U.S. Government shuts down.

[FireIceTalon]

We could even look at Obamacare. Why did it cost Minnesota billions of dollars to implement it? We didn't and don't have a problem with vast numbers of uninsured. We'd have been better off just giving everyone of the small % who were uninsured a voucher for free insurance.

But, the states that do have vast numbers of uninsured (like Texas) are avoiding it, they are not implementing it, and cannot afford to enroll their low income people in the Medicaid portion. But, here, we are forced to pay more to resolve a problem we don't have. Beyond that, the additional tax on medical devices threatens the livelihoods of thousands of our citizens.

Comrade, this is neoliberal pseudoscience idealism that bears almost no resemblance to reality. The truth: Vouchers are just another austerity assault on the poor and working class, and it was one of the central issues why the GOP lost last November. Why?

Because A voucher program would not be nearly sufficient enough to cover the costs for most people without insurance - all it would do is make things worse for those who are already the worst off. Those living on social security in particular would not have the resources to obtain adequate coverage, and they are usually, the ones who need it the most for obvious reasons. Further, it is a rigid solution because it does not consider the particular circumstances of a person or families needs, which can also change at any time. Many people are one personal tragedy away from poverty (like being diagnosed with something or receiving a serious physical injury). Nor does it do anything to alleviate the growing costs of healthcare, and in fact, I would say it actually exasperates it. It doesn't even treat the symptoms of rising healthcare costs, let alone the cause.

Also, your logic that because it is a "less severe" problem in your state somehow equates to it not being a problem at all is misleading, not to mention disturbing and rather inhumane (as if the uninsured people in your state somehow do not count). Your idea, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks:

http://www.health.state.mn.us/news/press...30612.html

^^That information says it is in fact a problem in your state, and that it is getting worse. Whether it is worse in Texas or anywhere else, is irrelevant. Your solution is the prototype conservative solution that only wants rich white people to have access to healthcare, and you try to disguise it by presenting misleading/incorrect information clouded in market fanaticism and libertarian rhetoric - but it is simply contrary to the material economic reality of things taking place. You may or may not personally want this to happen, I don't know, but it is what the consequences would be.

[Jester]

Federal. Federal. Federal. But we also pay State, County, locality, sales, service, and excise taxes.

No, no, no.

To quote from your own source, literally appearing *directly below* this stalwart disavowal:

"In 2013, Americans will pay $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes, for a total tax bill of $4.22 trillion, or 29.4 percent of income."

Just shy of 30%. All included. Even according to anti-tax lobbyists.

If we go with the tax foundations calculations, 108/265 is close to 30%. The average(middle middle class) US citizen has about 1/3rd of their earnings taken from them. You'd need to be above average, in the 4th quintile (upper middle) in order to be taxed at the 50% or more overall rate.

The middle 20% pay about 25% of their income, all told. The poor pay less, the rich more. Nobody pays more than 50% - top marginal rates don't go anywhere near that, and the only way you'd get that is living in a high tax state, with no deductible income, a salary rather than capital gains, and to be very high income, such that you paid the 39.6% federal marginal tax rate on the vast majority of your income.

Then also, in my mind, I don't think we want to be comparable to Denmark (where the avg. tax is 35%). When I think of entrepreneurial growth, I don't think Denmark.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it does not match Danish reality. Denmark is an exceptionally free market, entrepreneurial economy, even for its highly competitive Northern European context.

Denmark ranks no. 9. The US is 10. And that's even considering a dismal "fiscal freedom" score, because this is the Heritage institute, and they think government is the devil.

I'd rather be comparable to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is a city-state, with 100% of its territory being a highly urbanized financial supercenter attached to the world's largest manufacturing zone, whose miserable GDP/capita and repressive goverment policies are conveniently not measured in Hong Kong, because they all happen in China. If you could turn the Midwest into NYC, the US could all be Hong Kong. But you can't.

If instead, we allow people to choose how to spend their own money, then only the necessary things get purchased.

There is a reasonable libertarian argument that people have the *right* to spend their money however they want. (I don't agree, because I don't think income is separable from the external economic context - everyone is not Robinson Crusoe.) But there is absolutely no argument, theoretical or empirical, that suggests people only buy "the necessary things," whatever that's supposed to mean. People buy all sorts of stupid crap, and the richer, the stupider.

Services provided (hours worked) over what population growth (recipients).

