By Brianna Aubin They say that morality is unprofitable, and profitability immoral.  But is it actually true?  Look at the story of two banks, one which adhered to an inflexible moral code and another which chased the almighty dollar, and check your premises for yourself: One bank, chaired by an individual with a deep moral code, did several things which went against the prevailing atmosphere of the industry over the last decade.  While other banks were getting deep into the subprime lending business, this bank flatly refused to participate on the grounds that such participation was not beneficial to its customers.  When Kelo v. New London extended the government’s right of eminent domain to such an extent that practically any confiscation of private property could be justified, this bank refused to grant any more eminent domain loans to the government on the grounds that the government had overstepped its moral bounds.  When Bush proposed TARP in order to bail out the failing banks during the financial crisis, this bank campaigned against TARP to anyone who would listen, took TARP funds only under threat of being driven out of business by the government, and was the first to pay back its TARP “loan” to the tune of a loss of $100,000,000. Another bank was chaired by someone who openly admitted to being an Objectivist, a philosophy well known for its glorification of the profit motive.  He based his business practices around Atlas Shrugged and made all of his high-level employees read the novel.  He made decisions based purely on their profitability and became incredibly successful thereby.  During this man’s tenure, his bank grew from $4.5 billion in assets to $137 billion, and he himself made millions in salary and stock options.  He’s deeply involved with the Ayn Rand Institute , and he regularly donates money and copies of the book to colleges in order to get them to study Rand’s philosophy