In 1989 the company Fair, Isaac and Company created the first general-purpose personal credit score. The FICO score ranges from 300 to 850. Lenders use it “to assess an individual’s credit risk.”
According to FICO, 90% of top lenders use it. A borrower’s score affects the interest rate he or she is offered.
When the U.S. Department of Transportation decides whether a safety rule is worth its cost, it uses a figure called the value of a statistical life. For analyses with a 2025 base year, the figure is $14.2 million.
The department explains how it works. If a person “is willing to pay $1,000 to reduce the annual risk of death by one in 10,000,” that person “is said to have a VSL of $10 million.” It adds: “What is involved is not the valuation of life as such, but the valuation of reductions in risks.”
Venture capital is released in stages. Economists describe it this way: “the infusion of capital occurs in stages, matching investment decisions based on information that arrives over time.”
William Sahlman explained the reason in 1990. “By staging capital the venture capitalists preserve the right to abandon a project whose prospects look dim.”
An American who does not qualify for a regular credit card can start with a secured card, backed by a cash deposit. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains: “With most of these cards, your credit line starts out small.”
“As you show you can pay on time, your credit limit may be raised and you may have your deposit refunded.” The bureau also defines the test. “On time” means the payment gets to the company by the day the bill is due.
In January 1859, in London, Karl Marx wrote the preface to Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In a few sentences he summed up his theory of society. The relations of production together form the economic structure of society, die reale Basis, worauf sich ein juristischer und politischer Überbau erhebt, the real base on which a legal and political superstructure rises.
Die Produktionsweise des materiellen Lebens bedingt den sozialen, politischen und geistigen Lebensprozeß überhaupt. The way material life is produced conditions social, political and intellectual life as a whole. Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewußtsein bestimmt. It is not people’s consciousness that determines their being. It is their social being that determines their consciousness.
In 1826 Johann Heinrich von Thünen published the first part of Der isolirte Staat, The Isolated State. He imagined a state with one city as its only market, surrounded by rings of farming. What is grown in each ring depends on its distance from the market. In German the model is known as the Thünensche Ringe, Thünen’s rings.
The national biography says that Thünen gave important impulses to location theory and to economic geography. Teaching material for upper secondary geography still presents the rings as a thinking model zur Erklärung räumlicher Ordnungsmuster in der Landwirtschaft, for explaining spatial patterns in farming.
German businesses pay their bills an average of 7.7 days after the due date. The credit agency Creditreform reported this figure for the first quarter of 2026. It was unchanged from a year earlier. The figure is the difference between the agreed payment date and the day the money arrived. It is based on about 16.3 million payment records a month.
Construction had by far the worst figure, with 15.0 days, up from 13.5. Chemicals and plastics had the best, with 4.9 days. Among the states, Rhineland-Palatinate paid fastest, with 6.1 days. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was slowest, with 10.9 days. A Creditreform spokesman said: Die Zahlungsmoral der Unternehmen bleibt stabil. The payment discipline of companies remains stable.
Since 29 July 2014, German law limits how long a business may take to pay another business. Section 271a of the Civil Code deals with payment periods of more than 60 days after receipt of the goods or work. Such a period is valid only wenn sie ausdrücklich getroffen und im Hinblick auf die Belange des Gläubigers nicht grob unbillig ist, if it was expressly agreed and is not grossly unfair to the creditor. The same applies to a period of more than 30 days for inspection or acceptance. For public clients, a payment period of more than 60 days is void.
A business that pays late owes interest. Section 288 sets the rate at neun Prozentpunkte über dem Basiszinssatz, nine percentage points above the base rate. On 1 July 2026 the Bundesbank set the base rate at 1.52 percent. The creditor can also claim eine Pauschale in Höhe von 40 Euro, a flat fee of 40 euros. The law implements an EU directive from 2011 that aims at a Kultur der unverzüglichen Zahlung, a culture of prompt payment.
In March 1989 a married couple sat down with an adviser at their Volksbank. They had been customers for more than 20 years. Their savings of about 55,000 marks were in safe products such as fixed deposits and federal savings bonds. A bonus savings contract of 20,000 marks had just matured. The adviser showed them a list from the bank’s own program. On 16 March 1989 they bought 20,000 marks’ worth of bonds of Bond-Finance Ltd., a company of the Australian Alan Bond group. A rating agency had already downgraded the bond to B. It became practically worthless.
On 6 July 1993 the Federal Court of Justice ruled for the couple (XI ZR 12/93). No one had signed an advice contract. The court found that one existed anyway. The bank had accepted it stillschweigend durch die Aufnahme des Beratungsgesprächs, tacitly, by starting the advice meeting. The advice had to be anlegergerecht, suited to the investor, and the product had to suit him as well. German lawyers call the case the Bondurteil, the Bond ruling.
A German bank that advises a private client on an investment must give the client a Geeignetheitserklärung, a suitability statement, before the contract is concluded. Section 64 of the Securities Trading Act requires it. The statement must name the advice that was given. It must also explain how the advice was matched to the client’s preferences, investment goals and other characteristics. It must be on a durable medium, such as paper or a stored file. Only when the contract is made by telephone or other distance communication may the bank send the statement afterward. Even then, the client must agree, and the bank must offer to delay the order so that the client can read the statement first.