Profiting More Than Marginally

The Commerce Department's latest figures show the best quarter in history for profits for US corporations.

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.66 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or non-inflation-adjusted terms.

Corporate profits have been going gangbusters for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history.

This breakneck pace can be partly attributed to strong productivity growth — which means companies have been able to make more with less — as well as the fact that some of the profits of American companies come from abroad. Economic conditions in the United States may still be sluggish, but many emerging markets like India and China are expanding rapidly. 

So what are corporations doing with all these record profits?  Reinvesting in workers and expanding capital?  Increasing health and retirement benefits for workers?  Sharing the haul with the people on the front lines who made this huge haul possible?

Oh they're doing that.  Just not for workers in the United States.

So when businesses complain about the "uncertain regulatory environment" and how "corporate taxes are crushing them" and how they don't have money for investment because "the government is stifling innovation" and "drowning them in regulations" keep the fact that US corporations as a whole just had their best quarter in history in the back of your mind, as profits have risen dramatically since 2009, for seven straight quarters.

So, where's your cut of the action?  Oh that's right.  You don't get one.  Best quarter for corporations in decades, worst quarter for workers in decades as functional unemployment is over 20% in some areas of the country while companies are raking in billions...billions they then use to lobby Congress and buy media coverage to ensure they can keep making the big bucks.

But really, the problem is too much government socialism, right?  (Wonder how much of that profit was due to taxpayer subsidies?)