That makes no sense. Services provided is not the same as hours worked - that's the whole concept of productivity. If productivity can only increase by decreasing the population or increasing the number of hours worked, then no wonder you have such a pessimistic view - you've defined productivity gains out of existence.

How about these?

GDP contribution is a poor measure, because much (most?) of what government does is either not intended to increase GDP (military), or increases GDP in ways that are critical but almost unmeasurable (the judiciary, or education). I don't have easy answers about how to eff the ineffable. But then, I'm not the one saying the US government should be radically scaled back on the basis of its low productivity.

-Jester

[DeeBye]

Every time I watch news coverage of the U.S. shutdown, I wonder about the elephant in the room. They talk about "entitlement" spending like Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, but when I look at U.S. federal spending, there is a huge piece of the pie that always goes unaddressed.

[FireIceTalon]

Every time I watch news coverage of the U.S. shutdown, I wonder about the elephant in the room. They talk about "entitlement" spending like Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, but when I look at U.S. federal spending, there is a huge piece of the pie that always goes unaddressed.

You mean this huge piece of the pie?:


Looks like the "job creator" myth is officially debunked!

[Hammerskjold]

If instead, we allow people to choose how to spend their own money, then only the necessary things get purchased.

^
|
|
|


Oh wait are you serious? There's more?

And... I know this is a vast oversimplification, and as we've discussed numerous times, there are some things that the government is best to do. But, I feel there are many ways in which we can trim out the stuff is less important, or would be better served by the private sector, or more locally. It's not an all or nothing proposition. This is the difficulty in having a healthy diet, or system of taxation. Once you get a little sugar, you want more. Only self-discipline, vigilance and frequent self assessment (on a fair scale) prevents one from getting obese.

Uh huh... Sounds less and less like libertarianism, and more like puritanism. Or maybe whatever this guy is advocating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RblbZQth0KE

edited addition:

Even if you mean that if you allow people to spend what they want, and reduce giving monies to big bad gov't, automagically gov't will then be forced to be more efficient. This is wishful thinking at best. I grew up in a country where there was very little taxes to pay officially, and the scenario that gov't became smaller and efficient and a libertarian's wet dream, is pure bunkum.

I agree with you on the notion that government can use more efficiency. Yes there is bloat. But the other extreme swing carries real consequences as well. Cutting off, severe reduction, privatizing certain roles like oh I dunno, food safety inspection, clean water standards, power generation etc... can and will lead to illness\death. Not hyperbolic metaphor, real death.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/...oment.html

Jeesus the tricorn hat doesn't seem to be that different from the che beret sometimes.

[DeeBye]

You mean this huge piece of the pie?:

No, because that isn't in pie-chart form.

[Jester]

Looks like the "job creator" myth is officially debunked!

While I'm both angered and terrified by the content of that graph, it doesn't actually say anything about job creation.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Even if you mean that if you allow people to spend what they want, and reduce giving monies to big bad gov't, automagically gov't will then be forced to be more efficient. This is wishful thinking at best. I grew up in a country where there was very little taxes to pay officially, and the scenario that gov't became smaller and efficient and a libertarian's wet dream, is pure bunkum.

There are many facets here. Taxes can be used as transfer payments moving it from those who are "rich" to those who are in truly in need. Or, government can choose to do those things that are painful, but might be necessary or very worthwhile for the society, like building something which requires eminent domain. But in many cases now, our government uses our tax money to "invest" in something which has little benefit to the larger society, but does benefit a constituency supporting a political agenda -- and the political class. Or, they "buy votes", giving tax money to people who really don't need it in exchange for their loyalty. In other words, corruption. The private sector is better at "investing" in those things that are risky, or may not deliver an ROI. Government should only do what it is required to do, and this is what I call minimal. I'm not in favor of the hyperbolic chaos you are describing.

I agree with you on the notion that government can use more efficiency. Yes there is bloat. But the other extreme swing carries real consequences as well. Cutting off, severe reduction, privatizing certain roles like oh I dunno, food safety inspection, clean water standards, power generation etc... can and will lead to illness\death. Not hyperbolic metaphor, real death.

I'm not talking about those things that government should do, which is to govern fairly; laws require enforcement. All the regulations must be monitored, and civil penalties must be justly exacted on the violators.

[kandrathe]

"In 2013, Americans will pay $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes, for a total tax bill of $4.22 trillion, or 29.4 percent of income."

