Why the long face? Have you not heard? According to CNN.com…
The Fortune 500 are thriving as a group. Unlike the U.S. economy, they’ve shown quicksilver agility, rapidly shifting their product mix and producing more goods at little new cost.
Did you catch that? They’re not just thriving as individuals, they’re thriving as an entire group! The Fortune 500’s swashbuckling captains of enterprise and industry managed to rake more cash than they did in 2006, before minorities forced banks to lend them money and OBAMA and his COMMUNIST POLICIES ruined the economy for everyone. USA! USA! USA! Before we go any further, let’s pause to thank Occupy for their big Mayday fail, without which we would not be free to bask in the sunshine of AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM and SOMETHING HAVING TO DO WITH FREEDOM.
The Fortune 500 generated a total of $824.5 billion in earnings last year, up 16.4% over 2010. That beats the previous record of $785 billion, set in 2006 during a roaring economy. The 2011 profits are outsized based on two key historical metrics. They represent 7% of total sales, vs. an average of 5.14% over the 58-year history of the Fortune 500. Companies are also garnering exceptional returns on their capital. The 500 achieved a return-on-equity of 14.3%, far above the historical norm of 12%.
What is their secret, you might be wondering. What marvelous things do these corporations know that you don’t, and how do they take these things that they know, and and then monetize them ever so efficiently? Adamsmithsayswhat?
High prices at the pump translated into great results for energy companies like Exxon Mobil, which topped the Fortune 500 with $453 billion in revenues. Your friends on Wall Street may be complaining about smaller bonuses, but financial services are experiencing a comeback of sorts. For 2011, the sector posted $150 billion in earnings, up 19% over 2010. The financial sector also saw a revival in the fortunes of the big commercial banks. Meanwhile, technology wasn’t quite the profit machine that it’s been in past years. Sector earnings rose by just $5 billion, although tech remains the largest profit-maker at $156 billion, narrowly edging the resurgent financials.
Yes, indeed, my Wall Street friends have been moaning ever so loudly about how they will have to MAKE DO with such teensy little compensation packages, now that you mention it. Also, mad props to the banks for getting past their hurt feelings, amiright—those poor little banks were scared to DEATH but they picked themselves up by the bootstraps and yadda yadda yadda. We can all benefit from their example. But don’t call it a comeback!
These big numbers can’t last. The gravitational pull of the business cycle will eventually end the profit bonanza, in part because many companies carried out brutal layoffs during the recession and will now be forced to hire more workers to maintain their growth. So let’s enjoy it as a heroic but fleeting moment, not a durable new age.
Tl;dr: capitalism won! Yay, we WIN! Take that, Osama!
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Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built an Internet, now it's done.
What does a Euro dime even look like? How can we tell that the rich didn't just hand us a half penny?
Don't question your betters you – you peasant!
Cheer up, Barb.
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Seeing the cute puppy face makes everything better! Good morning!
He's a very sweet and affectionate boy!
(I try to remember that when he gets me up at 6:00am.)
♫ ♬ Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again. ♫ ♬
How's your old LaSalle running?
Brother, can you spare a dimebag?
Clear Channel owns the radio, so Rudy Vallee won't be heard singing that song any time soon.
"Mo money, mo problems."
This may be an urban legend, but I read that someone actually said that to a homeless guy once. Christ…
Yippee! More crumbs for the rest of us! AWRIIIIIGHT!
There's definitely something trickling down.
The rich pissing on the poor.
That's why they're called peons.
Let them eat urinal cakes!
Let's hope the rich get stoned. Kidney stones first. Then we need to call that coat rack guy Saul.
< a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw">♫ UrINe the MoNEY! UrIN the MoNEY! ♫
Great, I get up an upfist before I can even fix the Intense Debate fuckup of my html ….. UrINe the MoNEY! UrINe the MoNEY!
I thought it was being replied to, not fisted up, that perpetuated your mistakes.
Trickle down my ass.
Taint necessarily so…
That's twat she said…
I'm sorry, I cunt hear you, I have an infucktion in my ear.
