Americans in the context of The Theory of Monopolistic Competition

Following the devastation of the United States and Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sent his personal letter of condolences to U.S. President George W. Bush while the Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo sent his personal letter of condolences to the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, promising support for the American people in their relief effort in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Irish Catholics (Irish: Caitlicigh na hÉireann) are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. The diaspora and the descendants of Irish Catholics includes millions of Americans, Canadians and Australians. In countries like the United States, Canada and Australia, many Catholics descend from Irish immigrants/migrants who passed down their faith.

General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English used by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. It is often perceived by Americans themselves as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education, or from the (North) Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech. The precise definition and usefulness of the term continue to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness. Some scholars prefer other names, such as Standard American English, though this can be a wider term encompassing more than just accent.

Standard Canadian English accents may be considered to fall under General American, especially in opposition to the United Kingdom's Received Pronunciation. Noted phonetician John C. Wells, for instance, claimed in 1982 that typical Canadian English accents align with General American in nearly every situation where British and American accents differ.

Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who have a Hispanic or Latin American background, culture, or family origin. This demographic group includes all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino, regardless of race. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Hispanic and Latino population was estimated at 68,086,153, representing approximately 20% of the total U.S. population, making them the second-largest group in the country after the non-Hispanic White population.

"Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage or country of birth of the person, parents or ancestors before their arrival into the United States of America. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race, because similarly to what occurred during the colonization and post-independence of the United States, Latin American countries have had populations made up of multiracial and monoracial descendants of settlers from the metropole of a European colonial empire (in the case of Latin American countries, Spanish and Portuguese settlers, unlike the Thirteen Colonies that will form the United States, which received settlers from the United Kingdom). In addition, there are also monoracial and multiracial descendants of Indigenous peoples of the Americas (Native Americans), descendants of African slaves brought to Latin America in the colonial era, and post-independence immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.

A state of the United States is one of the 50 constituent entities that shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside, due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

States are the primary subdivisions of the United States. They possess all powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to them by the Constitution of the United States. In general, state governments have the power to regulate issues of local concern, such as regulating intrastate commerce, running elections, creating local governments, public school policy, and non-federal road construction and maintenance. Each state has its own constitution grounded in republican principles, and government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

German Americans (German: Deutschamerikaner, pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃʔameʁɪˌkaːnɐ]) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry.

According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the United States, which is approximately 12% of the population. This represents a decrease from a 2009 US Census Bureau table that reported 50.7 million Americans identified as having German roots. The census is conducted in a way that allows this total number to be broken down in two categories. In the 2020 census, roughly two thirds of those who identify as German also identified as having another ancestry, while one third identified as German alone. German Americans account for about one third of the total population of people of German ancestry in the world.

African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group who, as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa". African Americans constitute the second largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Black population was estimated at 42,951,595, representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population.

African-American history began in the 16th century, when African slave traders sold African artisans, farmers, and warriors to European slave traders, who transported them across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through manumission or escape, and founded independent communities before and during the American Revolution. After the United States was founded in 1783, most Black people continued to be enslaved, primarily concentrated in the American South, with four million enslaved people only liberated with the Civil War in 1865.

Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Asian population was estimated at 22,080,844, representing approximately 6.49% of the total U.S. population, making them the fastest growing and fourth largest racial and ethnic group in the United States after African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans.

Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau denotes a racial category that includes people with origins or ancestry from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. It excludes people with ethnic origins from West Asia, who were historically classified as "white" and will be categorized as Middle Eastern Americans starting from the 2030 census. Central Asian ancestries (including Afghan, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek) were previously not included in any racial category but have been designated as "Asian" as of 2024.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "the Big Board") is an American stock exchange headquartered at the New York Stock Exchange Building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, exceeding $25 trillion in July 2024. The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it also lists (ticker symbol ICE). Previously, it was part of NYSE Euronext (NYX), which was formed by the NYSE's 2007 merger with Euronext. According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2022, approximately 58% of American adults reported having money invested in the stock market, either through individual stocks, mutual funds, or retirement accounts.

White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as "[a] person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Individuals within this group have light skin tones and hair colors that include brown, blonde, black or red. White Americans have historically constituted the majority population in the United States, though their share has been gradually declining in recent decades. As of the latest American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2024, an estimated 59.8% of the U.S. population—approximately 203.3 million people—identify as White alone, while Non-Hispanic Whites account for 56.3% of the population, or roughly 191.4 million people. Overall, 72.1% of Americans identify as White either alone or in combination with one or more other racial groups. European Americans are by far the largest panethnic group of white Americans and have constituted the majority population of the United States since the nation's founding. Middle Eastern Americans constitute a much smaller demographic of white Americans, making up around 1.1% of the US population in 2020.

According to the 2020 census, 61.6% of Americans, or 204,277,273 people, identified as White alone. This represented a national decrease from a 72.4% white alone share of the US population in the 2010 census. The share of Americans identifying as White alone or in combination (including multiracial white people) was 71.0% in 2020, a smaller decline from 74.8% of the population in 2010. As opposed to the declines seen in the white alone population, the number of people identifying as part white (in combination with other races) saw a large increase, growing from 2.4% of the population in 2010, to 9.4% in 2020.

