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Biden Declares War on Profits

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2023
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by Outside Contributor
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently reiterated a point the Biden White House has been making for the past year: that inflation remains high not because of the Biden $6 trillion spending spree but because “high profit margins” captured during the COVID-19 pandemic drive up consumer prices.

We then were told that the White House’s grand strategy to bring down sticker prices further at the store is to lower business profit margins for everything from drugs and computers to food and gasoline.

How low should those evil profits go? To zero?

Wait, since when are profits evil? The ability of a company to turn a profit is the very engine of growth – also of innovation, job creation and entrepreneurship.

The only people who could possibly believe profits are nefarious are those who have never actually earned a profit. It isn’t so easy.

As the late, great economist Walter Williams of George Mason University used to explain in his Econ 100 course: Farmers in North Dakota don’t raise cattle and work 14 hours a day growing acres of wheat because they want to provide a juicy steak meal for a Wall Street fat cat. Those farmers and ranchers don’t give a hoot for New Yorkers. They raise cattle and send steaks to feed the people in Manhattan because they want to earn a profit. If there were no profit in it, the people in New York would go hungry or would be standing in soup lines.

Almost every lifesaving drug known to man was developed in the lab of a private pharmaceutical company or a biotech firm. Governments rarely invent new lifesaving drugs used by millions of people. And no, former Vice President Al Gore didn’t invent the internet. Profit seekers did, and then they built a $10 trillion industry that has revolutionized the way we live and work and play.

Steve Jobs and his colleagues virtually invented the personal computer and Apple’s relentless pursuit of profit. He perfected the cellphone and then drove down its cost so that today even many of the poorest people in Africa can afford it. Fifty years ago, even a king’s ransom couldn’t buy what a poor Indonesian farmer has in his pocket. Why? Because Apple found a way to make a profit selling it to him. Now Apple is a $3 trillion company – by selling people all over the world something they desperately want.

That’s not to say altruism and charity don’t count. It surely does – and it’s a divine inspiration. But we have hundreds of years of evidence that this isn’t as powerful a motivation as the mundane and relentless pursuit of making a profit. Even Bono of U2, a great philanthropist, has discovered with the tens of millions of dollars he has donated to worthy causes that charity is never going to solve the poverty problem. Only the free enterprise system and profits will.

The profit motive is arguably the noblest pursuit in human history. Profits have saved more lives, created higher living standards, sparked more inventions, pulled more people out of poverty and created more jobs than all the government programs and all the “nonprofit” activities combined.

A war against profits is a war against prosperity. As economist Larry Kudlow of Fox Business puts it: High-profit margins are the mother’s milk of the stock market, so lower profits (or even zero profits, which seems to be the Biden goal) would lead to a flurry of business bankruptcies, mass layoffs and a stock market collapse. Without profits, there are no businesses, and without employers, there are no jobs, and without jobs, there is no consumer spending.

And you can kiss your 401(k) plan goodbye in a land of shrinking profits.

So why are the Biden people against profits? Why don’t they get the way the world really works? Perhaps it is because, as we revealed in our Committee to Unleash Prosperity study last year, most of the Biden administration appointees have never worked for a private business. They don’t understand one of the most basic economic truisms: What drives down an economy aren’t businesses that make a profit but businesses that make a loss.

If the goal of the Biden administration is to drive down profits, the endgame will be to make everyone poorer and poorer over time. We will have reached their goal of equity and equality.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

Reprinted with Permission from The Center for Individual Freedom by Stephen Moore.

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edward
edward
1 year ago

“Biden Declares War On Profits”Why not, ALL COMMUNISTS DO THE SAME!

tlanger
tlanger
1 year ago

I suspect little joey and his losers will be walking his one back. The only people with profits during the Pandemic were democrats, pharma and anyone in the WOKE garbage. No joey and the losers, the problem WAS your stupid spending.

Reggie Smith
Reggie Smith
1 year ago

Well, he has gone off the deep end. He started out as a Socialist and now he is practicing Communism. This man needs to be impeached before he destroys all of our freedoms.

Kathleen
Kathleen
1 year ago

Their game plan is to have stocks drop so they can grab. We need to make it illegal for a political official to be investing in the stock market while in office.

