#profit

Profit is so very fluctuating that the person who carries on a particular trade cannot always tell you himself what is the average of his annual profit. It is affected not only by every variation of price in the commodities which he deals in, but by the good or bad fortune both of his rivals and of his customers, and by a thousand other accidents to which goods when carried either by sea or by land, or even when stored in a warehouse, are liable. It varies, therefore, not only from year to year, but from day to day, and almost from hour to hour. To ascertain what is the average profit of all the different trades carried on in a great kingdom must be much more difficult; and to judge of what it may have been formerly, or in remote periods of time, with any degree of precision, must be altogether impossible. But though it may be impossible to determine, with any degree of precision, what are or were the average profits of stock, either in the present or in ancient times, some notion may be formed of them from the interest of money. It may be laid down as a maxim, that wherever a great deal can be made by the use of money, a great deal will commonly be given for the use of it; and that wherever little can be made by it, less will commonly be given for it. According, therefore, as the usual market rate of interest varies in any country, we may be assured that the ordinary profits of stock must vary with it, must sink as it sinks, and rise as it rises. The progress of interest, therefore, may lead us to form some notion of the progress of profit. ↗

— Adam Smith

#money

Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit. ↗

— John L. Lewis

#communism #employment #fully #institution #investment

We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn't do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell. ↗

— Barack Obama

#built #chasing #come #could #country

What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where unemployment rates stay high, people who have jobs see their incomes go up, businesses make big profits. But they're learned to do more with less, and so they don't hire. ↗

— Barack Obama

#businesses #danger #go #high #hire

A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money, produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no real effect whatever on profits. ↗

— David Ricardo

#effect #general #money #price #produces

It is individuals who must be encouraged to undertake the unprecedented - and unprecedentedly profitable - effort to prevent the annihilation of the human race. ↗

— L. Neil Smith

#effort #encouraged #human #human race #individuals

The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. ↗

— Frederick Soddy

#business #capital #exists #great #money

A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit. ↗

— Steven Soderbergh

#cultural #event #million #movie #only

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them. ↗

— Steven Spielberg

#comes #down #go #happen #market

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health. ↗

— Robert Louis Stevenson

#age #almost #any #completes #costs