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Topic Review

Calendar of 13 Months

Has anyone of us missed an event because he was confused between days and dates? Do we really remember the date of any day if we do not have a calendar? Is the current Gregorian Calendar efficient enough for use, and does it really facilitate our life or make it more complicated? Have you ever thought about a much simpler way to calculate days and dates in a year? All these questions are answered in this article, in which the author proposes an original calendar that might facilitate our lives if we can apply it.

379.9K
12 Jan 2023

Topic Review

Hyperinflation in Yugoslavia

Between 1992 and 1994, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) experienced the third-longest period of hyperinflation in world economic history. This period spanned 22 months, from March 1992 to January 1994. Inflation peaked at a monthly rate of 313 million percent in January 1994. Daily inflation was 62%, with an inflation rate of 2.03% in 1 hour being higher than the annual inflation rate of many developed countries. The inflation rate in January 1994, converted to annual levels, reached 116,545,906,563,330 percent (116.546 billion percent, or 1.16 × 1015 percent). During this period of hyperinflation in FR Yugoslavia, store prices were stated in conditional units – point, which was equal to the German mark. The conversion was made either in German marks or in dinars at the current "black market" exchange rate that often changed several times per day.

30.3K
14 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Wages in Thailand

Wages in Thailand, as used here, includes all compensation paid by an employer to an employee for work done, whether based on hours worked, piece work, or fixed salary. Since wage labour is the predominant form of work, the term "wage" here refers to all forms of employee compensation. Wages are the major source of household income in Thailand,:32 although wage income distribution varies by region: Almost three-quarters of the population in Bangkok are in households that receive wage income, compared with less than half in the northern region.:30-31 During the period 2007–2014, wage income grew markedly, and then began to drop starting in 2015. (As of 2020) wage growth stagnation afflicts most occupations. Wage growth was negative in urban areas, but positive in rural areas. In the period 2007–2013, wages, farm incomes, and remittances contributed to poverty reduction; in the period 2015–2017 these were sources of rising poverty.:65

26.0K
07 Oct 2022

Topic Review

The dot-com bubble (also known as the dot-com boom, the tech bubble, and the Internet bubble) was a historic economic bubble and period of excessive speculation that occurred roughly from 1995 to 2000, a period of extreme growth in the usage and adaptation of the Internet. The Nasdaq Composite stock market index, which included many Internet-based companies, peaked in value on March 10, 2000 before crashing. The burst of the bubble, known as the dot-com crash, lasted from March 11, 2000 to October 9, 2002. During the crash, many online shopping companies, such as Pets.com, Webvan, and Boo.com, as well as communication companies, such as Worldcom, NorthPoint Communications and Global Crossing failed and shut down. Others, such as Cisco, whose stock declined by 86%, and Qualcomm, lost a large portion of their market capitalization but survived, and some companies, such as eBay and Amazon.com, declined in value but recovered quickly.

20.4K
01 Nov 2022

Topic Review

E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of electronic communications devices, computers and the Internet to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. According to Jeong, 2007 the term consists of the digital interactions between a citizen and their government (C2G), between governments and other government agencies (G2G), between government and citizens (G2C), between government and employees (G2E), and between government and businesses/commerces (G2B). E-government delivery models can be broken down into the following categories: This interaction consists of citizens communicating with all levels of government (city, state/province, national, and international), facilitating citizen involvement in governance using information and communication technology (ICT) (such as computers and websites) and business process re-engineering (BPR). Brabham and Guth (2017) interviewed the third party designers of e-government tools in North America about the ideals of user interaction that they build into their technologies, which include progressive values, ubiquitous participation, geolocation, and education of the public. Other definitions are more away from technology as an object, to see them simply as facilitators or instruments and focus on specific changes in Public Administration issues, and in the internal transformation of a Government, is the case of the definition that established the specialist technologist Mauro D. Ríos in the paper "In search of a definition of Electronic Government", he says: "Digital Government is a new way of organization and management of public affairs, introducing positive transformational processes in management and the structure itself of the organization chart, adding value to the procedures and services provided, all through the introduction and continued appropriation of information and communication technologies as a facilitator of these transformations."

