Contemporary Issues in Credo: Business and Economic Issues

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of devices or mechanisms and machinery to perform functions usually associated with human intelligence, including scientific systems, reasoning, optimization through experience, and automated motor systems.

Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through investment of capital and employment of labor. Capitalism is characterized by private property and freely functioning markets without central planning. Prices in capitalist economic systems are determined by the free and open exchanges of buyers and sellers guided by self-interest but constrained by both an ethical consensus and the rule of law.

Communism (from the Latin communis, meaning "shared" or "common"); fundamentally, a system of social organization in which property (especially real property and the means of production) is held in common. Advocates public ownership and communal control of the major means of production, distribution, transportation, and communication. Although modern communism is associated with ideas advanced by German political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Russian Communist leader and theorist Vladimir I. Lenin, its intellectual roots are as old as Plato's republic in the fourth century BCE.

An organization's culture is often seen as manifested in its policies and practices and the understandings, language, behavior and attitudes of organizational members.

Corporate identity is not only what an organization perceives itself to be but also what an organization says it is. Hence, corporate identity is often understood as an externally oriented concept.

In law, organization enjoying legal personality for the purpose of carrying on certain activities. Most corporations are businesses for profit; they are usually organized by three or more subscribers who raise capital for the corporate activities by selling shares of stock. In current usage, “corporation” is synonymous with “business corporation,” generally referring to a for-profit organization that can operate at the discretion of its owners and managers free of social and legislative control.

Economic growth is most commonly defined as the rate of increase in the value of a country’s output over a period of time. It is often presumed that economic growth is necessary and valuable to a society because it is accompanied by an improved quality of life for that society’s citizens.

Study of how human beings allocate scarce resources to produce various commodities and how those commodities are distributed for consumption among the people in society.

The modern field of study concerned with production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

The term “economy” in its contemporary sense came into use only quite recently. It is often assumed that the idea of the economy, defined as the relations of material production and exchange in a given territory and understood as an object of expert knowledge and government administration, was introduced by political economists such as William Petty,

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The global economy is the economy associated with financial markets and institutions in which traditional geographic and national boundaries do not restrict economic transactions and consumer activities. The development of the global economy, called globalization, has been characterized by an increasing interconnectedness of national economies. Globalization has been supported by number of factors, including international deregulation of financial markets, technological advances facilitating the careful monitoring of world markets, and increased institutionalization of worldwide economic institutions.

Process by which different parts of the globe become interconnected by economic, social, cultural, and political means. Globalization has become increasingly rapid since the 1970s and 1980s as a result of developments in technology, communications, and trade liberalization. In politics, a big buzzword in political speech and a ubiquitous analytical category in academic debate; globalization operates today rather like modernization did in the mid-twentieth century as the key term of a master discourse about the general state of the world. The most common political version of the discourse depicts globalization as an unstoppable process of global integration, a supposedly inevitable process that while being driven by free market capitalism also necessitates all the free market reforms of neo-liberalism.

Division of economics concerned with the study of whole (aggregate) economies or systems, including such aspects as government income and expenditure, the balance of payments, fiscal policy, investment, inflation, and unemployment.

Company or enterprise operating in several countries, usually defined as one that has 25% or more of its output capacity located outside its country of origin.

Almost all types of private organizations that can demonstrate independence from government control and establish an overall mission focusing on a public good can be categorized as a non-governmental organization (NGO).

From American Governance
Nonprofit organizations are entities that are missiondriven rather than profit-driven. Nonprofits come in all sizes; they can vary widely in their missions and include advocacy groups (such as the Sierra Club), hobby and sports groups, ethnic and religious affinity groups, and community service groups (such as Rotary International). Private foundations differ from public charities in that their funds are controlled by directors who make grants available to other nonprofit organizations.

Agency of the U.S. government created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and charged with protecting the interests of the public and investors in connection with the public issuance and sale of corporate securities. Supervises and regulates issues of and transactions in securities and prosecutes illegal stock manipulations.

General term for the political and economic theory that advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods. Note: socialism is much used, and abused, term. It can be employed to refer to quite different social and political systems.

Organized market for the trading of stocks and bonds (see bond; stock). Such markets were originally open to all, but at present only members of the owning association may buy and sell directly.

Many of the world’s largest businesses rival nationstates, religions, and even nature itself as agents of change. Multinational corporations have become the primary force shaping human material well-being.

U.S. company that in 2001 became the largest bankruptcy and stock collapse in U.S. history up to that time. Accounting fraud caused the seventh largest corporation in United States to fall victim to white-collar crime. Its demise was due to accounting practices in violation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations.

Sympathetic cessation of work by a majority of the workers in all industries of a locality or nation.

Legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class of workers dependent on wages as their source of income.

Association of workers for the purpose of improving their economic status and working conditions through collective bargaining with employers.

In its simplest form, privatization is the transfer of control and management away from the government to the private sector. A publicly owned asset is literally sold off to the private market.

Strike, concentrated work stoppage by a group of employees, the chief weapon of organized labor.

Granting of goods, services, or money in return for a promise of future payment. Most credit is accompanied by an interest charge, which usually makes the future payment greater than an immediate payment would have been.

Economic inequality most commonly refers to an analysis of the degree of disparity (inequality) within an economy. This study is accomplished by measuring, for instance, the amount of income, wealth, or expenditure distributed among a chosen population and geographic area.

In U.S. history, the severe economic crisis supposedly precipitated by the U.S. stock-market crash of 1929. Although it shared the basic characteristics of other such economic crises, the Great Depression was unprecedented in its length and in the wholesale poverty and tragedy it inflicted on society. Of all the historical events that shaped the internal structure of America, three stand out above the rest: the War of American Independence, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. The Depression years were a time of great hardship and sweeping change.

Rapid and uncontrolled inflation, or increases in prices, usually associated with political and/or social instability, as in Germany in the 1920s.

In economics, persistent and relatively large increase in the general price level of goods and services. Its opposite is deflation, a process of generally declining prices. Inflation is an economic situation in which the average price level of all goods and/or salaries rises steeply, which affects most severely those with fixed or relatively unresponsive incomes, such as pensioners.

Condition in which the basic needs of human beings (shelter, food, and clothing) are not being met. This concept describes an empirical reality, both globally and in individual societies, but the meaning of which is contested. What constitutes poverty depends on how it is defined and measured. The main debates around definition concern the role of material resources, in particular income, and whether poverty should be understood in absolute or relative terms.

Debt incurred by the central government of a country to its own people and institutions and also to overseas creditors.

In economics, phase of the business cycle associated with a declining economy; Its manifestations are rising unemployment, contracting business activity, and decreasing purchasing power of consumers. Government policy, such as cuts in government spending or taxes, may be used to stimulate and expand the economy during a recession. If a recession is not checked, it can degenerate into a depression. A state of the economy that occurs when there is a slowdown or downturn of economic activity for two consecutive quarters or more. The slowdown is a manifestation of increased unemployment above its natural (long-run) rate and plummeting real output (GDP).

The Wall Street crash of 29 Oct 1929 and the Great Depression that followed were such a shock to most Americans that some early attempts to explain their causes blamed sunspot activity or medieval prophecy.

Lack of paid employment. The unemployed are usually defined as those out of work who are available for and actively seeking work. Unemployment is measured either as a total or as a percentage of those who are available for work, known as the working population, or labor force. A major topic of social research during periods of mass unemployment in the twentieth century, unemployment arose with the growth of dependency on waged employment. It involves exclusion from paid employment but definitions and measurement remain contentious.