Business transaction

“ A pecuniary discretion has to be exercised at every point of contact or transition, where the process or its product touches or passes the boundary between different spheres of ownership. Business transactions have to do with ownership and changes of ownership. The greater the parcelment in point of ownership, the greater the amount of business work that has to be done in connection with a given output of goods or services, and the slower, less facile, and less accurate on the whole, is the work. ”

“ On the other hand, the substantial advantage derived in business transactions from proved trustworthiness, is not less remarkably exemplified in the same work. "At one of our largest towns, sales and purchases on a very extensive scale are made daily in the course of business without any of the parties ever exchanging a written document." ”

“ Even in transactions where the Company is really nothing more than a business agency, it will temporarily appear as a purchaser, and will be set down as the momentary possessor in the register of landed property. ”

“ Absent substantial additional evidence, [11] furnishing management and other services to corporations for a reward not different from that flowing to an investor in those corporations is not a trade or business under § 23 (k) (4) . ”

“ The merchant, the manufacturer, the contractor, are to be able to depend again upon the value of the money they invest in the goods they sell, and upon that assurance they can base safe business calculations. ”

“ The value in competitive areas is to be determined by agreement, regard being had to net profits and to the circumstances and conditions under which the company would carry on such business after the date of sale. ”

“ To gather and compile information concerning, and to investigate from time to time the organization, business, conduct, practices, and management of any corporation engaged in commerce, excepting banks and common carriers subject to the Act to regulate commerce, and its relation to other corporations and to individuals, associations, and partnerships. ”

“ It is the same in every branch of trade or business. If you wish to make a purchase, or effect a sale, or hire a servant, you have a whole series of commissions or brokerages to pay before you come into contact with the principal. ”

“ The manufacturer supplies the wholesale dealer; the wholesale dealer provides the retail tradesman; and the retail tradesman carries on his business with his customers upon the sure foundation of credit. Not a coin is seen in the hands of either party from one year’s end to the other; and a man’s wealth is known not by the mere exchangeable property he possesses, but by the extent of the credit he is allowed. Political economy is a wonderful science, sir; and the ancients were entirely ignorant of its true principles. ”

“ Some, with more enterprise or capital than others, buy by wholesale, and sell to others with less capital. A few, standing on the street corners, have regular customers who pay or not, as the case may be, each night; and as the business men pass, one after another, the papers are handed to them almost as rapidly as tickets at a crowded concert-room. ”

“ Hence there was nothing to hinder a merchant from entering into contracts with organized consumers, to sell his business to them, and retain the management at an agreed salary, under such rules and regulations for the conduct of the business as they might adopt. ”

“ I am aware, that it will be said, and very truly said, that the concerns of merchants; that the purchasing of great estates, and various other great transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner; but these are rare exceptions to the rule; even in these cases there might be much less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of litigation; but in the every-day business of life; in transactions with the butcher, the baker, the tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be for pleading the example of the merchant, who carries on his work by ships and exchanges? ”

“ A corporation which derived its profits from public franchises, or from a business transacted in many different states, found the purchase of a local or state machine well within its means and well according to its interests. ”

“ Does the transaction accomplish a significant increase in the power of one over the other, for example, an increased voice in management or operation, or the ability to accomplish financial transactions or operational changes with greater legal ease? ”

“ Third Case.—The third case shows the firm in a position to demand something more than book values as the basis for admission of the new partner. The presumption is that the old firm is favorably known, has an established trade and patronage, built by fair dealing and judicious advertising, by its favorable location, and the numerous other ways in which a substantial business may be developed. Its standing in the community is a factor of value to the firm because it brings trade to its doors. ”

“ The said salesman shall, subject to the control of the said firm, keep proper books of account, and make due and correct entries of the price of all goods sold, and of all transactions and dealings of and in relation to the said business, and shall serve the said firm diligently and according to his best abilities in all respects. ”

“ In the belief that a demand exists for a library which shall embrace the best practice in all branches of business—from buying to selling, from simple bookkeeping to the administration of the financial affairs of a great corporation—these volumes have been prepared. ”

“ But the chief selling agent of the corporation has found it necessary, in order to keep the business going, to incur huge expenses for entertaining his customers, finds it necessary to incur great travelling expenses, to use only the most expensive hotels, and, incidentally, to drink a great deal more than his personal inclinations would call for, in keeping the business for his house. I waive discussion of the extraordinary fees which a trust promotor makes, in effecting a consolidation of big business units,—a process of exchange. ”

“ When a merchant treated with a seller who had come into the town, any of his fellows who happened to come in at the moment when the earnest-money was paid and the striking of hands in ratification of the bargain took place, had the right to claim a share in the transaction and to obtain the goods in question at the same price. ”

“ The first transaction is of a personal nature between the owners and a third party who is a purchaser; in the other transaction the third party, who is an investor, puts in money to acquire an interest and his investment becomes the common property of all the owners of whom he is now one. ”

“ The common run of business concerns are occupied with industrial enterprise of some kind, and with transactions in credit, -- with a running sequence of bargains from which the gains of the concern are to accrue, -- and it is upon these gains that attention and effort centers, and to which the management of the concern constantly looks. ”

“ That was their reason and now, why did your company contract? Because they wanted to assure themselves of a market for a certain per cent of their pack so that their operations would not be so speculative.
You know, no business that is purely speculative is fundamentally sound.
Now this contract arrangement between your company and the jobber was not philanthropic on either side. For years this custom has existed in the industry and has been found to be fashioned along the lines of sound economics. ”

