Corporate Profits Soar As Jobs Falter. Honeywell CEO’s Solution: Give Us Even MORE Money!

Today I saw this:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics brings bad news for the Obama Administration, as the spring slowdown we’ve seen for the last two years appears to be the same mode for 2012 as well. The economy added only 69,000 jobs in May, and worse, the totals for March and April were revised downward a total of 49,000. So on net, that’s just +20,000 jobs, which is barely positive and not nearly enough to keep up with population.

And then I saw this:

The terrible jobs report should be matched with another set of data to point out that this is the economy that corporate executives have wanted for a long time. Because they are not suffering in a time of weak demand. They’re actually thriving. Corporate profits are soaring. The chart above shows corporate profits as a percentage of GDP, and you can see that they are now back above pre-recession levels, well over 10%. Felix Salmon notes that this has never happened before.

And then, later, this:

Honeywell CEO David Cote said yesterday – when his goons weren’t yanking the microphone away from a labor reporter asking a question – that the ideal corporate tax rate should be zero percent:

SORKIN: David, I have a tax question for you. What do you think the ultimate effective tax rate should be on corporations?

COTE: Zero.

SORKIN: Zero?

COTE: The problem is from a fairness perspective, nobody would be able to stand it. But at the the end of the day, jobs come from companies and if we wanted to create the most effective foreign direct investment pipeline you’ve ever seen, we would have the lowest rate possible.

So the only barrier to a 0% corporate tax rate, in Cote’s mind, is that the plebians might have a problem with it. Otherwise, it’s race race race to the bottom.

Bear in mind that America’s greatest prosperity for all came when we taxed the living bejeezus out of corporations and the rich.

Yet another political show trial crashes and burns

Michael Biesecker, HuffPo:

A jury’s refusal to convict John Edwards was less a redemption of the former White House hopeful than a rejection of the Justice Department’s boldest attempt to make an example of someone in the name of enforcing campaign finance laws.
…
“As noted by nearly every campaign finance lawyer who considered the matter, this was a lousy case,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director for the campaign finance watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “All the salacious details prosecutors offered up to prove that Edwards is, indeed, despicable, were not enough to persuade the jury to convict him.”

Several jurors said there just wasn’t enough evidence. On network talk shows Friday, even jurors who thought Edwards was guilty on at least some counts said the prosecution wasn’t able to prove it.

Being a scoundrel is not a crime. Sometimes one wishes it were, but not enough to waste a lot of money on it.

Badger music

(via gchaucer2, DK)

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