Credit (finance)

Credit (from Latin credit, "(he/she/it) believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources (or other materials of equal value) at a later date. The resources provided may be financial (e.g. granting a loan), or they may consist of goods or services (e.g. consumer credit). Credit encompasses any form of deferred payment. Credit is extended by a creditor, also known as a lender, to a debtor, also known as a borrower.

Credit does not necessarily require money. The credit concept can be applied in barter economies as well, based on the direct exchange of goods and services. However, in modern societies, credit is usually denominated by a unit of account. Unlike money, credit itself cannot act as a unit of account.

Movements of financial capital are normally dependent on either credit or equity transfers. Credit is in turn dependent on the reputation or creditworthiness of the entity which takes responsibility for the funds. Credit is also traded in financial markets. The purest form is the credit default swap market, which is essentially a traded market in credit insurance. A credit default swap represents the price at which two parties exchange this risk – the protection seller takes the risk of default of the credit in return for a payment, commonly denoted in basis points (one basis point is 1/100 of a percent) of the notional amount to be referenced, while the protection buyer pays this premium and in the case of default of the underlying (a loan, bond or other receivable), delivers this receivable to the protection seller and receives from the seller the par amount (that is, is made whole).

National (brand)

National (ナショナル, Nashonaru) is a defunct brand used by Panasonic Corporation (formerly Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.) to sell home appliances, personal appliances, and industrial appliances. Neither National Semiconductor nor National Car Rental are related to Panasonic or the "National" brand.

History

Before present-day Panasonic produced appliances under the name, the National brand was first used by Konosuke Matsushita's electric firm to sell his battery-powered bicycle lamps, hoping that they would be a product used by all of Japan, hence the name "National". It was arguably the first well-known brand of Japanese electronics.

National was formerly the premier brand on most Matsushita products, including audio and video and was often combined as National Panasonic after the worldwide success of the Panasonic name.

After 1980 in Europe, and 1988 in Australia and New Zealand, Matsushita ceased the usage of "National", and sold audiovisual products exclusively under the Panasonic and Technics nameplates. Perhaps due to trademark issues, Matsushita never officially used the National name in the United States, except for early imported products, but rice cookers bearing the National name, imported from Japan, could be found at many ethnic Asian markets.

Cymanfa Ganu

A Cymanfa Ganu (Welsh pronunciation: [kəˈmanva ˈɡanɨ], Singing Festival), is a Welsh festival of sacred hymns, sung with four part harmony by a congregation, usually under the direction of a choral director.

In Wales, more than a thousand Cymanfa Ganu are held each year. These take place in virtually every village and town in Wales, except for parts of Monmouthshire and south east Wales. Many villages and towns have more than one Cymanfa Ganu a year, as often many separate chapels in towns and villages hold their own. Some large annual ones occur event in some chapels and take place at festivals such as the National Eisteddfod of Wales and the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. Some are occasionally held in theatres and concert halls. Cymanfa Ganus are held across the world - wherever people of Welsh heritage live, significantly in Patagonia ( Argentina) e.g. Trelew, Gaiman, where there were significant Welsh settlements from the 19th Century. In some of these areas Welsh is still spoken as a main language in daily use, usually together with Spanish. Outside Wales, in the UK there are Cymanfa Ganu in London, parts of the West Midlands and other areas where there are still chapels using the medium of Welsh .

National Government (United Kingdom)

In the United Kingdom, National Government is an abstract concept referring to a coalition of some or all major political parties. In a historical sense it usually refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931 until 1940.

The all-party coalitions of Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George in the First World War and of Winston Churchill in the Second World War were sometimes referred to as National Governments at the time, but are now more commonly called Coalition Governments. The term "National Government" was chosen to dissociate itself from negative connotations of the earlier Coalitions. Churchill's brief 1945 "Caretaker Government" also called itself a National Government and in terms of party composition was very similar to the 1931–1940 entity.

The crisis of 1931

The Wall Street Crash heralded the global Great Depression and Britain was hit, although not as badly as most countries. The government was trying to achieve several different, contradictory objectives: trying to maintain Britain's economic position by maintaining the pound on the gold standard, balancing the budget, and providing assistance and relief to tackle unemployment. The gold standard meant that British prices were higher than its competitors, so the all-important export industries did poorly.

Work of art

A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an aesthetic physical item or artistic creation. Apart from "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature and music, these terms apply principally to tangible, portable forms of visual art:

Used more broadly, the term is less commonly applied to:

Factory-backed

In motorsports, a factory-backed racing team or driver is one sponsored by a vehicle manufacturer in official competitions. As motorsport competition is an expensive endeavor, some degree of factory support is desired and often necessary for success. The lowest form of factory backing comes in the form of contingency awards, based upon performance, which help to defray the cost of competing. Full factory backing can be often seen in the highest forms of international competition, with major motorsport operations often receiving hundreds of millions of euros to represent a particular manufacturer.

One-make series can also be backed by the factory, notably Ferrari Challenge and Porsche Supercup purely to allow themselves sell their competition specials of their models to customers and to organize series. These series commonly offer prize money and even sometimes a factory drive to an upper lever series.

In lower level racing, support from dealerships and importers may also be referred to as factory backing. In drifting, where factory backed teams are few and far between (Mopar and Pontiac of Formula D for example), works team/drivers are those backed by large or highly established tuning companies, as opposed to those entered by the drivers themselves or smaller and less well-off tuning companies. The advantage to this is drivers can get access to expensive prototype parts provided by the company that are not yet available to customers and in the event of their car being too badly damaged to compete, a back-up car will be available to them.

Steve Reich: Works 1965–1995

Steve Reich: Works 1965–1995 is a 1997 10-CD box set of compositions by composer Steve Reich released by Nonesuch Records as part of Reich's 60th birthday celebration. Described as, "monumental... essential... beautiful", it includes full track and personnel listing, career chronology, appreciative notes (such as essays by John Adams and Michael Tilson Thomas), a new interview, and "his most famous works" with the "curious exclusions" of Violin Phase, Music for Pieces of Wood and Vermont Counterpoint.

Track listing

Disc 1

Disc 2

Disc 3

Disc 4

Disc 5

Disc 6

Disc 7

Disc 8

Disc 9

Disc 10

Sources