A case of the santorums?
Now when are they going to actually, you know, create some fucking jobs with those profits?
They have – in China, India, Vietnam, Mexico, etc. etc. There was, however, a pretty good article in the Wash Post about how some 'experts' think that's going to change because the operating expenses overseas are going up to the point where the economics might make it worthwhile for someone in 'Merca to get hired to actually manufacture something.
How much does it cost to ship a 450 pound LG refrigerator/freezer to East Nowhere, IA when oil is $100 a barrel?
Yep, that was part of the point – when that kind of stuff reaches a tipping point, then the kind folks in Bumfuck, Nebraska will be cranking out refrigerators again. Of course, that'll be registered as a victory for the conservatives, who have worked so very hard to ensure the success of this country.
It won't hurt the equation that the people making refrigerators in Bumcrack, NE will be making them for half the paycheck that they used to be get in the days before the jerbs went overseas.
But but but… What about UNCERTAINTY???
Who knows?
death and taxes
Why start now?
The gravitational pull of the business cycle will eventually end the profit bonanza, in part because many companies carried out brutal layoffs during the recession and will now be forced to hire more workers to maintain their growth.
If Banksters Could Really Talk:
The gravitational pull of the business cycle
Produced the horse apple that fell and hit Newton in the head. This kinda gravity truly sucks.
Don't you just love the inhumanity of tht statement: people don't need jobs, people don't need money, corporations need units.
Is that R2D2 near the front of the employment line?
Well in an abstract sense, people need to produce value to these other human bots, in proportion to the value recognized. This is how you create organizations with a tiered responsibility measure. Of course if you believe in creative destruction we need to compensate to the costs of creative destruction, and how it can descend into a downward spiral.
I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?
Damn, you didn't take the brown one, did you?
That's the real "oh boo fucking hoo" line.
"We've screwed the masses so hard so long, we're actually gonna have to throw them a frickin' bone for once to keep them alive so we can keep sucking their blood."
Man, those fucking people wanting jobs and shit will just ruin it for the ungodly wealthy.
Have they no shame?
Why won't they work for free and bask in the magnificence of my character????
Anyone up for croquet?
Better yet, these poor oligarchs are being forced to hire more people. The very idea!
Have they no shame?
Where ya been, FNMA?
And when the Fortune 500 candidate wins, that small group of people will REALLY do well, and own the military!
Can we return to the monarchy and crown King Exxon Mobil? Or is He the son fo Gawd?
Exxon would have to be crowned King of Earth – they've outgrown us.
They already beat you to it.
Shell Oil is owned by the Queen of Holland.
Kenyan Socialism works, but only for the rich white guys. Wait, what?
I’m so looking forward to the inevitable trickle down effects of this good news. I for one am confident that the dream of shoe ownership will soon be a reality, God Bless America.
I still rent my shoes from the bowling alley I live behind in a box with holes in it.
Real estate tip: when you go to list it after the recession ends, call the holes "windows"
Or better, central HVAC
Actually, I rent the box, too. It was a foreclosure and I rent it from USABankOfCitiAmericaHSBC. But I'll mention your tip next time their goons come harass me and take my can of vienna sausages away.
Oh, great, now even sausages aren't made in American anymore! Or are you just not being patriotastic here, boxboy?
And from "ownership" to "ingestion" is, so to speak, a very short step.
Boiled Boot and Hobo Beans, yum!
Shoes for Industry! Shoes for the Dead!
Shit, as well as trickle economics, rolls down hill. Salvation!
Time to start eating cake!
Urinal cake.
Sad to hear the Mega-Good times will slow down for the Job Creators when they have to start giving people *gasp* jobs.
Can't hang out and comment much because I have a new quota to pack 300 cases of diabetes testers by lunch since they laid off most everybody else. Sure I keep pricking myself, but it's great to be so fucking productive ha ha and tonight I have my shift at the Freedom Tray factory HA it's really great all this dignity from work! Arbeit macht frei! as my boss says all the time!
