Profits Are Booming. Why Aren’t Jobs?

To gaze upon the world of American corporations is to see a sunny place of terrific profits and princely bonuses. American businesses reported that third-quarter profits in 2010 rose at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion, the steepest annual surge since officials began tracking such matters 60 years ago. It was the seventh consecutive quarter in which corporate profits climbed.

Staring at such balance sheets, you might almost forget that much of the nation lives under slate-gray fiscal skies, a place of 9.4 percent unemployment and record levels of foreclosures and indebtedness.

And therein lies the enduring mystery of this Great Recession and Not So Great Recovery: Why have corporate profits (and that market thermometer, the Dow) spiked even as 15 million Americans remain mired in unemployment, a number without precedent since the Great Depression? Employment tends to lag a touch behind profit growth, but history offers few parallels to what is happening today.

“Usually the business cycle is a rising-and-falling, all-boats-together phenomenon,” noted J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy in the Clinton Treasury Department. “It’s quite a puzzle when you have this disjunction between profits on the one hand and unemployment.”

A search for answers leads in several directions. The bulls’ explanation, heard with more frequency these days, has the virtue of being straightforward: corporate profits are the economy’s pressure cooker, building and building toward an explosive burst that will lead to much hiring next year.

The December jobs numbers suggest that that moment has yet to arrive, as the nation added just 103,000 jobs, or less than the number needed to keep pace with population growth. The leisure industry and hospitals accounted for 83,000 jobs; large corporations added a tiny fraction.

Do ya think it's constitutional for the Secretary of State to sit on the board of a private corporation announced at a UN conference, not in the United States, that gives taxpayer money away to foreign corporations and foreign governments who? Do ya think? You know it undermines the US citizen taxpayers who want to maintain an open, constitutional government.

But global citizen free traitors don't care!

Item 32 of the Monterrey Consensus

We also commit ourselves to enhancing the role of regional and subregional agreements and free trade areas, consistent with the multilateral trading system, in the construction of a better world trading system.

Does NAFTA ring a bell, then the Bush Administration CAFTA?

Monterrey consensus, free traitors at work!

Does it drive you bonkers too, to see this so called “international capitalistic ideology” take precedence over USA sovereignty and the nation?

The USA is going to hxll and it is because we have traitors in Congress who make trade agreements to the benefit of other nations and to corrupt capitalists who don’t give a dxmn about the USA.

Capitalism should FIRST be about nation not about making big profits for traitors and international shareholders. There are no shades of gray for me in this matter. USA First.

Most statistics indicate American workers are far more productive than others and we are.

Some say US regulations are bad. To those I say OK let’s forget about taxpayers paying for govt regulators to protect our food, or lead in toys, or scammers in the banks. No more govt regulators .....BUT instead we immediately execute the CEOs of any corporation that kills Americans or that causes financial collateral. There should be no civil settlement that shareholders must pay. Just execute those individuals that are guilty, even if they earn 50 mil a year.

If corporate leaders had their heads lobbed off immediately for their corruption and other damages to society, they’d think more than twice. Instead of paying government regulators to watch over them this would be more effective and cheaper.

It’s because of the greedy traitors that make our laws, not for the benefit of the USA but for the benefit of international shareholders.

The biggest threat to the USA are not terrorists but international corporate interests that own our government.

From CONTINENTAL MONTHLY

The cotton States have mostly been the advocates of 'free trade,' some of them tenaciously so.

[the cotton states perpetuated slavery] through prostration of the Democratic principle, it may not be amiss to refer to the contemplated management of its politico-economic interests. These were to be built up, of course; but not through a system of diversified industry; for free trade, as is well known, would have the effect to prostrate what little manufacturing had been commenced in the South, and a perpetual bar to the success of future undertakings. .

Just like today.

It was believed that the foul elements North and South, and the illicit traders of the world beside, could be brought together in the business of free trade and smuggling.

NAFTA and Mexican drug cartels

The immense frontier would render it impossible for the Northern States to protect themselves to much extent from illicit trade,

Just like today.

through any preventive service possible to be adopted. The Mexican frontier would be entirely helpless.

Just like today.

Thus reasoned Secesh. This was to have been the basis of competition with Northern mechanism. The reasonings of the conspirators were consistent with the merits and morals of the conspiracy. They calculated upon the active coöperation of the mercenary in the North, and actually believed that the temptation to gain would prove predominant over any efforts the Northern Government could make to protect its revenue policy. They boldly ventured upon the assumption that the influences of illicit traffic would soon become too strong to be resisted, and that in this manner, in conjunction with the agency of 'King Cotton,' the commerce of the North would be transferred to the South.

