Commentary: Profit is not Theft

"...I suspect Obama—who obviously knows nothing about business—was just buying into the conventional liberal wisdom regarding “profits” and the evil thereof that dates back more than a hundred years. This “wisdom” is in two parts. First, that business is a zero-sum game, that the profit earned by a business is, in effect, theft. Because public entities don’t make a profit, liberals reason, they are inherently morally superior to private entities. They are not, of course, as profit represents the wealth created by trading what someone wants less for something he wants more. In a trade, both sides benefit (otherwise the trade doesn’t take place—no one trades a $10 bill for a five). In buying insurance, a person trades money in exchange for risk reduction. Many young people, facing little risk, don’t make the trade because they reason, rightly, that they are being overcharged."

Read more: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/gordon/91032