Thread: U.S. Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last 1/4

U.S. Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter

By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: November 23, 2010

The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever.

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.

The government does not adjust the numbers for inflation, in part because these corporate profits can be affected by pricing changes from all over the world and because the government does not have a price index for individual companies. The next-highest annual corporate profits level on record was in the third quarter of 2006, when they were $1.655 trillion.

Corporate profits have been doing extremely well 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. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.

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.

Tuesday’s Commerce Department report also showed that the nation’s output grew at a slightly faster pace than originally estimated last quarter. Its growth rate, of 2.5 percent a year in inflation-adjusted terms, is higher than the initial estimate of 2 percent. The economy grew at a 1.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter.

Still, most economists say the current growth rate is far too slow to recover the considerable ground lost during the recession.

“The economy is not growing fast enough to reduce significantly the unemployment rate or to prevent a slide into deflation,â€

I know what this says to me. What does it say to everyone else?

W

That we are in deep doo-doo, and,

That Keynesian economics works........for some better than others.

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41 states see job gains in October, most in 5 months

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-219152.html

Please correct me if Im wrong but Corporate profits are soaring, while members of Congress get richer, while Americans are thrown out of our jobs and homes, while legal and illegal immigrants gain jobs.

Is that correct? Is that what is happening in America according to the latest articles collected here?

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Please correct me if Im wrong but Corporate profits are soaring, while members of Congress get richer, while Americans are thrown out of our jobs and homes, while legal and illegal immigrants gain jobs.

Is that correct? Is that what is happening in America according to the latest articles collected here?

W

Yes it is! NWO=MODERN FEUDAL SOCIETY

This is good news for small investors who still own stocks in these companies and people who's 401k is invested in stocks or mutual funds that own these stocks as well as people who may become new hires at these companies as they expand.