Corporate profits in the first quarter advanced to an annualized $1.393 trillion from $1.270 trillion the prior quarter. Profits in the fourth quarter were up an annualized 44.8 percent, following a 37.0 percent jump the prior quarter. Profits are after tax but without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments. Corporate profits are up 42.7 percent on a year-on-year basis, compared to up 51.8 percent in the fourth quarter.
At the same time unemployment is the highest it has been since the Great depression. Half of those unemployed will, according to some experts, never have another job. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers in
April, up by 457,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)
Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they be-
lieve no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.2 million persons marginal-
ly attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding
the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.
Obviously people at the top do not care.
The lesson here, and I think it is a big lesson, those who remain actually doing something are having a greater share of their efforts captured by those at the top. there is plenty of money in the market chain for a decent farm milk price.
Do the people at the top not realize that if they keep inflating their compensation and cooking the books to give the appearance of a profit that everything will eventually fall apart?
ReplyDeleteit will catch up to them.
ReplyDelete