A quick, visual look at what's wrong with America's economy, by @DavidOAtkins

A quick, visual look at what's wrong with America's economy

by David Atkins

Henry Blodget at Business Insider has a fantastic short piece with four graphs that demonstrate the sickness at the heart of the American economy. Here are the first two:

CHART ONE: Corporate profits and profit margins are at an all-time high. American companies are making more money and more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. Full stop.


And here's chart #2:

CHART TWO: Wages as a percent of the economy are at all-time low. Why are corporate profits so high? One reason is that companies are paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" represent spending power for American consumers. And American consumer spending is "revenue" for other companies. So our profit maximization obsession is actually starving the rest of the economy of revenue growth.


Head to the article to see the other two, dealing with employment rates and labor share of national income. It's pretty obvious what's wrong. The solutions aren't complicated or scary. The only obstacle is obscenely rich people who don't want to give up any of their stolen loot.

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