Here’s food for thought (gracias to Jamie for forwarding the email from which this came from):

Ahmad is a fisherman. He sells a fish to you at $10 which is below the market value of $15. Let’s assume that he caught the fish from the abundance of the sea at little or no cost. Ahmad claims that since the market value of the fish is $15 and he sold you the fish for $10, he had subsidised you $5 and therefore made a loss of $5.

Question : Did Ahmad actually make a profit of $10 or loss of $5 which he claimed is the subsidy?

Answer:Ahmad makes a profit of $10 which is the difference of the selling price ($10) minus the cost price ($0 since the fish was caught from the abundance of the sea). There is no subsidy as claimed by Ahmad.