Saturday, November 27, 2010

What does this chart make you think?

The chart shows after-tax profit as a percentage of national income.  (Put another way, how much are companies making compared to the rest of the US economy.)

Take a look.  A serious look.  Tell me what you think about... even if what you think is, "I don't know what to think..."  Give it your best shot.  I want to read comments to this post!

I'll post my thoughts in a few days.

5 comments:

  1. Here is my comment:

    I wonder if that shade of blue would look good in my bathroom?

    Travis

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  2. It's all relative huh

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay, you asked for it:
    1. There's a pattern.
    2. What's the definition of "company"?
    3. What do the "IV III II I" mean after the years?
    4. 2008 just sucked.
    5. "Companies" are still making a nice tidy profit during our recession.
    6. I hope Coe doesn't want my business major back.

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  4. Tells you companies have figured things out much better than cost cutting you cannot go on on life support ad infinitum, at some point you have to take a hair cust and let the market clear. What companies have done is adjusted, sadly that has meant reducing work force but it has helped their bottom line. One of the biggest issues we face in the US today is the housing issues (bubble) one arguement is to perhaps buy a lot of houses dynamite them thereby reducing suply - as good as any idea out there as currently it is chinese water torutre...fly by the seast of your pants and hope that time will heal things like in the 80's south american banking crisis. Unfortuantley this is bigger and years of living beyond our menas is catching up so adjustments need to be made, companies have done them (perhaps not to our liking but they have)- there is another chart showing how much cash companies have also horded - sometihng huge number which is also rather interesting...if they have record profits and record cash holdings why are they not spending it more aggressivley what gives?
    my two bits

    Rahul

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  5. I'm skeptical of the context the information is presented as. I mean, it's saying "the rest of the economy"... well if the rest of the economy goes to shit and the big corporations do slightly better than "shit" then they will go up as a percentage of economy.

    The first thing I think, is that less money is going into independent businesses, more consumers are shopping/buying with their money going to corporations in an attempt to save money; obviously this hurts the little guy and makes it so the corporations get more profit, especially as a % of national income.

    Also, Screw Wal-Mart. *shakes fist* AND GET OFF MY LAWN YOU DAMN KIDS!

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