15.5K
08 Nov 2022

Topic Review

2015–16 Stock Market Selloff

The 2015–16 stock market selloff, also known as The Great Fall of China, was the period of decline in the value of stock prices globally that occurred between June 2015 to June 2016. It included the 2015–16 Chinese stock market turbulence, in which the SSE Composite Index fell 43% in just over 2 months between June 2015 and August 2015, which culminated in the devaluation of the yuan. Investors sold shares globally as a result of slowing growth in the GDP of China, a fall in petroleum prices, the Greek debt default in June 2015, the effects of the end of quantitative easing in the United States in October 2014, a sharp rise in bond yields in early 2016, and finally, in June 2016, the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, in which Brexit was voted upon. By July 2016, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recovered and achieved record highs. The FTSE 100 Index did not do so until later in 2016.

14.7K
29 Nov 2022

Topic Review

NASDAQ Composite

The NASDAQ Composite (ticker symbol ^IXIC) is a stock market index of the common stocks and similar securities (e.g. ADRs, tracking stocks, limited partnership interests) listed on the Nasdaq stock market. Along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 it is one of the three most-followed indices in US stock markets. The composition of the NASDAQ Composite is heavily weighted towards information technology companies. The NASDAQ-100, whose components are a subset of the NASDAQ Composite's, accounts for over 90% of the NASDAQ Composite's movement, and there are many ETFs tracking its performance. The composite itself is calculated by taking the sum of the products of closing price and index share(capitalization-weighted) of all of the over 2500 securities in the index. The sum is then divided by a divisor which just serves to reduce the order of magnitude of the result.

12.4K
01 Dec 2022

Topic Review

Criticisms of Neoclassical Economics

Neo-classical economics has come under critique on the basis of its core ideologies, assumptions, and other matters.

11.6K
29 Nov 2022

Topic Review

United Express Flight 3411 Incident

Template:Infobox Aircraft occurrence The United Express Flight 3411 incident occurred at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, United States on April 9, 2017, when Dr. David Dao Duy Anh, a Vietnamese-American passenger, was injured while being forcibly removed from a fully boarded, sold-out flight to Louisville International Airport. Dao, a pulmonologist and folk musician, refused to surrender his seat when requested because he needed to see patients the following day. Chicago Department of Aviation Security officers were called to remove him from the plane; in the process, they struck Dao's face against an armrest, then pulled him, apparently unconscious, by his arms along the aircraft aisle past rows of onlooking passengers. Prior to the confrontation, United agents offered travel vouchers to passengers to vacate their seats to make room for four deadheading Republic Airways employees, but none of the passengers accepted. United then selected four passengers for involuntary removal from the flight, one of whom was Dao, and the three other passengers agreed to leave. Flight 3411 was operated by Republic Airways on behalf of United Express, a United Airlines regional branch. Video of the incident recorded by passengers went viral on social media, resulting in anger over the force that was used. Politicians expressed concern and called for an official investigation. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump criticized United Airlines, calling its treatment of Dao "horrible." The next morning, then-CEO of United, Oscar Munoz, issued a statement that appeared to justify the removal of Dao, referring to "re-accommodating the customers." Munoz also sent an email to United staff commending the crew's actions for following established procedures and referring to Dao as "disruptive" and "belligerent," though this characterization contradicted passengers' accounts of the incident. Passenger Jason Powell asserted that Dao was not belligerent, saying instead, "He was very polite, matter-of-fact." Cell phone video by passenger Joya Cummings also contradicted Munoz's description of Dao as belligerent. Munoz and United were sharply criticized for their initial statements, and United suffered a drop in its stock price. Two days after the incident, Munoz issued an additional statement, apologizing and promising that such an incident would never again occur on a United aircraft. He said, "No one should ever be mistreated this way." In an ABC television interview, Munoz was asked, "Do you think [Dao] was at fault in any way?" Munoz responded, "No. He can't be. He was a paying passenger sitting on our seat in our aircraft." Munoz's previously planned promotion to become United's chairman was delayed until May 2020 as a result of the incident. Dao reached an "amicable" settlement with United on April 27, 2017, though its terms were not publicly announced.

