Orchard Oriole

The United States Assay Commission were an agency of the United States government from 1792 to 1980. Its function was to supervise the annual testing of the gold, silver, and (in its final years) base metal coins produced by the United States Mint to ensure that they met specifications. Although some members were designated by statute, for the most part the commission, which was freshly appointed each year, consisted of prominent Americans, including numismatists. Appointment to the Assay Commission was eagerly sought after, in part because commissioners received a commemorative medal. These medals, different each year, are extremely rare, with the exception of the 1977 issue, which was sold to the general public.

The Mint Act of 1792 authorized the Assay Commission. Beginning in 1797, it met in most years at the Philadelphia Mint. Each year, the President of the United States appointed unpaid members, who would gather in Philadelphia to ensure the weight and fineness of silver and gold coins issued the previous year were to specifications. In 1971, the commission met, but for the first time had no gold or silver to test, with the end of silver coinage. Beginning in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed no members of the public to the commission, and in 1980, he signed legislation abolishing it.

Sam Nujoma Street in Harare

The economy of Zimbabwe is a gold standard based economy. Zimbabwe has a $44 billion dollar informal economy in PPP terms which translates to 64.1% of the total economy. Agriculture and mining largely contribute to exports. The economy is estimated to be at $73 billion at the end of 2023.

The country has reserves of metallurgical-grade chromite. Other commercial mineral deposits include coal, asbestos, copper, nickel, gold, platinum and Iron ore. (Full article...)

"There are rumors that the Austrian army is obliged to retire a little; that the Spanish squadron is gone to South America; that the English have excited a rebellion there; and some others equally unauthenticated. I do not mention them in my letter to Mr.Jay, because they are unauthenticated. The bankruptcies in London have re-commenced with new force. There is no saying where this fire will end, perhaps in the conflagration of all their paper. If not now, it must erelong. With only twenty millions of coin, and three or four hundred millions of circulating paper, public and private, nothing is necessary but a general panic, produced either by failures, invasion, or any other cause, and the whole visionary fabric vanishes into air, and shows that paper is poverty, that it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself. One hundred years ago, they had twenty odd millions of coin. Since that they brought in from Holland by borrowing forty millions more, yet they have but twenty millions left, and they talk of being rich, and having the balance of trade in favor."

—Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Carrington, 27 May 1788

• ... that railroad transportation executive William Phillips Hall was known as the "business millionaire evangelist"?
• ... that Dolly Johnson, who had once been a slave of 17th U.S. president Andrew Johnson, opened her own bakery business in 1881?
• ... that women- and minority-owned businesses built the Frequent Express high-capacity bus line in Portland, Oregon?
• ... that Daniel Davis was the first person in the United States to work with gold and silver electroplating as a business?
• ... that the first batch of Action Computer Enterprise's Discovery 1600, one of the first multi-user microcomputers, was delivered to a tobacco-growing business in Thailand?
• ... that the 2017 acquisition of Katz Broadcasting by the E. W. Scripps Company was seen as a validation of the business of diginets?

June 25:

• 1981 - Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.

• ...that French economist A.R.J. Turgot (pictured) served as the intendant of the genéralité of Limoges from 1761 to 1774?

• ...that in economics, the monetary base is defined as the portion of the commercial banks' reserves that are maintained in accounts with their central bank plus the total currency circulating in the public?

• ...that Friedrich Hayek was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?

• ...that Gunnar Myrdal, the 1974 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics was married Alva Myrdal, a Swedish diplomat who won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize?

• ...that Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daron Acemoglu was the 2005 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal?

• ...that Gold Fixing is the procedure by which the price of gold is set on the London market by the five members of the London Bullion Market Association?

• ...that the postal services of Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom have their own dedicated address to which letters to Santa Claus pleading their good behavior and requesting gifts?

Wikinews Economy and business portal

• July 21: Technological University Dublin senior lecturer Dr Lorcan Sirr speaks to Wikinews on housing market in Ireland
• July 15: California governor signs new state budget, eligible Californians to get stimulus payments
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate
• June 30: 'Each makes the other more difficult to recover from': University of Sussex professor L. Alan Winters speaks to Wikinews on trade, COVID-19, Brexit
• June 16: Wikinews interviews Victor Kline, leader of newly registered The New Liberals party in Australia
• April 23: Irish Finance Minister Donohoe criticises OECD's global minimum corporate tax rate
• April 17: People protest in Berlin against German Court overturning five-year rent cap
• March 5: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces UK budget 2021
• February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
• January 24: World Trade Organization declares US tariff hike illegal, rules in South Korea's favour