Financial instrument is a broadly used term to refer to almost any obligation of one party to give financial ASSETS to another. There are three types of financial instruments, the first of which is cash.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s mission is “to establish and improve standards of FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING and reporting for the guidance and education of the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of financial information.” It serves the “investing public through transparent information resulting from high-quality financial reporting standards, developed in an independent, private sector, open due process.”
Financial accounting, also called double-entry accounting, is the system of collecting, processing, and periodically reporting a firm’s transactions. First described in 1494 by a Franciscan monk, Fra Luca Pacioli, doubleentry accounting was largely an oral tradition which, for centuries, was passed down through the generations.
Fiduciaries are people and businesses that by law owe others a high duty of care when acting on their behalf. Corporate officers are fiduciaries for SHAREHOLDERS; trustees are fiduciaries for TRUST beneficiaries; executors are fiduciaries for estates and heirs; conservators and guardians are fiduciaries for wards.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), created in 1914, provides administrative enforcement of ANTITRUST LAWs. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits “unfair methods of COMPETITION.” While the CLAYTON ANTITRUST ACT, enacted in the same year, created judicial remedies for some anticompetitive activities, the FTC Act created a commission to review and regulate unfair competition.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States, issuing currency, directing monetary policy, and supervising commercial banks in the country.
The Federal National Mortgage Association, better known as Fannie Mae, is the nation’s largest secondary MORTGAGE financial institution. Fannie Mae was initially chartered during the GREAT DEPRESSION as a government-owned enterprise to buy federally insured mortgage LOANS. In 1968 Fannie Mae became a private, shareholder-owned company trading under the symbol FNM. It is the United States’ third-largest company in terms of ASSETS ($859 billion in 2002).
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is a federal agency created by the TAFT-HARTLEY ACT (1947) to assist labor and MANAGEMENT relationships. The FMCS offers six categories of services, as follows.
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Freddie Mac, is a governmentsponsored enterprise that purchases MORTGAGEs from lending institutions and packages them into securities sold to investors (SECURITIZATION).
The federal funds market is the short-term (usually overnight) lending and borrowing among banks in the United States to meet the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM’s reserverequirement ratio.
As stated on their website, the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) is a “formal interagency body empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions by” the major regulatory agencies responsible for supervision of the financial industry in the United States.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a government agency administering federal deposit INSURANCE funds and regulating state-chartered “nonmember” banks. The FDIC is directed by a five-member BOARD OF DIRECTORS, appointed by the U.S. president and approved by the Senate.
The U.S. judicial system, which is based on England’s system of COMMON LAW, was established by the authority found in Article I and Article III of the U.S. Constitution. In England between A.D. 476–1450, judges developed common law through their procedures and rulings. Eventually laws passed by legislatures replaced common law.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a government agency regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 as part of government regulation of evolving technologies.
The federal budget is the spending activity of the U.S. government. At almost $2.2 trillion in 2002, the federal budget is larger than the GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) of every country in the world except Japan, China, and Germany. Yet federal government spending represents only about 21 percent of U.S. GDP, a smaller percentage than almost every other industrialized country in the world.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Transportation responsible for the safety of civil air transportation.
The term featherbedding describes UNION efforts to require employers to hire more workers than needed for the task. Featherbedding agreements require companies to pay union members wages whether their work is needed or not. As LABOR MARKETS change, often certain skills and tasks are no longer needed.
Fast track is the media term for the authority, granted by Congress to the U.S. president, to negotiate trade agreements. Fast track allows the president to negotiate a trade agreement with the understanding that Congress will ratify or reject the treaty but will not amend the agreement.
The Farm Credit System (FCS) is a national financial cooperative providing loans to farmers, cooperatives, rural homeowners, agribusinesses, and rural utility systems.
The family life cycle is a series of typical stages that families go through, from family formation to dissolution. At each stage individual and family needs and wants differ, creating opportunities for marketers to change and provide what will best suit their customers.
Family-friendly business practices are policies and benefits provided to employees to assist them with their family needs and obligations. The idea of family-friendly business practices was part of the 1992 presidential debates regarding “family values” and the FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT (FMLA), vetoed by President George H. W. Bush and later passed under the Clinton administration.
One of the first legislative acts signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for specific family and medical needs such as the birth of a child, adopting or fostering a child, serious health care for immediate family (spouse, parent, or child), and medical leave when an employee has a serious health condition.