10.5K
24 Oct 2022

Topic Review

A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced /iːbɪtˈdɑː/, /əˈbɪtdɑː/, or /ˈɛbɪtdɑː/) is an accounting measure calculated using a company's earnings, before interest expenses, taxes, depreciation, and amortization are subtracted, as a proxy for a company's current operating profitability (i.e., how much profit it makes with its present assets and its operations on the products it produces and sells, as well as providing a proxy for cash flow). Though often shown on an income statement, it is not considered part of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) by the SEC.

9.9K
08 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Factors Affecting Consumer Food Choice

Understanding individual food choices is critical for transforming the current food system to ensure healthiness of people and sustainability of the planet. Throughout the years, researchers from different fields have proposed conceptual models addressing factors influencing the food choice, recognized as a key leverage to improve planetary and human health. However, a multidisciplinary approach is needed to better understand how different factors are involved and interact with each other in the decision-making process. The present paper reviews and analyzes existing models, providing an intact point-of-view by integrating key elements into a bigger framework. Key determinants of general food choice are identified and categorized, including food-internal factor (sensory and perceptual features), food-external factors (information, social environment, physical environment), personal-state factors (biological features and physiological needs, psychological components, habits and experiences), cognitive factors (knowledge and skills, attitude, liking and preference, anticipated consequences, and personal identity), as well as sociocultural factors (culture, economic variables, political elements). Moreover, possible directions of influence among the factors towards final food choice were discussed. The need of multidisciplinary impulses across research field with the support of empirical data are crucial for understanding factors influencing food choice as well as for enriching existing conceptual models. The framework proposed here would serve as a roadmap for facilitating communications and collaborations between research fields in a structural and systematic way.

9.4K
06 Feb 2021

Topic Review

The CNBC Ticker is a computer simulation of ticker tapes used by the United States business news-oriented television network CNBC (as well as its international sister channels), that is displayed as a crawl on the lower part of the television screen. The CNBC Ticker shows security and index symbols in the manner of the ticker tapes that received information by telegraph. The security identifiers used on the CNBC Ticker are taken from nomenclatures used by third-party companies like Reuters or from global stock exchanges. The ticker is composed of a faster-scrolling upper band with a white background and a slower-scrolling lower band with a dark blue background for all CNBC channels. In addition for some channels, such as CNBC Europe; CNBC-e; CNBC Arabiya and Class CNBC, a third business news band is displayed in gray with a black background. The ticker is shown throughout the duration of financial news programming on CNBC's domestic and international channels, including national commercial breaks. However, in the United States and Canada , advertisements that are locally inserted by cable television providers may be shown full-screen, omitting the ticker from being displayed during local breaks (as of 2013, all ad inserts by cable television providers, as well as satellite television providers DirecTV and Dish Network are now shown full-screen).

9.3K
18 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Russian Financial Crisis (2014–2017)

The financial crisis in Russia in 2014–2015 was the result of the sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble beginning in the second half of 2014. A decline in confidence in the Russian economy caused investors to sell off their Russian assets, which led to a decline in the value of the Russian ruble and sparked fears of a Russian financial crisis. The lack of confidence in the Russian economy stemmed from at least two major sources. The first is the fall in the price of oil in 2014. Crude oil, a major export of Russia, declined in price by nearly 50% between its yearly high in June 2014 and 16 December 2014. The second is the result of international economic sanctions imposed on Russia following Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. The crisis has affected the Russian economy, both consumers and companies, and regional financial markets, as well as Putin's ambitions regarding the Eurasian Economic Union. The Russian stock market in particular has experienced large declines, with a 30% drop in the RTS Index from the beginning of December through 16 December 2014. During the financial crisis, the economy turned to prevalent state ownership, with 60% of productive assets in the hands of the government. By 2016, the Russian economy rebounded with 0.3% GDP growth and was officially out of the recession. In January 2017, Russia had foreign currency reserves of around $391 billion, an inflation rate of 5.0% and interest rate of 10.0%.

9.3K
09 Nov 2022

Topic Review

German Gold Mark

Goldmark (officially just Mark, sign: ℳ) was the gold standard-based currency of the German Empire from 1873 to 1914. Papiermark was the Mark after the gold standard was given up in August 1914, and gold and silver coins ceased to circulate.