An alcoholic beverage is any drink that contains alcohol, a central nervous system depressant. They are typically divided into three classes: beers, wines, and spirits; with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. The exact amount on which a beverage is considered alcoholic differs by country, with some considering drinks containing less than 0.5% to be non-alcoholic. These beverages are primarily consumed for the psychoactive effects that they produce.

Many societies have a distinct drinking culture, in which alcoholic drinks are integrated into parties. Most countries have laws regulating the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Some regulations require the labeling of the percentage alcohol content (as ABV or proof) and the use of a warning label. Some countries ban the consumption of alcoholic drinks, but they are legal in most parts of the world. The temperance movement advocates against the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The global alcoholic drink industry exceeded $1.5 trillion in 2017. Alcohol is one of the most widely used recreational drugs in the world, and about 33% of all humans currently drink alcohol. In 2015, among Americans, 86% of adults had consumed alcohol at some point, with 70% drinking it in the last year and 56% in the last month. Several other animals are affected by alcohol similarly to humans and, once they consume it, will consume it again if given the opportunity; however, humans are the only species known to produce alcoholic drinks intentionally.

Henry Chandler Cowles (February 27, 1869 – September 12, 1939) was an American botanist and ecological pioneer. A professor at the University of Chicago, he studied ecological succession in the Indiana Dunes of Northwest Indiana. This led to efforts to preserve the Indiana Dunes. One of Cowles' students, O. D. Frank continued his research.

Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment and Americanophobia) is a term that can describe several sentiments and positions including opposition to, fear of, distrust of, prejudice against or hatred toward the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general. Anti-Americanism can be contrasted with pro-Americanism, which refers to support, love, or admiration for the United States.

Political scientist Brendon O'Connor at the United States Studies Centre in Australia suggests that "anti-Americanism" cannot be isolated as a consistent phenomenon, since the term originated as a rough composite of stereotypes, prejudices, and criticisms which evolved into more politically-based criticisms. French scholar Marie-France Toinet says that use of the term "anti-Americanism" is "only fully justified if it implies systematic opposition – a sort of allergic reaction – to America as a whole." Some scholars frequently accused of anti-American biases, such as Noam Chomsky and Nancy Snow, have argued that the application of the term "anti-American" to other countries or their populations is 'nonsensical', as it implies that disliking the American government or its policies is socially undesirable or even comparable to a crime. In this regard, the term has been likened to the propagandistic usage of the term "anti-Sovietism" in the USSR.

Georgian Americans (Georgian: ქართველი ამერიკელები, romanized: kartveli amerik'elebi) are Americans of full or partial Georgian ancestry. They encompass ethnic Georgians who have immigrated to the U.S. from Georgia, as well as other areas with significant Georgian populations, such as Russia.

The precise number of Americans of Georgian descent is unknown. This is because 19th and 20th century U.S. immigration records often did not differentiate between various ethnic groups originating in the Russian Empire, which had slowly annexed Georgia starting from year 1801 and of which it remained a part until 1918.

Mor Ignatius Aphrem II (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܝܓܢܛܝܘܣ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܬܪܝܢܐ, Arabic: إغناطيوس أفرام الثاني; born 3 May 1965 as Sa'id Karim; Arabic: سعيد كريم, romanized: Saʽīd Kārīm) is a Syrian-American Christian prelate who has served as the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church since 29 May 2014.

Born and raised in Qamishili, Syria, Karim took the vows of a monk in 1985 and was later ordained as a deacon and then as a priest. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Divinity from the Coptic Theological Seminary in Cairo in 1988. In 1992, he received a Licentiate of Sacred Theology and in 1994, a Doctor of Divinity from St Patrick's College, Ireland.

Middle Eastern Americans are Americans of Middle Eastern background. Although once considered Asian Americans, the modern definition of "Asian American" now excludes people with West Asian backgrounds.

According to the 2020 United States census, over 3.5 million people self-identified as being Middle Eastern and North African ethnic origin. However, this definition includes more than just the Middle East.

Polish Americans (Polish: Polscy Amerykanie) are Americans who are of full or partial Polish origin. Polish settlement in the United States started in the mid-19th century. The flow of people has fluctuated over time depending upon conditions in Poland and the United States. The Polish American population is concentrated around the Great Lakes and the Mid-Atlantic. Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are the states with the largest populations though none of them contain more than 15% of the Polish American population.

Poland has a long history of republicanism going back to the establishment of the first national legislature, the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland, in 1386. This legislature became bicameral in 1493. Poland and Lithuania formed a federated state in 1569 with the establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this commonwealth of two nations there was a joint legislature called the General Sejm. An elective monarchy was started in 1572. Influenced by the Constitution of the United States, the commonwealth enacted a written constitution called the Constitution of 3 May 1791.