Stossel: Don't Give BACK

FOX BUSINESS, 4/27/2011 by John Stossel - "I’m annoyed by businesses’ discomfort with business. Too many act like there’s something wrong with making money. Billionaire Eli Broad gives billions to charities and talks about “giving back." I gave him a hard time about that, and he responded, 'Well, I'm not sure what the difference is between giving and giving back.'

I like how GMU Economics Professor Don Boudreaux explained the difference today in this letter that he wrote to a hotel chain:

Dear Ritz-Carlton:

Thanks for your e-mail celebrating your and your employees' participation in "Give Back Getaways" - activities in which you and your employees (along with some of your customers) "give back to the community."

Have you taken something that doesn't belong to you? If so, by all means give it back!...If, though, you've not taken anything that doesn't belong to you, you possess nothing that you can give BACK.

Being a profitable corporation, you certainly possess something that you can GIVE; and I applaud the generosity that prompts you, your employees and your customers to GIVE.

But, please…drop the rhetoric of "giving BACK." …It fuels the common misapprehension that corporate profits are either ill-gotten gains or, at best, wealth subtracted from that of other persons in society.

… your success at business means that you CREATE wealth. You value the $$$ you get for renting a hotel room by more than you value keeping that room vacant, and your guests value the opportunity to spend a few nights …

Your profits aren't pirate booty; they're legitimate earnings."

See article here.