9.1K
08 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Financial Crisis of 2007–08

The financial crisis of 2007–08, also known as the global financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis, was a severe worldwide economic crisis considered by many economists to have been the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which it is often compared. It began in 2007 with a crisis in the subprime mortgage market in the United States , and developed into a full-blown international banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. Excessive risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers helped to magnify the financial impact globally. Massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other palliative monetary and fiscal policies were employed to prevent a possible collapse of the world financial system. The crisis was nonetheless followed by a global economic downturn, the Great Recession. The Asian markets (China, Hong Kong, Japan, India, etc.) were immediately impacted and volatilized after the U.S. sub-prime crisis. The European debt crisis, a crisis in the banking system of the European countries using the euro, followed later. In 2010, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was enacted in the US following the crisis to "promote the financial stability of the United States". The Basel III capital and liquidity standards were adopted by countries around the world.

9.0K
11 Nov 2022

Topic Review

A shopping cart (American English) or trolley (British English), also known by a variety of other names, is a cart supplied by a shop, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the checkout counter during shopping. In many cases customers can then also use the cart to transport their purchased goods to their vehicles, but some carts are designed to prevent them from leaving the shop. In many places in the United States and the United Kingdom , customers are allowed to leave the carts in designated areas within the parking lot, and store personnel will return the carts to the storage area. In many continental European premises, however, coin- (or token-) operated locking mechanisms are provided to encourage shoppers to return the carts to the correct location after use. Studies have shown that it is advisable for shoppers to sanitize the handles and basket areas prior to handling them or filling them with groceries due to high levels of bacteria that typically live on shopping carts. This is due to the carts having a high level of exposure to the skin flora of previous users.

8.8K
22 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Compass Card (TransLink)

The Compass Card is a contactless smart card payment system primarily used for public transit in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is operated by TransLink. Riders purchase a Compass Card and add fare value online, by phone, or at vending machines located at SeaBus terminals, SkyTrain and West Coast Express stations. Vending machines are also available at 18 participating London Drugs retail store locations. Compass Cards were deployed in August 2015. Full deployment for the general public took place on November 2, 2015. Since April 4, 2016, Compass Cards and Tickets have been required for all trips taken on the SkyTrain, SeaBus, and West Coast Express. In June 2016, TransLink reported that 100 percent of monthly pass users and 95 percent of all other users have switched over to the new format, totalling more than 915,000 customers.

8.5K
14 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Fixed Exchange-Rate System

A fixed exchange rate, sometimes called a pegged exchange rate, is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is fixed against either the value of another single currency to a basket of other currencies or to another measure of value, such as gold. There are benefits and risks to using a fixed exchange rate. A fixed exchange rate is typically used to stabilize the value of a currency by directly fixing its value in a predetermined ratio to a different, more stable, or more internationally prevalent currency (or currencies) to which the value is pegged. In doing so, the exchange rate between the currency and its peg does not change based on market conditions, unlike flexible exchange regime. This makes trade and investments between the two currency areas easier and more predictable and is especially useful for small economies that borrow primarily in foreign currency and in which external trade forms a large part of their GDP. A fixed exchange-rate system can also be used to control the behavior of a currency, such as by limiting rates of inflation. However, in doing so, the pegged currency is then controlled by its reference value. As such, when the reference value rises or falls, it then follows that the value(s) of any currencies pegged to it will also rise and fall in relation to other currencies and commodities with which the pegged currency can be traded. In other words, a pegged currency is dependent on its reference value to dictate how its current worth is defined at any given time. In addition, according to the Mundell–Fleming model, with perfect capital mobility, a fixed exchange rate prevents a government from using domestic monetary policy to achieve macroeconomic stability. In a fixed exchange-rate system, a country’s central bank typically uses an open market mechanism and is committed at all times to buy and/or sell its currency at a fixed price in order to maintain its pegged ratio and, hence, the stable value of its currency in relation to the reference to which it is pegged. To maintain a desired exchange rate, the central bank during the depreciation of the domestic money, sells its foreign money in the reserves and buys back the domestic money. This creates an artificial demand for the domestic money, which increases its exchange rate. In case of an undesired appreciation of the domestic money, the central bank buys back the foreign money and thus flushes the domestic money into the market for decreasing the demand and exchange rate. The central bank from its reserves also provides the assets and/or the foreign currency or currencies which are needed in order to finance any imbalance of payments. In the 21st century, the currencies associated with large economies typically do not fix or peg exchange rates to other currencies. The last large economy to use a fixed exchange rate system was the People's Republic of China, which, in July 2005, adopted a slightly more flexible exchange rate system, called a managed exchange rate. The European Exchange Rate Mechanism is also used on a temporary basis to establish a final conversion rate against the euro from the local currencies of countries joining the Eurozone.

