Oct 6, 2026 · 56 min · 10 segments
What is the difference between investing and speculation? Why do profits matter, and what role do dividends play in building long-term wealth? Paul Mueller sits down with investor and author David…
David BahnsenGuestPaul MuellerHostSo th- this podcast is for, you know, folks who, who aren't necessarily reading The Wall Street Journal every day.
You know, they're not necessarily tuned into CNBC and, and all the things that are going on.
But I think let's start, because this is important for the whole premise of your book and how you build your investment strategy.
Let's, maybe you can talk a little bit about profit, like what profit is, what it represents, the, the, the role that it plays in commercial societies.
Um, because as your book title says, you know, we're trying to profit from profit, so it seems like that's a good place maybe to start.
Yeah, it's interesting that the term is so easily defined for some people mentally when they think about corporate earnings.
Like they think about a company that has revenue and a company that has expenses, and then those things that are left are, are called profits.
And, and yet if the word is properly understood in an economic way of thinking, you could argue that your wages as a laborer are profits.
You have exchanged, put out your labor, and then gotten something back for it, and you wouldn't have done it unless you valued what you'd receive more in a surplus relative to the exertion, time, energy, effort, etc.
So in a sort of non-financial sense, a profit can really be any gain, uh, including the gain we get from wages relative to our time and exertion.
But, but in the financial sense that matters here in the book and in what drives commercial society, it is the surplus that exists after expenses are deducted from revenues.
I- if a household brings in ten thousand dollars in a month and spends eight thousand, they have two thousand of what we would refer to as a profit that sits, you know, i- in the bank account of the family, presumably.
But then with a company, the profits, the gains, the earnings, these are all synonymous, but they become something much more.
They become, um, all at once a signal to investors of something that if they put their hard-earned money into, they want to get back in the future.
But it also is the money from which the company can further invest in the business.
And, and in that sense, the decidedly non-Marxian definition of profits never pits capital against labor, that profits become the friend of laborers and owners, or what we would refer to in this context as capitalists.
They're all on the same side because profits are growing the thing that is feeding all of the above.
You know, when I talk about something or people talk about something being profitable, like an activity that's profitable, as you point out, it just means beneficial, right? Like profit is a measure, sort of benefit of gain, as you talk about.
So th- this podcast is for, you know, folks who, who aren't necessarily reading The Wall Street Journal every day.
You know, they're not necessarily tuned into CNBC and, and all the things that are going on.
But I think let's start, because this is important for the whole premise of your book and how you build your investment strategy.
Let's, maybe you can talk a little bit about profit, like what profit is, what it represents, the, the, the role that it plays in commercial societies.
Um, because as your book title says, you know, we're trying to profit from profit, so it seems like that's a good place maybe to start.
Yeah, it's interesting that the term is so easily defined for some people mentally when they think about corporate earnings.
Like they think about a company that has revenue and a company that has expenses, and then those things that are left are, are called profits.
And, and yet if the word is properly understood in an economic way of thinking, you could argue that your wages as a laborer are profits.
You have exchanged, put out your labor, and then gotten something back for it, and you wouldn't have done it unless you valued what you'd receive more in a surplus relative to the exertion, time, energy, effort, etc.
So in a sort of non-financial sense, a profit can really be any gain, uh, including the gain we get from wages relative to our time and exertion.
But, but in the financial sense that matters here in the book and in what drives commercial society, it is the surplus that exists after expenses are deducted from revenues.
I- if a household brings in ten thousand dollars in a month and spends eight thousand, they have two thousand of what we would refer to as a profit that sits, you know, i- in the bank account of the family, presumably.
But then with a company, the profits, the gains, the earnings, these are all synonymous, but they become something much more.
They become, um, all at once a signal to investors of something that if they put their hard-earned money into, they want to get back in the future.
But it also is the money from which the company can further invest in the business.
And, and in that sense, the decidedly non-Marxian definition of profits never pits capital against labor, that profits become the friend of laborers and owners, or what we would refer to in this context as capitalists.
They're all on the same side because profits are growing the thing that is feeding all of the above.
You know, when I talk about something or people talk about something being profitable, like an activity that's profitable, as you point out, it just means beneficial, right? Like profit is a measure, sort of benefit of gain, as you talk about.
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