You should run a side business and offer to sell those "pre-tested" diabetes testers to rich diabetics who don't give a shit but want their doctors off their backs. Also, for insurance claims.
♪ And we're goin' to Serf City, 'cause it's 99 to 1
You know we're goin' to Serf City, where the masses have none
Ya, we're goin' to Serf City, 'cause it's 99 to 1
You know we're goin' to Surf City, where the masses have none, now
99 Serfs for every CEO ♫
*polite golf applause*
Bravo! Well met, sir!
Martini?
Thanks, but I get no olive, as I wrote the wrong "serf" in the penultimate line. :(
Here's a verse on Mitt, though:
♫ We got a GOP nominee and we call it a Mitty
(Serf City, here we come)
You know he's not very lively; his philosophy is shitty
(Serf City, here we come)
Well, he can't sing too well; he won't tell the truth
But, boy, can he strap a dog crate to the roof! ♪
its got a catchy beat i can dance to
Oh, those poor mega-corps, "forced" to hire more of those revolting workers that they just had the brutal, sadistic fun of laying off. Life is so-o-o-o unfair.
"Gravitational pull of the business cycle" is solid, packed-down horseshit as well. As if the mythical "business cycle" has a reality comparable to gravity. Zombie economics from greedy, brain-dead zombies…
So, what we need are stakes and torches, amirite? Or maybe some big, fat federal prison sentences and some big, fat tax increases.
Needs moar skullfucking
Needs moar guillotine.
Sounds like a good way to get skulls to fuck.
Win/win!
This is all Obama's fault.
This, on top of that delightful Stuart Varney on Fox telling us this morning how relatively low gas prices we've seen recently are due to a poor economy, and therefore Obama is terrible. Which is funny, you see, because that very same Obama is to blame for high gas prices.
Yes, just like he was also to blame for that all-time peak (both absolute value and inflation-adjusted) in July of 2008, and the crash that brought prices all the way below $2 on inauguration day.
Today I'm not feeling so stabby. Today I'm feeling more clubby.
Just imagine what the jerb creators could do for us if it weren't for that Kenyan Socialist Pretender-in-Chief holding back the invisible hand of the free market!!!
Indeed, all that jawb-killing regulating and jawb-killing health care government takeover and all those jawb-killing taxes on the creators.
I've heard the Fortune 500 tastes like chicken. Dig in, poors!
I've heard they eat sort of like pork.
Does Mitt get credit for this, too?
Add to the list. We're gonna need some Mitt statues in DC pretty soon.
I'm sure Mitt's also somehow responsible for the uptick in the French and German stock exchanges when the Socialist won the French election.
DOW Jones has doubled since 2008. Was at an all time high last week.
Fuckin' Obama is ruinin' the country.
That was a post-Bear Stearns high, not an all-time high. The all-time high at closing was 14,164 in 2007.
It's always instructive looking back at the financial indicators over the 2006-2008 period and remembering that the economy was showing signs of recession before Bear Stearns collapsed – and remembering that the financial crisis was caused by the housing bubble starting to burst, not the other way round.
Exactly, just look at what was happening to the quants in August 2007. Simple long/short, arbitrage strats couldn't keep up with the black swan traders that were making big moves knowing something ugly was about to happen. The smart people (not the ones who just say they're smart but really just have their heads up their asses) were already shorting mortgage-backs knowing the bubble was popping.
The economy was tanking at least a year before most people knew it. Bear and Lehman just made the reality clear to everyone else.
Case in point, Abacus – was some smartass prick thinking "yeah, as in, you do math huh huh huh SUCKERZ!"?
Shouldn't that dog be of the roof?
Reminds me of the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.
"The Fortune 500 generated a total of $824.5 billion in earnings last year, up 16.4% over 2010."–that's good right? Think of all the tax revenue coming in that will help everyone!
Also: The Unicorns! The Unicorn Cavalry is coming to save us all!
Earnings = What bonuses are based on
Taxes = What gets paid if and when there's money after all the bonuses are paid and "investment credits" are taken. In other words, pink unicorns for all.
