American business: financial industry.

Establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation helped eliminate bank panics, which had been a major contributor to business depressions.

The Farm Credit Administration is the federal agency that regulates all other government entities providing credit facilities for farmers, other rural landholders, and ruralbased businesses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tracks stock market trends and, by extension, economic trends in American business, thereby providing an overall indication of the status and health of the stock market and of the U.S. economy.

As the first multiple-business charge card, Diners Club revolutionized the American economy and consumer culture by creating a means of effecting cash-free transactions and permitting consumers ready access to credit.

Financial derivatives and hedge funds have played an increasingly important and often interrelated role in American business history.

The money supply is an important determinant of aggregate demand and business conditions in general.

Credit unions were created as a means of dealing with the credit problems of low-income families, particularly industrial workers.

General-purpose credit cards, unknown in the United States before 1958, have become an essential feature of commerce.

Confederate currency—produced by the Confederate government and by individual states in the Confederacy—was critical to the South during the U.S. Civil War in its attempts to establish its own union.

The establishment of commodity markets allowed for efficient trading.

Buffett turned a talent for business and a head for numbers into a very successful investment career. His investment strategies and business plans have been both copied and criticized.

Bonds are financial instruments by which buyers lend money to sellers under the terms outlined for each particular bond.

Bloomberg’s offered its clients upto-the-minute and breaking news about financial markets, allowing them to respond immediately to events that could influence the value of investments.

The U.S. banking system has long been characterized by a large number of relatively small banks, mostly operating on a local basis only.

Originally known as the New York Curb Market, the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) first met outdoors on Broad Street, near Exchange Place, in New York City.

The demand for audited financial records in American business emerged as early as 1628, when the Massachusetts Bay Company was chartered as a joint-stock company to finance the Pilgrims bound for New England.

Supply-side economics centers on the idea that lower marginal tax rates increase peoples’ incentives to work. First articulated by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974, supply-side economics increases labor productivity by allowing workers to keep more of their added INCOME. This, in turn, increases taxable output and income, resulting in greater revenue for government.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent financial-INVESTMENT proposition in which initial investors are promised extraordinarily high rates of return, usually to be realized after a short period of time. These very high rates of return attract a few initial investors who are paid with the funds of subsequent investors.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the oldest stock exchange in the United States. Established in 1792 along a wall that had been used to keep wild pigs out of settlers’ gardens in lower Manhattan (WALL STREET), the NYSE is the largest stock exchange in the world based on dollar value of shares traded. In 2000 the exchange traded 262.5 billion shares, valued at $11.1 trillion dollars.

The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ) is the world’s largest electronic stock market. Created by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) in 1971, NASDAQ is a computerized market system allowing 11,000 traders at 790 firms to buy and sell shares of stock.

A mortgage is a loan secured by real property in which the lender obtains the legal right to liquidate (sell) the property to recover its funds in the event the borrower fails to make payment on the loan. The purchase of a home is often a consumer’s single largest purchase in his or her life.

To advance economic recovery in Europe following World War II, the Marshall Plan, or the European Recovery Program, was established. A draft of this plan took form in a commencement speech given at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, by U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who spoke of the importance of restoring “economic health” in order to assure “political stability” in the region.

Insider trading is the buying and selling of shares of stock in a CORPORATION by the company’s managers, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, or other individuals with a financial interest in or knowledge of the company. Some insider trading is legal and closely watched in the marketplace, while other insider trading is illegal and closely scrutinized by securities- industry authorities.

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.