Introduction Fair trade is increasingly popular for imported goods. You may see coffee in your gourmet food store with a “fair trade” label. You may see textiles and crafts for sale on the web advertised as being “fair trade” products. But what is it exactly? Fair trade is an approach to marketing that incorporates environmentally sustainable development and humane wages and working conditions. It is based on the twin principles that the producer of a product should receive a living wage for his or her work and that commerce should be done with the intent of maintaining environmental conditions for future generations. Those goals are accomplished by working directly with small businesses, cooperatives and community-based organizations, thereby cutting out layers of middlemen. As a consequence of the elimination of middlemen, the retail prices for fair trade items are comparable to products that are not fair trade.

Social Justice

In determining a living wage, consideration is given to the locality in which the products are made. If the local country has a minimum wage law, the wages for fair trade products will at least match it. Sometimes, however, a legal minimum wage is less than a living wage. Where that is the case, the fair trade producer will receive at least a living wage. Fair trade workers are organized into cooperatives or other participatory workplaces. That way, each worker can have a say in local issues, such as working hours and safe and dignified working conditions. The cooperatives often take initiatives with respect to other worker benefits, such as health care, child care and education. Some cooperatives can provide loans and other assistance to workers as they set up their own small businesses. Fair trade cooperatives will often work to improve conditions in the community. Up to 70% the workers empowered and assisted by fair trade cooperatives are women who are often mothers and the sole wage earners for their families.

Environmental Sustainability

A living wage and decent working conditions are one of the two founding principles of the fair trade movement. The other founding principle is environmental sustainability. Fair trade coffee and cocoa cooperatives require their members to use sustainable agricultural methods and to grow organic agricultural products. Raw materials used for textiles and other products are produced using environmentally sustainable methods. Some fair trade cooperatives have sought out producers in geographical regions with rich biodiversity and developed products that use the local resources in a sustainable way.

Other Social Issues

In addition to a living wage for their producers and an environmentally sustainable approach to commerce, fair trade enterprises also give importance to other social issues. For example, fair trade artisans often use traditional crafts and skills in making their products. Doing so preserves their cultural identity and furthers world-wide cultural diversity. Fair trade cooperatives find it essential to be accountable to the public, so they set up review processes in which accountability and transparency are fundamental. Finally, because the concept of fair trade is dependant upon the ability of consumers to make educated purchases, fair trade cooperatives consider the education of their consumers to be one of their most important responsibilities.

Beautiful Products

Best of all, fair trade products are excellent products. As important as the economic, environmental and social principals are to your purchase of a fair trade product, the most important reason to buy them is their quality. Fair trade clothing and accessories are beautiful, unique, sometimes exotic. The coffee and cocoa are rich and flavorful. The home décor items are always unusual as well elegant, whimsical and well-made. Try a fair trade product the next time you make a purchase. In addition to ensuring a living wage, sustaining biodiversity and local environmental conditions and assisting an impoverished community to establish health care, child care and education, you will become the owner of some very wonderful stuff!

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One of the major concerns for those who have small businesses or who are just starting up with a business is financing. In the past, it obligatory to come up with a large cash that will be sufficient as working capital in order to put up business or even a small enterprise. Today, small businesses can take advantage of the fact that they can use small business credit cards to help them not only to start up a business but in managing it as well.

Can you really use a small business credit card for starting up your business? The answer is yes. Credit cards for small business can be of great assistance to prepare all the equipment you need to begin your business operations. Some of the equipment or device essential for a business is a computer, printer, a fax machine, telephone, or a cash register. With a small business credit card, you don’t have to buy all these things with cash. You can charge these expenses to your small business credit card and pay them off in installment mode the next month after you already open up business.

Credit cards for small businesses can also be used as your working capital. You can buy raw materials with your business credit card so you can start manufacturing your products right away or you can also wholesale merchandise that you plan to put on market and start selling right away. Afterwards, you can pay off these expenditures in a monthly basis using your small business credit card.

Another great advantage of credit cards for small business is when you get short on your cash flow in the middle of your business operations. Your small business credit card can truly come in handy in purchasing items or paying for services such as printing or shipping purposes that are urgently in need.

The benefits that small business credit cards give are truly rewarding. Speaking of rewards, most credit cards for small businesses offer great incentives for their card holders whether in the form of cash rebates, cash back programs or fee travel tickets. Since businesses usually purchase in bulk or in large packages, the opportunity to earn points equivalent to bonuses is much bigger than for those who use regular credit cards.

If you’re thinking about starting up your business with small business credit card, you are very much welcome to do so. Just remember the advice that applies for all those who own credit cards. Pay off your monthly charges on time and never put off one single payment.

It would be best to have a plan prepared on how you will pay for your purchases even before you purchase them using your small business credit card. This way, you can consider how much you can afford to pay and avoid exceeding your budget. Technically, this is really the only key in managing credit cards successfully whether it’s a business credit card or a personal credit card. Lastly, it is always recommended for businesses to open a regular business account in a bank as soon as the business becomes stable.

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Your investing style isn’t a blue-jeans-versus-three-piece-suit debate. It refers to your approach to stock investing. Do you want to be conservative or aggressive? Would you rather be the tortoise or the hare? Your investment personality greatly depends on your purpose and the term over which you’re planning to invest. The following sections outline the two most general investment styles.

Conservative investing

Conservative investing means that you put your money in something proven, tried, and true. You invest your money in safe and secure places, such as banks and government-backed securities. But how does that apply to stocks?

Conservative stock investors want to place their money in companies that have exhibited some of the following qualities:

- Proven performance: You want companies that have shown increasing sales and earnings year after year. You don’t demand anything spectacular, just a strong and steady performance.

- Market size: Companies should be large-cap (short for large capitalization). In other words, they should have a market value exceeding $10 billion. Conservative investors surmise that bigger is safer.

- Market leadership: Companies should be leaders in their industries.

- Perceived staying power: You want companies with the financial clout and market position to weather uncertain market and economic conditions. It shouldn’t matter what happens in the economy or who gets elected.

As a conservative investor, you don’t mind if the companies’ share prices jump (who would?), but you’re more concerned with steady growth over the long term.

Aggressive investing

Aggressive investors can plan long term or look only over the intermediate term, but in any case, they want stocks that resemble jack rabbits they show the potential to break out of the pack.

Aggressive stock investors want to invest their money in companies that have exhibited some of the following qualities:

- Great potential: The company must have superior goods, services, ideas, or ways of doing business compared to the competition.

- Capital gains possibility: You don’t even consider dividends. If anything, you dislike dividends. You feel that the money that would’ve been dispensed in dividend form is better reinvested in the company. This, in turn, can spur greater growth.

- Innovation: Companies should have technologies, ideas, or innovative methods that make them stand apart from other companies.

Aggressive investors usually seek out small capitalization stocks, known as small-caps, because they have plenty of potential for growth. Take the tree example, for instance: A giant redwood may be strong, but it may not grow much more, whereas a brand-new sapling has plenty of growth to look forward to. Why invest in stodgy, big companies when you can invest in smaller enterprises that may become the leaders of tomorrow? Aggressive investors have no problem investing in obscure companies because they hope that such companies will become another IBM or McDonald’s.

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Filed under: Business Investment