Just shy of 30%. All included. Even according to anti-tax lobbyists.

...

The middle 20% pay about 25% of their income, all told. The poor pay less, the rich more. Nobody pays more than 50% - top marginal rates don't go anywhere near that, and the only way you'd get that is living in a high tax state, with no deductible income, a salary rather than capital gains, and to be very high income, such that you paid the 39.6% federal marginal tax rate on the vast majority of your income.

I re-read your previous post. We can agree on about 30% as a average. You need to factor in though, that the bottom quintile pay virtually zero except for consumption taxes. And... if you are truly poor, you're taxes returned is larger than your taxes paid. On the other end, there are a small minority of citizens (1%) that pay for 37% of the governments cost. The top 10% (those with incomes over $112,000) received 43% of all income and paid 71% of all federal income taxes. My issue with that is not that the top 10% pay taxes, or even that they pay relatively high taxes, it is that a mere $112,000 household income puts one in the top 10%. It shows that most "opportunities" are subsistence, or slightly better.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it does not match Danish reality. Denmark is an exceptionally free market, entrepreneurial economy, even for its highly competitive Northern European context.

Denmark ranks no. 9. The US is 10. And that's even considering a dismal "fiscal freedom" score, because this is the Heritage institute, and they think government is the devil.

Hong Kong is a city-state, with 100% of its territory being a highly urbanized financial supercenter attached to the world's largest manufacturing zone, whose miserable GDP/capita and repressive goverment policies are conveniently not measured in Hong Kong, because they all happen in China. If you could turn the Midwest into NYC, the US could all be Hong Kong. But you can't.

I'm sure there are many things wrong with Hong Kong, and NYC. I'm looking at the things they are doing right.

People buy all sorts of stupid crap, and the richer, the stupider.

I'm sure that sometimes they do. In balance, it is not.

Services provided (hours worked) over what population growth (recipients).

That makes no sense. Services provided is not the same as hours worked - that's the whole concept of productivity. If productivity can only increase by decreasing the population or increasing the number of hours worked, then no wonder you have such a pessimistic view - you've defined productivity gains out of existence.

I should clarify what I meant... Services provided, and hours worked to produce those services over what population growth (recipients).

Are we providing vastly more services than 30 years ago? Are we serving vastly more population than 30 years ago? If so, then it might justify the 500% rise in the cost of government.

1980 we spent $590.9 billion for 226,545,805 people, and in 2013 we spent about 3,803.4 billion for 315,091,138. The cost of government has increased by 543%, while the population has increased by 39%. Even accounting for some inflation, you'd think that we'd see some impact of technology on the productivity of government. And... Deebye has a point, the bulk of that is still spent on a few programs.

[FireIceTalon]

Looks like the "job creator" myth is officially debunked!

While I'm both angered and terrified by the content of that graph, it doesn't actually say anything about job creation.

-Jester

In this country there is the absurd yet popular notion that some how our capitalist lords are the job creators, and that if we tax them too much the unemployment rate will go up so we better be nice to them. Yet, that graph shows increased profits and employment rate have had an inverse relationship.

[Jester]

I re-read your previous post. We can agree on about 30% as a average. You need to factor in though, that the bottom quintile pay virtually zero except for consumption taxes. And... if you are truly poor, you're taxes returned is larger than your taxes paid.

On the other end, there are a small minority of citizens (1%) that pay for 37% of the governments cost. The top 10% (those with incomes over $112,000) received 43% of all income and paid 71% of all federal income taxes. My issue with that is not that the top 10% pay taxes, or even that they pay relatively high taxes, it is that a mere $112,000 household income puts one in the top 10%. It shows that most "opportunities" are subsistence, or slightly better.

Let's not exaggerate. Subsistence is, to a close approximation, $400 inflation-adjusted dollars a year per person. A family of three at subsistence would be earning $1,200 a year. Your "slightly better than subsistence" is in fact earning a full one hundred times more than they need to survive, in global perspective. The 90th percentile in the US is doing very well indeed by any standard - although in relative terms, they are downright impoverished compared with the wealth of the 1%, the 0.1%, and the 0.01%.

TL;DR: The super rich make tons of money. They should be taxed accordingly.

I'm sure there are many things wrong with Hong Kong, and NYC. I'm looking at the things they are doing right.