Now substitute China for the South, and you have a description of today's world under "free trade" as identified in 1862 as the cause of the Civil War.

While there is nothing in the Constitution that would forbid a SoS from doing what you claim, I doubt that the facts of the matter are as you state.

Of course, any intelligent leader would try and enhance free trade since that would benefit everyone concerned. What fool would work against free trade and their nation?

I support free trade agreements. No better way to keep the illegals at home than to have them able to work in their native country.

You really need to keep your fantasies straight I can’t correct them all.

The South often objected to a TARIFF never the absence of a tariff. One of the arguments the defenders of the Slavers around here often float around here was that the War was precipitated by TARIFF policy never the absence of a tariff (free trade). The War came because the Slavers feared for slavery. There was no other reason.

At one time (during the “nullification” crisis in the 1830s) Andy Jackson threatened to hang South Carolina officials if they interfered with the tariff collection in Charleston. Subsequently Congress reduced the rates in the Tariff of Abominations to which they were objecting.

The South NEVER wanted higher tariffs. Once again you are looking through the telescope from the wrong end. There was no attempt to build Southern industry behind tariff walls. Or Southern opposition to free trade.

In addition, free trade was never a policy of our government until the 20th century and even then it is only quasi free trade.

The other babbling in the post is so nonsensical that between the illiteracy and bankrupt ideas I don’t even know what point you are trying to make.

The “free traders” WERE the Slavers.

If you read my previous post, you’d have seen it was written in 1862!

You would have seen with your own eyes, how the “free traders” needed slavery then, just as they use communist controlled slaves now.

You don’t respond to anything I post, historical documents, current federal government policy. You just call names.

Its all you free traitors know how to do, and it was described in 1862,that the free traitors would seek to nullify representation of individuals and create a slave class— like the American taxpayer today— to pay for their perfidious agenda.

So no you haven’t responded to anything, as is the way of the free traitors. You use the Alinski method instead.

Now I’m beginning to wonder, who pays you to post here?

There was no attempt to build Southern industry behind tariff walls.

No there wasn't. Didn't you read the article? They didn't build industry because it interfered with slavery. Just like what the free traitors are doing here and now. They break down industry here, because paid free working Americans don't support slavery. But if you impoverish them by off shoring work or bringing in illegals to undercut their wages, then you can flood them with so called 'cheap goods' from communist slave labor and they don't fight back.

The South didn't oppose "free trade" because "free trade" means trading with slave produced goods. It means you can trade with anybody, slaver, bootlegger, drug smuggler because "free trade" trade with anybody for anything. It means trading slave made goods, it means trading contraband, it means trading humans. It means citizens cannot constrain 'free trade' by border inspections because it would be a 'barricade to trade' to quote GW Bush's WTO free trade agenda. If you stop people from owning slaves or using slave labor via the 13th amendment, then you are a 'barricade to trade' according to the UN, the WTO, free traitor Robert Zoellick, free traitor George W Bush and free traitor, Henry Paulson, and the numerous 'trade' rounds like Doha.

It was obvious from the style that the article you believed offered some support for your ridiculous beliefs was from the Civil War era but it is irrelevant to any discussion we have had. While it is true that the South were somewhat opposed to tariffs it is also true that the South controlled almost the entire federal government until right before the War. Thus, it had veto power over the tariff if it wanted to use it.

Slavery had nothing to do with free trade and in fact is the last thing a real free trader would want. Trade is the best way to remove the threat of slavery because it expands freedom throughout the world. You are apparently unaware that the nation which came closest to free trade, England, got rid of slavery long before the US did.

All your ravings have been shown to be wrong and yet, you continue to embarrass yourself even after the Amen Chorus has dropped away refusing to be associated with such silliness. I have laughed heartily at all your alleged proofs which are no proof at all. Misrepresentations, historical goofiness and distortions of fact do not pass as proof.

I know you Marxists consider “wage slavery” to be as bad as real slavery but no one else does. Confusing slavery and taxation is also pretty stupid and only works when you are addressing other mentally deranged folks.

