The business equation concerns money spent in so doing (ie in selling things). To distinguish this from other money that is spent calls for an understanding of how much things cost
In communist countries, there used to be no relationship between how much something cost and its price, and shopping was something of a strange experience. It was also a strange experience giving lectures through an interpreter. After saying anything dramatic there is the curious period of delay before reaction shows on the face of the audience (if some of them understand the original English, you then get an echo effect when the translation comes). A colleague was thwarted by the language itself. Attempting to give the famous quote (like many such, ascribed to several different people) that ‘the three most important factors in retailing are’ – pause for translation into Russian – ‘location’ – pause – he was surprised when the translation of this one word lasted some fifteen seconds. Suddenly, the prospect of repeating it twice more seemed unwise.
Like Russian, Polish seems to – and does – take longer than English to say the equivalent, but my Polish speaking colleague cleared up a mystery for me at the coffee break in a seminar I was giving. Every time I spoke of ‘price and cost’, the interpreter would translate what I said and then add words to the effect ‘he is saying this is price and that is cost, but we use the words interchangeably in Polish’. I corrected this after the break by stating – for translation – that ‘in everyday English, we use the words price and cost interchangeably, but in business they have reserved and different meanings; price is what we charge customers; cost is what we pay for things’. This had quite a dramatic effect on my relationship with the interpreter – but that is another story.