You can't scale things arbitrarily. This is as fallacious when far-left anthropology hippies tell me we can establish an egalitarian utopia because that's how they do it in small Congolese, Amazonian or Micronesian bands of 50-100 people, as when libertarians tell me we can all just copy Hong Kong or Singapore. Scale matters.

Are we providing vastly more services than 30 years ago? Are we serving vastly more population than 30 years ago? If so, then it might justify the 500% rise in the cost of government.

1980 we spent $590.9 billion for 226,545,805 people, and in 2013 we spent about 3,803.4 billion for 315,091,138. The cost of government has increased by 543%, while the population has increased by 39%. Even accounting for some inflation, you'd think that we'd see some impact of technology on the productivity of government.

Let's break this down.

The easy step first: pull out raw inflation. Please do this yourself before posting headline numbers, because the alternative biases your figures towards your conclusion. A 1980 dollar is worth $2.83 today, so $591 billion is $1,673 billion today.

The next step is also easy: adjust for raw population. That 1980 budget, scaled for population, is $2,325 billion. Now we're down to an increase of 64%. Now, 64% is nothing to sneeze at. But let's dig further.

The median age in 1980 was about 30. Today, it's 37. In 1980, the baby boomers were coming up on the hump of their careers. Today, they're retiring. That means incomes were earned then, and saved for now - including via social security and medicare. Those costs are not profligacy, they are simple demographics.

Alongside that, we need to account for the composition of government spending. What government buys, these days, is mostly medical care, and the cost of medical care has been going up faster than inflation.

And to reiterate: your method of analysis is defining productivity out of existence. You are not measuring the services provided, either in price, quality, or quantity. You are merely comparing spending to spending, which would show that any growing industry is becoming less productive, and any shrinking one, more. What we need to know is whether government has become better at what they do, and for that, we need an actual output variable, which are notoriously difficult to construct for services. But that's not an excuse for just assuming it's flatlined.

For a different (though perhaps equally flawed) perspective, how about we look at the numbers of workers needed to manage the expenditures?

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight...ince-1962/

Yes, that's right, the number of federal non-military personel has ... not changed in thirty years. In absolute numbers. That means, the amount of government spending per worker has gone up. Fewer workers are managing more resources. Fewer workers are serving more people.

Is that not productivity increase? It sure looks like it.

-Jester

[Jester]

In this country there is the absurd yet popular notion that some how our capitalist lords are the job creators, and that if we tax them too much the unemployment rate will go up so we better be nice to them. Yet, that graph shows increased profits and employment rate have had an inverse relationship.

Except that it doesn't show the employment rate...

-Jester

[shoju]

Since we're talking spending, and what not, I'm going to put this out there.

You want to fix federal spending? I have a way that you can trim a lot of fat.

Now, some of you know what I do. Some of you don't. I work for a large Surplus Buyer. We buy Government Surplus, Corporate Surplus, Buyouts, Closeouts, you name it. We buy lots of it. For reference, We just closed a deal last month to purchase 7,000+ Mower / Go Kart / small type tires. That's just... Business around here.

Back to the more important point in that. We buy Government, and Military Surplus. Generators, Trucks, Uniforms, Gear, Equipment, Engines, Parts, etc... If the government is auctioning it off, we are normally there, gauging our interest in buying it.

Now, how does this affect government spending? Many times, we buy things, large amounts of things, that are Brand New, Never Used, Never Opened, Never touched, with the original Purchasing INformation attached to it.

Case in point.


This thing is Brand New. It shipped in the ORIGINAL FACTORY CRATE. It's a Starter, that you would find on anything from a military Hummer, to a Military 5 Ton Personnel carrier. It also, is used on a fair number of Civilian applications.

Now, I wont tell you what the government paid for it originally, except to say that the price we have on it in our store ($225.00) is far less than HALF What the Government paid for it.

I can't tell you how much we paid for it, except to tell you that on items like this we operate with a bare minimum markup of 75% for Military Surplus.

So, let's use round numbers.

Let's say that they bought it, Brand new, for just double what I'm selling it at $450.00 (It was more than that, but we'll use these numbers for simplicity's sake).

Let's say that we have $150.00 cost in this (we have less than that)

That means the government, LOST $300.00 on this item when they sold it.

Now, keep in mind the 7000 tires I told you we bought. Do you think that we just have 1, or 2 of these? Good. I didn't think you were that Naive. Let's keep using round numbers. Let's say that I have 50 of them. That's $15,000.00 dollars in loss, that they just incurred, on just the starters my company purchased. Keep in mind. We aren't the only ones who do this, and we certainly aren't even the biggest company who goes to these sales.