My employer, a super secret organization set up by the Chi Coms under the auspices of the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderburg Group, pays me millions to argue with idiots. Man you just can’t beat that, big money and loads of laughs. Oh, rats now that I told you we will have to eliminate you there goes my fun.

Funny that you are proposing a New World Order while yammering on about Globalism. Now, according to you, this country is supposed to base its trade upon whether the social, economic and political structure of the trading partner is acceptable to Obama? Man you are revealing your liberalism even more with every comment.

Are you utterly clueless to the fact that the Left has been arguing for the same changes for years.

If products aren’t made by Union workers we should reject them? If the products come from a country where the taxes are too low we should reject them? If the products come from countries which do not bow down to the enviro-nazis running our government we should reject them? No universal health care - REJECT? No maternal leave policies - REJECT?

So you are a local chairman for the Re-elect Obama campaign I presume. If not join up since you clearly hate capitalism and free enterprise as much he does.

Why have corporate profits (and that market thermometer, the Dow) spiked even as 15 million Americans remain mired in unemployment, a number without precedent since the Great Depression? Employment tends to lag a touch behind profit growth, but history offers few parallels to what is happening today.

Profits often rebound after a prolonged recession. It is a sign of fiscal tightening by businesses, public and private, using the tools of fiscal economy to insure a return-on-investment for the owners. Inventory is worked through and then ordered "just-in-time" for what business volume remains, extra employees and new employees are cut or not considered to keep labor and administrative cost low. Capital equipment is not purchases and outside capital for expansion is not paid for because no expansion is yet needed.

We know that should there be no retained earnings, growth cannot occur as business volume increases, and that is the common sense reason that profits, the property of the owner/investor, need to be earned and once earned, kept.

Much of this is all with the Marxist subversion that profits are ready for stealing by government which is entitled to anything it wants.

If the market is unfettered, that is what makes volume and hence employment. A fettered market, unable to plan and unable to move dramatically for the chasing of profits is adverse to risk because the risk versus return ratio is so high.

If I am selling apples and I make more profit, I put it in my pocket and bury more in the back yard -- I also work harder to bring more apples to my stand. I don't go hire my brother-in-law saying to myself, "I have enough money, dumb George needs an income."

You’re projecting.

I have shown you the source of our economic problems, and you project rather than discuss reality.

The globalist trading regime promotes global communism. They do it through “free trade”. It is the creation and tool of Bush Clinton Bush Obama.

They are all leftists, by your claim.

Oh, BTW free trade does not LOWER wages (except in industries propped up by tariffs) it RAISES wages both here and abroad.

LOL an EXTREME falsehood for a free traitor.

Tell that to anyone in the software industry,construction industry, food service, agriculture, nursing and hospitality trades. Tell it to the people who used to work at call centers. LOL they'll probably punch you out!

LOL!!!

The only wages that "free trade" doesn't lower are whatever the transnational globalist trash board of directors makes from these companies promoting it, government workers and the teachers union teachers who get paid more very year to teach the illegal alien children whose parents have 'free movement of persons' according to the free traitors Doha round and Monterrey consensus.

Of course, you have shown NO understanding of economics therefore no understanding of how to solve economic problems.

I have repeatedly shown where you are wrong and spreading crap but you never respond to anything preferring to just spout and new line of crap.

While it is all amateurish nonsense I can never resist developing new lines of comedy.

Once again you shown no understanding of what free trade is or means. Does it mean that no one loses a job? NO of course not. It does mean that someone pays a lower price for a product or service? Yes, it does. Does it raise employment and wages in both countries? WHY YES, it does.

Construction is almost totally independent of international trade, so is food service, nursing and hospitality. Agriculture could be affected but is MUCH more affected by tariffs against imported commodities i.e. anti-free trade laws.

It seems clear that you prefer an Iron Curtain to freedom. What do you think “free trade” is? You are apparently totally confused as to what it is.

You are completely ignorant of the GATT, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and other FTAs and how they came into existence.

You haven’t shown anything. You can’t even talk about the organizations that give the ‘free traitors’ their ‘rules’.

It shows you are completely ignorant of what ‘free trade’ is. You ignore the role of the free traitors in history who cause famine and war to propogate slave labor the world over.

‘free trade’is crap, but I’m not the one spreading it, you are. We’ve had 30 years of it in this country and it’s killing us, just like it did during the civil war, except the casualties are mostly economic this time. You have NO leg to stand on, because the evidence is in our faces, EVERY DAY. It cannot be denied!

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