Equity

Equity may refer to:

Finance, accounting and ownership

Fairness

Equity (law)

In jurisdictions following the English common law, equity is the set of maxims that "reign over all the law" and "from which flow all civil laws". The Chancery, the office of equity, was the "office that issued the writs that were the foundation of the common law system". Equity is wholly "unaffected by any state laws” (Pomeroy) and is "everything, even without law".

Equity is commonly said to "mitigate the rigour of common law", allowing courts to use their discretion and apply justice in accordance with natural law. In practice, modern equity is limited by substantive and procedural rules, and English and Australian legal writers tend to focus on technical aspects of equity. Twelve "vague ethical statements", known as the maxims of equity, guide the application of equity, and an additional five can be added.

A historical criticism of equity while it developed was that it lacked fixed rules, with the Lord Chancellor occasionally judging in the main according to his conscience. The rules of equity later lost much of their flexibility, and from the 17th century onwards, equity was rapidly consolidated into a system of precedents (or case law) much like its common-law cousin.

Equity (economics)

Equity or economic equality is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly in regard to taxation or welfare economics. More specifically, it may refer to equal life chances regardless of identity, to provide all citizens with a basic and equal minimum of income, goods, and services or to increase funds and commitment for redistribution.

Overview

Inequality and inequities have significantly increased in recent decades, possibly driven by the worldwide economic processes of globalisation, economic liberalisation and integration. This has led to states ‘lagging behind’ on headline goals such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and different levels of inequity between states have been argued to have played a role in the impact of the global economic crisis of 2008–2009.

Equity is based on the idea of moral equality. Equity looks at the distribution of capital, goods and access to services throughout an economy and is often measured using tools such as the Gini index. Equity may be distinguished from economic efficiency in overall evaluation of social welfare. Although 'equity' has broader uses, it may be posed as a counterpart to economic inequality in yielding a "good" distribution of wealth. It has been studied in experimental economics as inequity aversion. Low levels of equity are associated with life chances based on inherited wealth, social exclusion and the resulting poor access to basic services and intergenerational poverty resulting in a negative effect on growth, financial instability, crime and increasing political instability.

Donuts (corporation)

Donuts or Donuts Inc. is a start-up company that was created to apply and run new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as made possible by ICANN's gTLD expansion program; it was co-founded by Paul Stahura, Jonathon Nevett, Richard Tindal, and Daniel Schindler. In April 2011, the company was in stealth mode and raising capital; based on the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Donuts raised $1 million equity financing. Since then it has submitted 307 gTLD applications and secured an initial investment of $100 million in financing, and a subsequent round of an undisclosed amount though apparently it "almost doubles" its reserves. The second round of funding was earmarked specifically for gTLD auctions to resolve its 158 contention sets. The company's headquarters is located in Bellevue, Washington.

In September 2012, Donuts was ranked #14 in The Wall Street Journal's Top 50 Start-Ups for 2012. It was also the newest start-up on the list.

New gTLD applications

Apartment

An apartment (in American and Canadian English) or a flat (in British English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only part of a building, correctly, on a single level without a stair. Such a building may be called an apartment building, apartment complex (in American English), apartment house (in American English), block of flats, tower block, high-rise or, occasionally mansion block (in British English), especially if it consists of many apartments for rent. In Scotland it is called a block of flats or, if it's a traditional sandstone building, a tenement, which has a pejorative connotation elsewhere. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier, by leasehold tenure or rented by tenants (two types of housing tenure).

Terminology

The term apartment is favoured in North America (although flat is used in the case of a unit which is part of a house containing two or three units, typically one to a floor) and also is the preferred term in Ireland. In the UK, the term apartment is more usual in professional real estate and architectural circles where otherwise the term flat is commonly, but not exclusively, for an apartment without a stair (hence a 'flat' apartment). Technically multi-storey apartments are referred to as 'duplex' (or 'triplex') indicating the number of floors within the property. Usage generally follows the British in Singapore, Hong Kong and most Commonwealth nations.

The Apartments

The Apartments, an Australian indie band created in 1978 in Brisbane by Peter Milton Walsh. Based in Sydney, Australia, the band has continued to play, mostly in France, and has recorded eight albums, with the most recent release in 2015. With Peter Milton Walsh as singer-songwriter, The Apartments continue as a core group of players from the UK, Australia and France for recording and touring.

History

The band's name derives from Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment. The Apartments have had a strong following in Europe since being based in London in the mid-1980s. Since returning to live in Australia in the late 1980s Walsh has continued to tour The Apartments in France and occasionally in Australia.

Early Apartments and Brisbane Connections (1978-1980)

The Apartments first came together in Brisbane in 1978 with Walsh (guitar, vocals), Michael O'Connell (guitar, vocals), Peter Whitby (bass, vocals) and Peter Martin (drums). The Apartments played regularly during a period of flourishing creative activity in Brisbane in the late 70s