A sole proprietorship, also known as a sole trader, is owned by one person and operates for their benefit. The owner may operate the business alone or with other people.
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.
The owners of a corporation have limited liability and the business has a separate legal personality from its owners. Corporations can be either government-owned or privately owned. They can organize either for profit or as not-for-profit organizations.
Often referred to as a "co-op", a cooperative is a limited liability business that can organize 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.
In recent decades, various states modeled some of their assets and enterprises after business enterprises. In 2003, for example, the People's Republic of China modeled 80% of its state-owned enterprises on a company-type management system
TransCanada Corp. says it has reached project agreements with three more First Nations in northern British Columbia to build a pipeline across the province to a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal on the coast.
The Canadian dollar tumbled by three-quarters of a cent against its U.S. counterpart Monday, trading at its lowest point in six weeks.
EVERY nation, it seems, wants its own flag-carrier, but not every nation should have one. Whether Malaysia falls into this category will become clearer in the next few years.
The country's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, which is bankrolled by a sovereign wealth fund, is now “technically” bankrupt, says Christoph Mueller, its new boss. It has certainly had its fair share of bad luck. In 2014, it suffered two horrific disasters. First, flight MH370 disappeared on route to China; the fate of the plane and its 239 passengers and crew have never been determined. Later that year, Russian separists shot down flight MH17, which was flying over Ukraine, killing all 298 on board. Yet those tragedies only exacerbated the airline’s problems, they did not create them. Despite Asian passenger numbers booming, Malaysia Airlines, in common with many state airlines, has long been overstaffed, inefficient and unprofitable. It has also struggled to deal with low-cost competition.
It may, though, now have the right man in...Continue reading
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GULLIVER was surprised to discover last night that, on what was by no means a slow news day, CNN.com deemed this story to be worthy of the lead slot on its international edition. The article suggests that Tahera Ahmad (pictured), a 31-year-old Muslim chaplain, was discriminated against by a United Airlines flight attendant and verbally abused by fellow passengers. Writing about the altercation on Facebook while still airborne, Ms Ahmad recounted asking the cabin crew member for an unopened can of diet coke “due to hygienic reasons”. The United employee refused. Cans have to be opened by attendants, she explained, because company guidelines that warn of pressurised containers being used as weapons. Cue an outpouring of support for Ms Ahmad and threats of a boycott of United on social media, coalescing around the Twitter hashtag campaign #unitedfortahera.
Ms Ahmad believes she was discriminated against because the same flight attendant handed...Continue reading
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The death toll from faulty ignition switches in small cars made by General Motors has reached 109.
In December talks in Paris involving more than 200 countries may result in a new agreement aimed at reducing carbon emissions. In the months leading up to the conference, The Economist will be publishing guest columns by experts on the economic issues involved. Here, Christian Gollier (pictured at left) and Jean Tirole (at right) of the Toulouse School of Economics explain why a carbon tax, or a carbon cap-and-trade system, should be policymakers' preferred weapon.
THIS December France will play host to crowds of diplomats as the United Nations holds make-or-break talks on climate change. The challenge for delegates in Paris is to achieve a binding agreement that will limit the increase in the world’s temperature to no more than 2°C. It is an incredibly difficult task. But economics can shed light on which strategies have the best chance at success.
Climate change is a...Continue reading
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