“ The convenience of this method being found great, it was improved as commerce increased, till a market was established where merchants might meet and make their exchanges without loss of time, instead of having to run after one another in search of what each wanted. The next thing was to institute a class of persons whose express business should be to manage these transactions. ”

“ Unless she conducts her business on purely business lines, delivers her goods when they are wanted, and, for her own protection, sends in her accounts as they fall due, and looks carefully after their payment, her customers and her profits will fall away. ”

“ Nothing but a cold, emotionless, methodical, business-like precision, a well-considered series of commercial transactions, conducted by men specially acquainted with the articles required and regularly trained to office routine. ”

“ It ought not, however, to be omitted that the negotiation of the funds becomes itself a distinct business, which employs, and, by employing, diverts, a portion of the circulating coin from other pursuits. ”

“ In this as in other branches of business, there is a class of middlemen or brokers, who bring buyers and sellers together, or stand between them, buying bills from those who have money to receive, and selling bills to those who have money to pay. ”

“ All merchants, therefore, and almost all men of business, find it convenient to keep such cash accounts with them, and are thereby interested to promote the trade of those companies, by readily receiving their notes in all payments, and by encouraging all those with whom they have any influence to do the same. ”

“ They should, of course, provide for as many contingencies as can be foreseen, such as the nature, name and place of business, when the relation is to commence and when to terminate, what capital shall be contributed by each, what the share of each in the profits and losses shall be, what the powers of the partners as between themselves shall be, whether the business shall be continued after the death of one or more of the partners and how it shall be wound up. ”

“ Where the above advantages and information are not desired nor necessary, as in a very simple business under the immediate supervision of the proprietor, or in simple executorship transactions, etc., single entry may suffice. ”

“ The true office of commerce is to facilitate exchanges of articles between men, to the amount that their wants and interests require; but as every transfer of property leaves a profit with the merchant, he has a disposition to increase his gains, by pushing his transactions beyond the just limits of trade. ”

“ The method of transacting business between the different sheds and departments at the works is exactly like that employed by outside firms and tradesmen. Bills and accounts are rendered, and the whole formula of hire and purchase is entered into by the different parties ”

“ All these items are present in varying degree, whatever the size of the business, except where a merchant has capital enough of his own to carry on a small business and can attend to the wants of his customers alone or with the help of his family. The temptation of the merchant is strong to use every possible means to make a success of his business, paying wages as low as possible, in order to cut down expenses, and offering all kinds of inducements to customers in order to sell his goods. ”

“ This is the constant multiplication of intervening agents—middle-men, factors, brokers, speculators, contractors, and distributors of every sort—between the producer and the consumer, or between the primary owner and the ultimate owner of almost everything which is the subject of ownership and trade. Those two, who are the actual persons brought chiefly into relationship by the thing in question, are put quite out of sight of one another in most of the transactions of modern industry and commerce ”

“ An economic arrangement between companies performing similar functions in the production or sale of comparable goods or services is characterized as 'horizontal.' The effect on competition of such an arrangement depends, of course, upon its character and scope. ”

“ Every corporation may purchase, redeem, receive, take or otherwise acquire, own and hold, sell, lend, exchange, transfer or otherwise dispose of, pledge, use and otherwise deal in and with its own shares ”

“ So a sale upon credit, instead of being for ready money, under a general authority to sell, and in a trade where the usage is to sell for ready money only, creates to contract between the owner and the buyer, and the thing sold may be recovered in an action of trover. ”

“ In particular those things that belong into the field of economics, that is tradesmanship, bookkeeping and international exchange of money have been gathered together with great care so that one will even find the legal terminology a merchant should know if a complex deal should need the decision of a judge. ”

“ One partner may confess judgment, or give bonds, or current notes in the name, and as for the account of the company, and yet convert the effects to his own private use, leaving the stock to be answerable for the value. ”

“ Applied to a permanent undertaking, and to men who had no property to invest, but depended for their livelihood on what they could earn, this system was certain to break down, and the natural result was that the Company’s servants made use of the information they gained in their official capacity to engage in trade on their own account. ”

“ So that the party who has received the money, the seller, has only thus obtained a power to make subsequently an inverse operation, that is a purchase where and when it pleases him. The operation of selling and buying is then nothing less than the exchange of a thing for a power. ”

“ From being a body concerned in trade on their own account, and employing their servants as factors, the servants have at one stroke taken the whole trade into their own hands, on their own capital of 800,000l., at their own risk, and the Company are become agents and factors to them, to sell by commission their goods for their profit. ”

“ The argument supposes the corporation to have been originated for the management of an individual concern, to be founded upon contract between individuals, having private trade and private profit for its great end and principal object. ”

“ The custom of the country invariably exacts the payment of one-half of the amount agreed upon in advance, in order that the contractor may be in funds to purchase stock, wherewith to fill his contract. ”

“ We were told the business could not be given to us, no matter how advantageous our terms might be, and our inference was that the object of the trust was not to get the material at the lowest price, but to give the business to a favored firm without competition.
This large contract naturally excited much interest in the trade and great efforts were made to ascertain its terms. The generally accepted theory was that the firm supplied the material as wanted and the price for each month's deliveries was fixed by the average of the market for the last ten days of the month. ”