Corporate profits are up. Whew! I feel lots better now.

[Stinky The Clown]

>snip<

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 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 noninflation-adjusted terms

>snip<

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html

One point six six TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.

By laying people off.

By cutting costs.

By accepting the largess of the Treasury and then doing nothing in return.

The largest profits in the history of profits. Really.

They started recording this stuff when Elvis was still singing live. We're all living life in the shitter and these motherfuckers are making record profits.

How swell.

[Skittles]

1. my company could create a Fortune 500 company with this year's profits alone

wanna take a big fat guess what my bonus will be?

[madinmaryland]

2. When is that money going to flood the economy, and we know it will...

2013??

[TheKentuckian]

3. Chinese slaves are pretty frugal. That is all for the pocket.

All belief in this bullshit economic system will only bring more punishment.

[mrdmk]

4. short term, only in the short term

This economy cannot be sustained...

[laughingliberal]

5. Yes! Ain't Supply Side Economics wonderful? nt

[inna]

6. And get this...Top U.S. Incomes Grew Five-Fold in 2009:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/taxes/top-us-incomes-grew-five-fold-in-2009-to-a-519-million-average/19688820/


***Absolutely mind blowing.*** Plutocrats quintupled their income, while the working class took one hit after another.

AS IF income inequality wasn't atrocious enough already, 2009 resulted in record-level and unprecedented upward transfer of wealth. (No final numbers on 2010 yet, but likely it's even worse.)


Some "socialism", really. :crazy:

[Newest Reality]

7. Consider that this could

go on and on, especially if people generally continue to make assumptions that they will participate in some sort of imagined, personal economic recovery, someday. That is a way to use suppositions of time as a buffer preventing any direct realization of the ominous trend here.

This is NOT the old economy, IMO. Our conceptual maps need serious updating because the entire process of profit and exploitation has morphed and upgraded into something many of us may not understand it fully enough to comprehend the gravity of the situation at hand. The territory we are in has been strategically transformed to benefit from our now outmoded preconceptions. That's the gruesome genius of social manipulation.

Our Owners have multinational leverage and those developing markets in other countries. They are well spread-out and can continue to strategically milk whomever they want for more profit. They appear to be quite good, (scientificly) at belt-tightening, efficiency and increasing productivity with the major expense being the need to replace those who crumble or drop dead from exhaustion.

Throw in a vast network of conglomerated mass-media to influence perception and you can continue this game of true delusions indefinitely. Even a concept like "the economy" is merely a large abstraction that, without the correct specific questions from the populace, (what, who, where, when) can so easily be utilized as nothing more than a tool to distract and manipulate those who dwell in a sort of information overload trance.

[Hydra]

10. Yup

Slave labor market, and the slaves even pay for all their expenses.

And to think I was ridiculed here for pointing out that wages slavery is actually a more efficient version of the old system.

[Newest Reality]

14. Yes ...

It is far more efficient to own large swaths of the "needs" your workers have, (think: company store). Why have to house, cloth and feed them when you can make the money back that you pay them via the essentials? That equals more profit and less responsibility.

The Owner's corporations are NOT about the kind of social responsibility that we might consider.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. We knew you'd come 'round.

Welcome, and please don't forget to go shopping. Black Friday is right around the corner ;-)

[KeyserSoze87]

9. Further proof that America is currently NOT a democracy.

At the very least, it's a plutocracy.

[OlympicBrian]

11. US Ivory Towers are Built on Foundations - Which are Cracking

US Ivory Towers are Built on Foundations - Which are Cracking
- A Functional Description of Our System
(original 10/29/2010, Dan, Seattle; updated 11/24/2010 to include various debt commission plans.)

"US corporatocracy" - the system of government that serves the interests of, and is essentially run by, corporations. The term describes neoliberalism in its US operational context, with all its components. It primarily seeks to further ties between government and business--where corporations, multinational corporations, conglomerates, and private parties including political organizations and highly-paid corporate executives are the primary controls, and are the elite, who reside in "ivory towers." Areas of control rely on direction and governance often tied to contrived (sometimes fearsome) mass-media visages of issues, ideas, and persons within the nation. Within the corporatocracy, objective news reporting is hard to find. The system depends on highly-paid "pundits" for dissemination of major themes--these themes are often repetitive and divisive. Moreover, pundits distract the public from the critical issues, facts, and figures they should be focusing on. Often times these pundits--such as Glenn Beck, with basically a high school education--flat out misrepresent or lie...and millions of Americans are taken in. Thus, the shady activities of the corporatocracy go largely unnoticed.
...
Not surprisingly, in the corporatocracy, unemployment is high even during boom periods where corporate profits are rich and the stock market is high, because of a reliance on offshoring and offshore investment. The corporations always seek out what's known in economic terms as "absolute advantage," which in lay terms means "utter selfishness and disregard for the rest of the US." The corporatocracy cares less about retaining jobs than foreign counterparts, largely due to the influence of the US Chamber of Commerce. The US tax base is eroded as a consequence--those that profit the most in the corporatocracy aren't taxed--and the federal debt climbs quickly, since the US budget system relies heavily on non-corporate federal income tax receipts. In short--no jobs means no balanced budget. And yet the Chamber persists in its anti-US-job agenda--and America lets it. Are people protesting the Chamber in the streets, and demanding they desist? I haven't seen them.
...

Full:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9624014

[deaniac21]

12. Bad news for everyone with a 401k.

[OlympicBrian]

13. How many of the 20 million or so under/un employed have had to cash out their 401ks? nt