Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 1 Time Line of American Business Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 1

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 2 Time Line of American Business (cont.) Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 2

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 3 American Business Today Standard of living –A loose, subjective measure of how well off an individual or a society is mainly in terms of want satisfaction through goods and services. Early business development –Barter system A system of exchange in which goods or services are traded directly for other goods and/or services without using money –Domestic system A method of manufacturing in which an entrepreneur distributes raw materials to various homes, where families would process them into finished goods to be offered for sale by the merchant entrepreneur

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 4 American Business Today (cont’d) Early Business Development (cont’d) –Factory system A system of manufacturing in which all the materials, machinery, and workers required to manufacture a product are assembled in one place –Specialization The separation of a manufacturing process into distinct tasks and the assignment of different tasks to different individuals

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 5 American Business Today (cont’d) The Twentieth Century –Rapid growth of large industries (automobiles, steel, oil, chemical) and the mass production of consumer goods –The Roaring Twenties ended with the 1929 stock market crash –Government intervention became necessary to get the economy moving again –World War II spurred economic activity and technological growth that continued after the war –The U.S. standard of living and the production of goods and services continued to rise through the 1960s

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 6 American Business Today (cont’d) The Late Twentieth Century –A shortage of crude oil in the mid-1970s increased the cost of energy, causing increases in the annual rate of inflation to beyond 10% through the early 1980s. –The U.S. economy in the early 1990s was a period of economic improvement and growth fueled by introduction of information technologies, cost cutting, and the increased efficiency and flexibility of business. –E-Business—the organized effort of individuals to produce and sell through the Internet for a profit products and services that satisfy society’s needs- -became an accepted method of conducting business.

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 7 American Business Today (cont’d) A New Century: 2000 and Beyond –Technology becomes affordable. –Growth in services industries and global trade. –Although many economic indicators are strong, there is a feeling of pessimism, a large number of business failures, high unemployment, and terrorist threats. –The competitive, global, technological, and economic environments affect business today.

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 8 The Challenges Ahead How can we encourage Iraq and Afghanistan to establish a democratic and free society and resolve possible conflict with North Korea and other countries throughout the world? How can we create a more stable economy and create new jobs? As a nation, how can we develop a disaster crisis management program that will help people in times of peril? How can we meet the challenges of managing culturally diverse work forces to address the needs of a culturally diverse marketplace? How can we make American manufacturers more productive and more competitive with foreign producers who have lower labor costs?

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.1 | 9 The Challenges Ahead (cont’d) How can we preserve the benefits of competition in our American economic system? How can we encourage economic growth and at the same time continue to conserve natural resources and protect our environment? How can we best market American-made products in foreign nations? How can we meet the needs of two-income families, single parents, older Americans, and the less fortunate?