FedUp
FedUp
1 year ago

Why drive down profits? Its simple.
Profits = wealth. With wealth comes power and an ability to be self sustaining.
The communist democrats want equity. Translated, wealth and income distribution (except theirs). Take it from the wealthy people and redistribute it to the poor. That way, they remove the power and self reliance from individuals while they create an economy where it doesn’t pay to create and take a chance. Basically, an economy where everyone is reliant on them. This is their ultimate objective.
Think that’s far fetched? Does anyone remember Obama’s “Life of Julia” cartoon illustrating how this fictional Julia would rely on the Federal government for all her needs throughout her entire life? Here’s a link
cnn.com/2012/05/09/opinion/bennett-obama-campaign/index.html

jeanette
jeanette
1 year ago

Totally true, a business can’t stay in business even if selling well if there is no profit margin after expenses to allow for maintenance and expansion. The only people who don’t get that would not be entrepreneurs, but very likely politicians!!

Thomas D Booth
Thomas D Booth
1 year ago

Biden has never had to worry about making a profit or meeting a payroll. He has lived off the taxpayers all his life. He doesn’t care if businesses make a go of it or not as long as he can make money off the taxpayers and China, Ukraine and whoever else.

Lloyd Grisham
Lloyd Grisham
1 year ago

This administration has done everything they can to tear down this country. I don’t believe you can find ANYTHING they have done to help our country and our people. If the democrats continue to be in charge this country is doomed,

mikem
mikem
1 year ago

the man and the left are complete and total idiots.

sue
sue
1 year ago

Paying taxes are a profit maker for the government. So if Biden is against profit then why are we sending our monies to the profit taker?

JamesP.
JamesP.
1 year ago

Does that include your profits Trader Joe?

Rik
Rik
1 year ago

To Jacka** Joe and the Democrats, you can NEVER TAX ENOUGH! . . . How else can you afford to keep spending? Today’s so-called Democratic Party you just can NEVER SPEND ENOUGH!

Michael Stevens
Michael Stevens
1 year ago

Just remember that Joe Biden has NEVER worked in the profit making private sector. He really does NOT know what he’s talking about. It’s the ONE thing I wish of all career politicians, that they some day have to sign the FRONT of a paycheck!

Ed J
Ed J
1 year ago

No matter what policy or issue Bidense and his Demshevik cronies address, it will always adhere to their motto: “We will snatch DEFEAT out of the JAWS OF VICTORY!”

jeanette
jeanette
1 year ago

Excellent article and so very true! I would think even children would understand if they make something that costs them a little and they can sell it for a little more they make money! It is a fair exchange for their work and materials to make it. NO business can survive without it. And government bypasses that basic of economics by charging taxes! A dwindling spiral of less and less exchange with wasted energy and salaries for folks who have no clue about making a profit. They get the tax money!

Tim Toroian
Tim Toroian
1 year ago

These communists didn’t learn from the fall of the USSR. No profit NO economic growth. And HOW IN HELL DO YOU RUN AN ECONOMY FROM THE BOTTOM UP? Isn’t that called subsistence? Has it ever occurred to them that if the workers get the profits it can only happen once? No money for raw materials no production. Idiotic is not enough to describe the american( not a typo) left.

JERRY D.
JERRY D.
1 year ago

What an idiot….

Bob
Bob
1 year ago

As the late, great economist Walter Williams of George Mason University used to explain in his Econ 100 course: Farmers in North Dakota don’t raise…” I doubt Biden and most of our ‘representatives’ in DC have ever had an Econ 100 course, even though they should be required to take one, along with a basic financial literacy course upon being elected!

Cross
Cross
1 year ago

doe ray me fa q biden

legally present
legally present
1 year ago

Maybe you should learn how to spell Mar-a-lago, and not make it like it’s on planet Mars before commenting. Obedient dog, ALL democrats are obedient, that’s why they ALWAYS vote in lockstep, NOT ONE dissenter.

Rik
Rik
1 year ago

Nobody here is going to believe you unless you use your REAL name, Joe Biden!

virginia state flag and voter box
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at a roundtable with business and labor leaders, Friday, November 18, 2022, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
jim nicholson and kamala harris with bible and rosary behind them about her anti-catholic acts
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