7.7K
02 Nov 2022

Topic Review

2010 Flash Crash

The May 6, 2010, Flash Crash, also known as the Crash of 2:45, the 2010 Flash Crash or simply the Flash Crash, was a United States trillion-dollar stock market crash, which started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and lasted for approximately 36 minutes.:1 Stock indexes, such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite, collapsed and rebounded very rapidly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its second biggest intraday point drop (from the opening) up to that point, plunging 998.5 points (about 9%), most within minutes, only to recover a large part of the loss. It was also the second-largest intraday point swing (difference between intraday high and intraday low) up to that point, at 1,010.14 points. The prices of stocks, stock index futures, options and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were volatile, thus trading volume spiked.:3 A CFTC 2014 report described it as one of the most turbulent periods in the history of financial markets.:1 When new regulations put in place following the 2010 Flash Crash proved to be inadequate to protect investors in the August 24, 2015 flash crash—"when the price of many ETFs appeared to come unhinged from their underlying value"—ETFs were put under greater scrutiny by regulators and investors. On April 21, 2015, nearly five years after the incident, the U.S. Department of Justice laid "22 criminal counts, including fraud and market manipulation" against Navinder Singh Sarao, a trader. Among the charges included was the use of spoofing algorithms; just prior to the Flash Crash, he placed thousands of E-mini S&P 500 stock index futures contracts which he planned on canceling later. These orders amounting to about "$200 million worth of bets that the market would fall" were "replaced or modified 19,000 times" before they were canceled. Spoofing, layering, and front running are now banned. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigation concluded that Sarao "was at least significantly responsible for the order imbalances" in the derivatives market which affected stock markets and exacerbated the flash crash. Sarao began his alleged market manipulation in 2009 with commercially available trading software whose code he modified "so he could rapidly place and cancel orders automatically." Traders Magazine journalist, John Bates, argued that blaming a 36-year-old small-time trader who worked from his parents' modest stucco house in suburban west London for sparking a trillion-dollar stock market crash is a little bit like blaming lightning for starting a fire" and that the investigation was lengthened because regulators used "bicycles to try and catch Ferraris." Furthermore, he concluded that by April 2015, traders can still manipulate and impact markets in spite of regulators and banks' new, improved monitoring of automated trade systems. As recently as May 2014, a CFTC report concluded that high-frequency traders "did not cause the Flash Crash, but contributed to it by demanding immediacy ahead of other market participants.":1 Some recent peer-reviewed research shows that flash crashes are not isolated occurrences, but have occurred quite often. Gao and Mizrach studied US equities over the period of 1993–2011. They show that breakdowns in market quality (such as flash crashes) have occurred in every year they examined and that, apart from the financial crisis, such problems have declined since the introduction of Reg NMS. They also show that 2010, while infamous for the Flash Crash, was not a year with an inordinate number of breakdowns in market quality.

7.4K
30 Nov 2022

Topic Review

It would seem important to analyse the relationships between food marketing and consumer choice, highlighting the role of brands in these frameworks. For this purpose, a literature review was carried out considering 147 documents from Scopus database for the topics of search “food marketing” and“choices” (search performed on 16 October 2020). As main insights, it is worth highlighting that the main issues addressed by the literature, concerning food marketing and consumer choices, are the following: economic theory; label and packaging; marketing strategies; agriculture and food industry; market segments; social dimensions; brand and branding. In turn, food marketing heavily conditions consumer choices; however, these related instruments are better manipulated by larger companies. In addition, this entry highlights that bigger companies have dominant positions in these markets which are not always beneficial to the consumers’ objectives.

7.0K
07 May 2021

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