Now. Do you know who my largest client for purchasing these things are?
No. It's not the Federal Government. That would be... WAY TOO EASY
It's a procurement company, that has a contract with the federal government. They go, and find items that the government needs... RIGHT NOW. They buy it from me for $225.00.

You know what they do?
Yes.
They sell it back to the government. Now, I'm not sure what they sell it back to the government at, but I'm confident that it's not $225.00. I'm also sure that it's going to be less than the original price. So, Let's say that they sell it back for $350.00. That's reasonable. A standard markup, they sell it back.

Now, let's say of the 50, that I purchased, I sell 30 back to a procurement company, who then sells it back for $350.00
$10,500.00 to purchase them back.
+ 15,000.00 Loss on the sale of those original 50.
= 25,500.00 Lost, all because of they way that they do business.

Plus the Shipping charges. We'll leave those out right now.

This isn't an isolated incident. This isn't the only thing they do this with, and Like I said, we aren't even a "big" surplus buyer in the grand scheme of things.

How is this good business?
They had them. They sold them. And later on, they needed them back. They do this type of thing with ALL KINDS OF MATERIAL GOODS.

You want to get a handle on spending? Start with Defense Spending. Don't give me the BS line of "It will hurt the country if we cut it". No. It wont. You could EASILY shave BILLIONS out of spending by restructuring the way that you sell things that you need, because you bought too many in the first place, have no reasonable way to track what it is that you purchased, or what your standing inventory is, Sell off too many in "Surplus", only to find out that you have to BUY THEM BACK

When you probably still had some sitting in a warehouse across the country. It's mind boggling. It hurts my brain.

[kandrathe]

It hurts my brain.

And the real cost is that they had to employ people to buy them, store them, ship them around for awhile to sit in stock depots, ship them back, inventory them, account for them, and finally sell them to you.

[kandrathe]

Fewer workers are managing more resources. Fewer workers are serving more people.

Only in the imaginary math world where 2.65 million (2010 exec branch workers) is less than 2.63 million (2002 executive branch workers). But, credit where credit is due... It is less than under Clinton (1994), when we had 2.9 million executive branch workers.

[FireIceTalon]

In this country there is the absurd yet popular notion that some how our capitalist lords are the job creators, and that if we tax them too much the unemployment rate will go up so we better be nice to them. Yet, that graph shows increased profits and employment rate have had an inverse relationship.

Except that it doesn't show the employment rate...

-Jester

You are right. When I googled the first chart it gave me labor share and a bunch of other stuff compared to corporate profits for whatever reason. Mind you, I am not an economist so I had to find out what "labor share" meant exactly. However, this one does:

[kandrathe]

Mind you, I am not an economist so I had to find out what "labor share" meant exactly. However, this one does:

It shows that during recessions, the unemployment rate goes up and corporate profits tank. When the economy recovers, the unemployment rate drops, and corporate profits rise.

Corporate profits after tax will rise on that EXP(x) type curve as GDP rises.



Capital builds on capital. That is the notion of Capitalism. They build enterprise, which transforms raw materials, and labor into good and services that people buy. The profits are shared with investors, and reinvested in new enterprise.

What you should question, which is what I question is the percentage of GDP which is devoted to raising wages and creating new jobs.

Where we should be angry at the investors is that they've put their money into "get rich quick" vehicles (.coms, housing, etc.), which has resulted in investment bubbles, as well as stagnant job and wage growth for the past few decades. Along with them, we should be very angry with government for creating regulatory incentives which accelerate these mal-investments. For example, tax laws which allow you to write off mortgage interest. In 1997, the tax laws changed where you were allowed $500,000 for married couples, or $250,000 for singles exclusion of capital gains on the sale of a home, available once every two years. When stocks and bonds appeared risky, this made housing very attractive, and the only investment which escaped capital gains. These tax laws encouraged people to buy expensive, fully mortgaged homes, as well as invest in second homes and investment properties, as opposed to investing in stocks, bonds, or other assets. It also artificially drives up the demand, and price of homes, where there value is not so much their utility, but in their ability to avoid taxation. And, for wages, this did buoy up those house building industries and the demand for labor in a limited market.

For the average Joe, the effect was to make home ownership less accessible, and home remodeling very expensive.

