Reply #28: Same thing in different terms, as far as this is concerned [View All]

[EstimatedProphet]

The point I was trying to make is this: when someone says "a doctor has to make a profit, after all", what they are doing is equating making a profit to making a living, and they are not the same. The implication inherent in the statement is a) you either make a profit, or b) you starve. That's not true at all. You can say that about making a living, but making a living does not mean making excess capital. It can include excess capital, but it isn't a necessary condition. When the terms are conflated, the issue becomes confused. Should someone expect that they go into a career to bring in investment capital of some sort, other than typically assumed for the average person such as a retirement fund? If "profit" is stated to be a necessary condition for someone to stay in a career, that implies that they have to do far better than covering their expenses, however large those expenses are. That becomes a foundation for the insurance bandit argument, since they indeed do have to make a profit, because they have shareholders.