Garryowen!
the GOP has embraced the 1% arms wide.They are the Party of the Rich.For the Rich,and By the Rich.Leaving the rest of us scraps off they're plates.Trickle down economics 101.
"Marvelous numbers Lovey!"
Mittens Howell, III.
Well thank GOODNESS… I was really concerned about ExxonMobil there! Now I can sleep well at night (in my cardboard box)
It'll certainly make crying myself to sleep as I eat my hobo beans easier!
"Kris E. Benson" is an anagram of "Sober Ken Sin"
I was thinking heshe was his bastard child.
The economy was roaring in 2006? Why don't I remember that?
Roaring. Screaming in agony. Same thing.
See guys, metrics and Toyota LEAN and management theory du joir DO work. Up fists for everybody!
Never fear, worry, laid-off worker! A hero has come along to financialize your joblessness into record profits!!
Thanks for saying it better than I could.
The gravitational pull of the business cycle will eventually end the profit bonanza, in part because many companies carried out brutal layoffs during the recession and will now be forced to hire more workers to maintain their growth. So let’s enjoy it as a heroic but fleeting moment, not a durable new age.
So you remember that short story by Ursula Le Guin about the perfect village and the idiot in the cellar? Somehow I get the feeling that we're all the idiot in the cellar.
One of the frustrations of using "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" in a classroom setting is having to convince some students that it is most emphatically NOT an anti-communist fable. Of course, using it in a classroom today, I could pair it with a discussion of Foxconn and where our electronic crap comes from.
"forced to hire more workers"
Why does this sound like bad news, instead of the good news we've been waiting for?
Yay!
We're in the money!
Go, klepitalism!
(That looks wrong. But sounded out, seems almost exactly right.)
companies carried out brutal layoffs during the recession and will now be forced to hire more workers to maintain their growth. So let’s enjoy it as a heroic but fleeting moment, not a durable new age.
Because there's nothing I enjoy more than knowing my 401(k)'s almost full recovery to pre 2007 levels (not adjusted for inflation) was fueled by people, including myself, suffering job dislocations and looking forward to shitty futures as wage slaves.
If things are so wonderful, where are my flying car and jet backpack?
Soylent Green for you!
Soylent Green is people, too, my friend.
Odd picture. All those people looking the other way as a carload of Rich Fucks runs them over.
That'd never happen in real life.
needs moar wetlands drilling
Haven't you heard?
Fracking is the new wetlands drilling!
Big Fracking Deal.
"Companies are also garnering exceptional returns on their capital. The 500 achieved a return-on-equity of 14.3%, far above the historical norm of 12%".
See, corporate profits under Obama higher than the historical average. That extra 2.3% is a lot of money and should be confiscated thru taxes to fund more community colleges, job training programs, more unemployment insurance. Tax the Job Creationists!
…producing more goods at little new cost
I'm sorry, who exactly is producing more goods at little new cost?
Most goods are cheaper at real prices, because more productivity cuts costs.
But most services are way more expensive, like education and health care, as well as paid sex for the secret service and our men in uniform.
So, the thing I was getting at was that the fancy gents in charge of the money didn't produce shit but I am sure regular folk working for them did, and I am sure they did it at reduced wages/using leaner (i.e. short and overworked) crews.
Boy, just think how much better things would be if Obama would just stop PUNISHING the rich?
Well, according to Mittens that's at least 500 people who are doing OK.
Romoney: "Some of my best friends are corporations, and they are people too!".
We should all be happy for them.
This means the wealth will trickle down upon us soon like a golden shower!
Same fucking players running Wall Street and the Banks now who got us into this mess in '08. Not only are they not being prosecuted, they haven't even been fucking fired. What is wrong with this picture? I'm talkin' to you, Blankfein and Dimon, and many others.
It is refreshing, though, that Republicans are pretty much giving up the illusion that they give a fuck about anyone that isn't rich.
There's no excuse for the teabagers, however.
The pigs and cows and floor rats who gave their anuses and lips and teeth to the sausagemakers are the real patriots.
and watch them get squished like bugs if they try to unionize
right to work, or something
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