Who are you more upset with? The person who blindly seeks the best return for their investment, or the government (and their special interest lobbyists) for crafting laws which create unfairness and chaos?

[FireIceTalon]

Who are you more upset with? The person who blindly seeks the best return for their investment, or the government (and their special interest lobbyists) for crafting laws which create unfairness and chaos?

How about both? It really doesn't make sense to be more angry at one over the other. One is the dominant social class, the other is the institutions of managers that protect and organize its affairs. I don't like the state anymore than most libertarians ostensibly do, but I also have a very different view and understanding of what the role of the state is than the libertarian viewpoint, which has the relationship between the state and the individual as the starting point for its framework. For Marxists, the fundamental contradiction that has shaped history's development and human relationships, the class struggle, is our starting point - the state certainly plays a very critical role in this, but for us it is a symptom and not a cause of the class struggle.

There was a time when capitalism was indeed a progressive system. Indeed, it has made and provided things that would have been impossible in any previous point of history. Besides, the capitalist stage of history is almost certainly necessary for a potential democratic socialist system to even be conceivable, much in the same way one must go through their teenage years to become an adult. Pretty much any Marxist will acknowledge this if they worth their salt. The development of capitalism, destructive and violent as it was, was a necessary a thing. The opportunities it created, such as freeing the vast majority of people from having to toil on farmlands for generations, under the thumb of an aristocratic class collecting high taxes from it, are unprecedented. If given the choice to live in Ancient Rome, England during the Middle Ages, or now....the choice is quite obvious.

However, all class systems are an antagonism by their very nature, and such a contradiction can never be sustained forever. Capitalism is no longer progressive, and therefore no longer necessary. In fact, it is become so decadent to the point where it is undesirable - this is the exact same thing that happened to feudalism when its class contradictions were no longer sustainable. Given the technology, knowledge, tools, and power structure of the modern state, it has many more creative ways of maintaining itself than prior modes of production did. But this doesn't mean it can escape its internal contradictions forever, nor does it mean that it is even desirable to want it to. The conditions of capitalism and its decadence have become untenable, in a political, economic, and ecological context - and they have been for a quite a while. The system creates new opportunities and living arrangements in urban settings and more access to resources for large populations. Yet, it also is reliant on an antagonistic and exploitative social relationship, by a constant need (and it this point, a lust) to generate profits, that ends up denying a large amount of people these possibilities. There is also a whole host of other concerns beyond the scope of discussion here really.

So, is capitalism the most superior system we have seen so far? Sure. But is it the most superior system that we could or ever will see for the rest of humankind? Extremely unlikely, and to think otherwise is quite deterministic.

[Jester]

Only in the imaginary math world where 2.65 million (2010 exec branch workers) is less than 2.63 million (2002 executive branch workers).

A) We were comparing with 1980. Where did 2002 come from?

B) The absolute number is almost entirely stagnant through time. Yearly variation is irrelevant.

C) Any way you slice it, more resources are being distributed, and more people are being serviced, by fewer workers *per capita*.

-Jester

---

You are right. When I googled the first chart it gave me labor share and a bunch of other stuff compared to corporate profits for whatever reason. Mind you, I am not an economist so I had to find out what "labor share" meant exactly. However, this one does:

Labour share matters. It just doesn't matter for the unemployment rate - at least not directly. I'm sure labour share is generally higher in times of lower unemployment, all else equal.

However, the graph no longer shows what you want it to show. The entire 1990s and most of the 2000s have the two variables moving against each other in a way backwards to (what I assume is) your hypothesis.

-Jester

[Jester]

Corporate profits after tax will rise on that EXP(x) type curve as GDP rises.

Except the exponential curve on corporate profits is rising *much* faster than GDP since 2000. The share has doubled since the 1980s.

Capital builds on capital. That is the notion of Capitalism. They build enterprise, which transforms raw materials, and labor into good and services that people buy. The profits are shared with investors, and reinvested in new enterprise.

There are two processes in a horse race. One is the accumulation of capital, which will *lower* rather than increase corporate profits, as more and more capital competes with itself for the same stock of workers. The other is innovation, which opens up new things to apply capital to, increasing productivity. (These are the two often conflated, but actually distinct, roles of capital allocation and entrepreneurship.)

And then, of course, there is political economy: Just get the government to charge you less taxes, underwrite your losses, or just plain redistribute money towards you. That also works.

-Jester