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A run on the bank begins when the public begins to suspect that a bank may become insolvent. As a result, individuals begin to withdraw their savings. This action can destabilize the bank to the point where it may in fact become insolvent. Banks retain only a fraction of their deposits as cash (see fractional-reserve banking): the remainder is issued as loans. As a result, no bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with more than the fraction of deposits being taken out at once, and will 'call in' the short term deposits itself has made. This can cause a shortage of Market liquidity in the short term money market.

As a bank run progresses, it generates its own momentum. As more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, so other individuals have more incentive to withdraw their own deposits. If many or most banks were to suffer runs at the same time, then the resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession.

To prevent bank runs, Central banks can prevent financial institutions from failing by:

• Deposit insurance systems insure each depositor up to a certain amount, therefore the depositors' savings are protected even if the bank fails. This removes the incentive to withdraw deposits simply because others are withdrawing theirs if consumers trust the insurance system.
• Central banks act as a lender of last resort. To prevent a bank run, the Central Bank guarantees that it will make short-term, high-interest loans to banks, to ensure that, if they remain economically viable, they will always have enough liquidity to honour their deposits.
• Reserve ratios and Tier 1 capital thresholds both limit the proportion of deposits which a bank can loan out.

Lagos is the largest city in Africa.

The economy of Africa consists of the trade, industry, agriculture, and human resources of the continent. , approximately 1.3 billion people were living in 53 countries in Africa. Africa is a resource-rich continent. Recent growth has been due to growth in sales, commodities, services, and manufacturing. West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa in particular, are expected to reach a combined GDP of $29 trillion by 2050.

In March 2013, Africa was identified as the world's poorest inhabited continent; however, the World Bank expects that most African countries will reach "middle income" status (defined as at least US$1,025 per person a year) by 2025 if current growth rates continue. There are a number of reasons for Africa's poor economy: historically, even though Africa had a number of empires trading with many parts of the world, many people lived in rural societies; in addition, European colonization and the later Cold War created political, economic and social instability. (Full article...)

"But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons. For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or what is the same thing, the price of the maintenance of a thousand men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them. The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to have any share of them; whereas in the more ancient method of expence they must have shared with at least a thousand people. With the judges that were to determine the preference this difference was perfectly decisive; and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities, they gradually bartered their whole power and authority."

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

• ... that according to Jimmy Carter, "more of [Georgia's] business was probably conducted in the Henry Grady than in the state capitol"?
• ... that Daniel Davis was the first person in the United States to work with gold and silver electroplating as a business?
• ... that Roddie Fleming was expecting to inherit the family business, but it was sold to Chase Bank instead?
• ... that the Chicago Community Bond Fund sought to put itself out of business by eliminating cash bail?
• ... that Bahraini businesswoman Yara Salman founded a beauty salon, a medical center, an entertainment complex, and a restaurant in the past decade?
• ... that the studios of a California TV station were converted back into a movie theater after it went out of business?

July 18:

• 1950 - Richard Branson, an English businessman, founder of Virgin Group, was born on this day.

• ...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 Heroninos Archive contains examples of a complex and standardized system of accounting used in 3rd century Roman Egypt?

• ...that Jerry White, cofounder of the Landmine Survivors Network, delivered the 2005 commencement address at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business?

• ...that the melting and export of cents and nickels can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five years?

• ...that the Vatican City, has an Automated teller machine (ATM) with instructions in Latin?

• ... that the GDP deflator (implicit price deflator for GDP) is a price index measuring changes in prices of all new, domestically produced, final goods and services in an economy.

• ... that Paul Krugman introduced returns to scale to the field of international trade, now referred to as new trade theory?

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