Third Quarter Corporate Profits Set Record

Welcome to the newest version of America. In this America unemployment remains fiercely high and this does not even matter to the corporate ledgers. We are living in the age of the corporate government. Do you think that there is a reason to create employment opportunities when the balances show a record profit?

NY Times: Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter

This breakneck pace can be partly attributed to strong productivity growth — which means companies have been able to make more with less — as well as the fact that some of the profits of American companies come from abroad.

Bureau Of Economic Accounts: National Income and Product Accounts Gross Domestic Product, 3rd quarter 2010 (second estimate); Corporate Profits, 3rd quarter 2010 (preliminary)

Corporate Profits


Profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) increased $44.4 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $47.5 billion in the second quarter. Current-production cash flow (net cash flow with inventory valuation adjustment) -- the internal funds available to corporations for investment -- decreased $57.8 billion in the third quarter, in contrast to an increase of $61.1 billion in the second.


Taxes on corporate income increased $31.8 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $2.4 billion in the second. Profits after tax with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments increased $12.6 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $45.2 billion in the second. Dividends increased $8.2 billion compared with an increase of $8.1 billion; current- production undistributed profits increased $4.4 billion, compared with an increase of $37.1 billion.


Domestic profits of financial corporations increased $33.3 billion in the third quarter, in contrast to a decrease of $3.4 billion in the second. Domestic profits of nonfinancial corporations increased $18.6 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $48.2 billion in the second. In the third quarter, real gross value added of nonfinancial corporations decreased, and profits per unit of real value added increased. The increase in unit profits reflected a larger increase in unit prices than in the unit labor costs and the unit nonlabor costs corporations incurred.