozone, Oceania includes all of Micronesia, Fiji, and all of Polynesia except New Zealand. New Zealand, along with New Guinea and nearby islands, part of the Philippine islands, Australia, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, in geopolitical terms, however, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are almost always considered part of Oceania. Australia and Papua New Guinea are usually considered part of Oceania along with the Maluku Islands, puncak Jaya in Papua is often considered the highest peak in Oceania. Oceania was originally conceived as the lands of the Pacific Ocean and it comprised four regions, Polynesia, Micronesia, Malaysia, and Melanesia. The area extends to Sumatra in the west, the Bonin Islands in the northwest, the Hawaiian Islands in the northeast, Rapa Nui and Sala y Gómez Island in the east, and Macquarie Island in the south. Not included are the Pacific islands of Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese archipelago, all on the margins of Asia, and the Aleutian Islands of North America. The islands at the extremes of Oceania are Bonin, a politically integral part of Japan, Hawaii, a state of the United States. There is also a geographic definition that excludes land on the Sunda Plate. Biogeographically, Oceania is used as a synonym for either the Australasian ecozone or the Pacific ecozone, Oceania is one of eight terrestrial ecozones, which constitute the major ecological regions of the planet. The Oceania ecozone includes all of Micronesia, Fiji, and all of Polynesia except New Zealand, New Zealand, New Guinea, Melanesia apart from Fiji, and Australia constitute the separate Australasian ecozone. The Malay Archipelago is part of the Indomalaya ecozone, related to these concepts are Near Oceania, that part of western Island Melanesia which has been inhabited for tens of millennia, and Remote Oceania which is more recently settled. The term is used to denote a continent comprising Australia. New Zealand forms the corner of the Polynesian Triangle. Its indigenous Māori constitute one of the cultures of Polynesia. It is also, however, considered part of Australasia, the history of Oceania in the medieval period was synonymous with the history of the indigenous peoples of Australasia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia
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Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
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Corporations Act 2001
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The Corporations Act 2001 is an act of the Commonwealth of Australia that sets out the laws dealing with business entities in Australia at federal and interstate level. It focuses primarily on companies, although it covers some laws relating to other entities such as partnerships. The Corporate Law Economic Reform Program Act 2004 reforms simplified the statute, at several thousand pages long, the statute dwarfs those of other nations such as Sweden, whose corporations statute, comparatively, is less than 200 pages long. The Corporations Act is the legislation regulating companies in Australia. It regulates matters such as the formation and operation of companies, duties of officers, takeovers, the Commonwealth corporations law was the subject of a successful High Court of Australia challenge in New South Wales v Commonwealth 169 CLR482. In that case the Commonwealth was found to have insufficient power to legislate in relation to the formation of companies, section 51 of the Australian Constitution was found to provide sufficient power for legislation applicable only to foreign corporations and corporations already formed within the Commonwealth. This decision led to the creation of a scheme, involving a referral of power from the Australian States. All Australian States have adopted the Corporations Act 2001, under the Corporations Agreement between the States and the Commonwealth, all changes to the Act must be referred to the Ministerial Council for Corporations for approval. The co-operative scheme has come under pressure in recent times as the Commonwealth Government has sought to rely on the power to legislate for its Industrial Relations reform agenda. This has led to some Labor States threatening to withdraw from the Corporations Agreement, the Act is published in five volumes covering a total of ten chapters. The chapters have multiple parts, and within each part there may be multiple divisions, each chapter contains a collection of sections. Foreword, Company Law in Australia, Principles and Applications, (which mentions the complexity of the Corporations Act
