[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
It would also be worth noting that corporate profits are again declining, and are now back to just about the level they were in 2004 - and possibly still declining after that.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, and now that they are declining I’m sure we are poised on the brink of a resurgence of the Little Guy(aar), about to come into his own. I mean, there is only so much pie to go around, right? So, if evil corporate profits are declining that should mean that the Little Guy(aar) and all those sad eyed Workers and Peasants™ should be doing a hell of a lot better…
They are still 1.26 trillion, which is double what they were in 2002. So in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression they are still double what they were during the year 2002 which was a much better year economically. That is what I’m asking about, and I am not sure why that happened, or if it was just the US, or what.
How is this sustainable? Not only has 100% of the GDP growth ($200 billion) in the last year gone to corporate profits, but wages/compensation are down $90 billion while profits are up $80 billion on top of that.
How is this sustainable? Record unemployment, overwhelmed charities, bankrupt state/federal government while over 100% of GDP growth went to corporate profit (I say over 100% because not only did all growth go to corporate profits, but so wage compensation was shifted to corporate profits too).
What happens after another 5 years of this? How can this be sustained w/o the US becoming a latin American country?
And again, if supply side economics is true why did a tripling of corporate profits not see any job creation? The 2000-2009 period was the worst on record for job creation in 70 years.
Why has $280 billion in new profits over 1 year not resulted in new jobs? The U6 unemployment rate is still about 20%, with 30 million people in the US unemployed or underemployed.
Rant and rave about class warfare, but I don’t know how a person can be serious and think this is a sustainable economic system.
You know,Wes, the only time these stalwart defenders of Truth, Justice and The American Way utter the words “class war” it is in response to someone pointing out that the wealthy have historically waged it on the poor.
I was going to include the quote ‘it is only called class war when we fight back’ in my post, but decided against it.
The class warfare BS is a pretty good GOP tactic. They do know how to go on the offensive. Move the economic system’s benefits to the top, move the risk and tax burden to the bottom then scream ‘class warfare’ when anyone complains.
Yeah…I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday having Leonard Nimoy read that off, just before I was getting ready to launch an all out attack on Egypt…
(Bit behind the times, since if you asked why the poor have no food you’d probably get a head scratch and a question about which foreign country you were referring to. If you said ‘the US’ then you’d probably get a laugh or at least a strange look as if you were soft in the head. If you were talking about another country, you’d probably get a a lecture on the massive amount of money and food the US and Europe DOES send to hungry 3rd world nations, along with all the reasons that all that food and resources don’t get to the hungry people who need it.
What you wouldn’t get was someone telling you you were a communist for asking those questions. You missed out on that by more than a few decades, unfortunately).
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]
The class warfare BS is a pretty good GOP tactic.
[/QUOTE]
Probably it’s a good tactic because the Dems and other left wingers have trotted it out so much, and it’s so patently ridiculous that it’s nearly a running joke at this point. Oh, this isn’t to say that it doesn’t have any merit at all, or that there isn’t disparity in wealth…it’s to say that the folks using it generally have almost zero connection to reality, their ‘reality’ is so skewed by their, um, fervor on the subject and so misinformed, and their comments are so over the top and exaggerated, that it’s on par with the few sad individuals who still believe that communism could really make a go of it, if only it had a chance.
Corporate profits triple in a few years reaching 14% of GDP.
Income for the top 1% grow 2.5x from the 70s until today from 9% to about 22% (probably a bit higher now). The top 10% have gone from 33% to 50% of income.
Tax burdens that are paid by these 2 groups (income, estate, corporate, dividend, capital gains) have all been cut, sometimes in half in the last few decades.
What is over the top about pointing that out, or disconnected from reality?
And again, how is this sustainable as an economic system? What happens after another 20 years of this? Will corporate profits make up 20% of GDP (instead of 14%), will the top 1% earn 45% of income instead of 22%? If so, and if their taxes are cut in half again, what happens to the government since there will not be revenue to keep operations going?
Wes, it seems you actually believe that these people are interested in facts and are willing to step back and take an honest look at what we’ve become as a nation.
[QUOTE=adhay]
Wes, it seems you actually believe that these people are interested in facts and are willing to step back and take an honest look at what we’ve become as a nation.
[/QUOTE]
Sort of on par with those other people being willing to take a step back and honestly look at the fact that their preconceptions and world view might just have some gaping flaws in them…
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]
Why is it over the top?
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It’s over the top because it has not basis in reality today. The quote was “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Asking why the poor have no food is like asking why the fish in the ocean have no water to swim in…depending on which ‘poor’ we are talking about. American poor? The poor in Mexico? Africa? Outer Mongolia? Some theoretical poor somewhere? Further, acknowledging today that there are hungry poor throughout the world and asking why this state of affairs exists is not likely to get one labeled a communist, and by making this statement and trying to associate it with today’s political climate one is going ‘over the top’.
And none of this has anything to do with why corporate profits grew between 2002-2006, which I think has been adequately answered already…though you keep throwing out the same things, so obviously you disagree. Unless you want to claim that corporate profits have grown at the cost of mass starvation of the poor in the US, and that by pointing this glaring problem (without evidence) out is bound to label you a communist…or something…
Do you so claim?
As to your two, um, cites, I’m not sure what you are trying to show there. One purports to show the top 1% pre-tax income, which doesn’t really connect to corporate profits and doesn’t really say much…especially since it cuts off in 2005. The other purports to show the total income going to the top 10%, which, again, doesn’t have a direct connection to corporate profits…and is, frankly, a pretty large group of people.
Sez who? According to this, which seems to indicate that it’s fluctuated throughout the period, starting at 36% in 1999, going to 37% in 2000, then dropping to 33% in 2001, then steadily rising back up to 39% in 2006, 40% in 2007 and (not in this cite) I believe it’s up to something like 41% today. The top 10% group went from 55% in 1999 to over 60% in 2007 and is up to something like 61-61% today, IIRC.
So…how do you figure that these two groups have paid less, as a percentage of the over all tax collected in the US?
Well, because you aren’t talking about what I was talking about, when I used the over the top phrase. You should really go back and re-read it for clarity. What you bring up is debatable (I think you are wrong, but I concede that you can manipulate the numbers in any number of ways to get them to say what you are trying to say, and my own world view biases me to view them and other figures on this subject in a certain way…just as yours biases you to draw different conclusions. That’s why it’s a ‘debate’)…what adhay tossed in, and what I was commenting about really bears no relevance to this discussion, and is factually wrong. It was tossed in mainly for effect.
It’s sustainable because this isn’t a zero sum game…there really isn’t a set pie. The misconception you are asserting is that their taxes have been cut in half…which is absolutely incorrect. At most their taxes were cut by 3-4%. Significant, no doubt, but nothing like in half. Not unless you are adding in what you think their taxes should be (50%? 60%? More?) and then subtracting that from what their actual rates are.
Whether the government is sustainable or not is another matter. Certainly if we keep adding programs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars but bring in taxes that were in deficit BEFORE said programs were added then we are in trouble. But this is like saying that I should be able to have a million dollar house, even though I couldn’t afford the $100k house I already had, if only someone will pay me more money. THAT may not (and probably will not) be sustainable, granted. But that’s not exactly the sole fault of the top 1%, ehe?
Why are high corporate profits bad? Is is just because corporations are evil?
Since GDP is directly tied to corporate profits, I suspect that it is an indicator that it is not a sustainable system. As the past several years have shown us.
What I suspect is that in 2002 companies started seeing all the benefits from outsourcing and the technology boom of the previous decade. In addition you have increased profits linked to all those people who were spending all that extra money they had from leveraging their homes.
