Business & Finance

The United States is home to more than 33 million businesses, the vast majority of which are small businesses, with millions being created (and others closing shop) every year. These businesses often rely on loans, provide the goods and services that keep the economy flowing, and sometimes even grow large enough to enter public markets or provide private investment opportunities.

Explore key topics central to business and finance, from the role of the Federal Reserve to how initial public offerings work, how millions of American students finance higher education, and more.

Updated October 28, 2024

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Key Business & Finance information from around the internet — curated and summarized by our team

Open link on bitcoinmagazine.com

Sometime around around 2008, a person known as Satoshi Nakamoto began working on the underlying bitcoin code and blockchain. Widely credited as inventing the currency, Nakamoto abruptly disappeared from the digital world—no one has confirmed his identity, or whether he was even a single individual. Take a look inside the turbulent days of bitcoin development after Nakamoto stepped back into the shadows.

The Hechinger Report

Play the Game of College

Open link on tuitiontracker.org

In this game about college affordability, play the role of a student as you navigate your way through college as debt-free as possible. This simulator lets you select different income levels, high school experience, race and ethnicity, and more. How does meeting with a counselor alter your trajectory? Should you emphasize extracurriculars or test scores? Take your own journey here.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
Open link on money.usnews.com

Sixteen men and women have held the office of Fed chair since 1913 with varying results. From the Fed’s first leader Charles Hamlin to Jerome Powell, see how stocks fared for each chair within distinct macroeconomic conditions in a ranked list followed by a guide to the highlights of their terms.

Open link on in2013dollars.com

In the premodern US, the purchasing power of currency remained roughly the same from the mid-17th century to the Great Depression. From the early 20th century to now, inflation has risen by about 1,700%, resulting in a hockey stick-like curve in the relative value of a dollar. This inflation calculator lets you compare the value of dollars from any two years over the past four centuries.

Open link on investopedia.com

A gold standard is a system in which a country’s currency is pegged to, and can be converted into, a fixed amount of gold. In principle, this provides price stability as the amount of gold (and therefore the value of the currency) is limited, but also restricts the ability to modulate the money supply during economic downturns. See an overview of the system, which the US formally decoupled from in 1971.

Open link on youtube.com

AI is often talked about in terms of its negatives, but the technology also promises plenty of good for humanity. Case in point: In this video, the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Moderna explains how and why his company has deployed an enterprise version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT company-wide. Among other things, they’re using it for data analysis and for helping clinical study teams analyze vaccines.

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