Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 10:58:48 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: US profit rates


How do the poor bastards manage to put food on the table with such low
profit rates? Perhaps we've made a mistake about which is the truly
oppressed class.

Any figures on profit rates where you executive compensation is included in
profits? That would seem to be a more important figure.

Rahul

Doug:

>Zeynep asked about profit rates. No doubt purists will condemn what appears
>below as hopelessly bourgeois, but, hey, MIM has already unmasked me as the
>stinking apologist I am.
>
>Here are profit rates for U.S. nonfinancial corporations, computed by
>dividing before- and after-tax profits by the value of tangible assets, as
>reported in the Federal Reserve's flow of funds accounts. Because of delays
>in publication of capital stock figures, the 1995 figure is my own
>estimate.
>
>Note the steady fall in profitability through the early 1980s, and its
>subsequent partial reversal. Obviously, profitability is below Golden Age
>levels, but above the crisis years of the 1970s.
>
>Rentiers have been claiming an ever-larger share of surplus value, thanks
>to interest, dividends, stock buybacks, and M&A. But, taking a page from
>MIM, if you want to find out the numbers on that, subscribe to LBO and buy
>my forthcoming Wall Street book.
>
>
>PROFIT RATES, U.S. NONFINANCIAL CORPORATIONS
>
>          before-  after-
>            tax    tax
>    1945   13.1%   5.6%
>    1946   12.6%   7.7%
>    1947   13.8%   8.7%
>    1948   13.7%   8.7%
>    1949   10.7%   6.7%
>    1950   14.5%   8.1%
>    1951   13.2%   6.1%
>    1952   10.8%   5.2%
>    1953   10.7%   5.1%
>    1954    9.6%   5.0%
>    1955   11.5%   6.0%
>    1956   10.3%   5.4%
>    1957    9.2%   4.8%
>    1958    7.7%   4.0%
>    1959    9.4%   4.9%
>    1960    8.4%   4.4%
>    1961    8.2%   4.2%
>    1962    8.8%   4.8%
>    1963    9.4%   5.1%
>    1964   10.0%   5.7%
>    1965   10.9%   6.4%
>    1966   10.6%   6.2%
>    1967    9.3%   5.5%
>    1968    9.3%   5.1%
>    1969    8.0%   4.2%
>    1970    6.0%   3.2%
>    1971    6.3%   3.5%
>    1972    6.7%   3.8%
>    1973    7.3%   4.3%
>    1974    6.7%   4.1%
>    1975    6.1%   3.8%
>    1976    7.0%   4.3%
>    1977    7.2%   4.5%
>    1978    7.3%   4.7%
>    1979    6.8%   4.4%
>    1980    5.5%   3.5%
>    1981    4.9%   3.2%
>    1982    3.5%   2.3%
>    1983    4.0%   2.5%
>    1984    4.5%   2.8%
>    1985    3.8%   2.2%
>    1986    3.3%   1.7%
>    1987    4.5%   2.6%
>    1988    5.1%   3.1%
>    1989    4.4%   2.6%
>    1990    4.4%   2.7%
>    1991    4.3%   2.6%
>    1992    5.3%   3.4%
>    1993    6.1%   4.0%
>    1994    7.1%   4.7%
>    1995    7.6%   5.0%




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