Corporate profits: business-as-usual in America, with a twist

This chart says some interesting things about the post-2008 business world in America. Specifically, it screams that if you are involved in business, the world probably looks very different than it does if you are a teacher, a carpenter, a senior depending on fixed income, or a new grad looking for work.

Over the past 30 years, there have been ups and downs, but if you are a publicly traded large company, you can definitely expect more than five percent return on your capital, and often you can expect much more than the average investor. But what really interests us is that in the post-2008 world of crazy gloom and doom and bailouts – the profit margins look like we’re in a golden age.

Ask the average American, the consumer on whom this success is supposedly based: Are we in a golden age? Does it feel like we’re in a golden age?

Most systems depend on there being a shared sense of meaning. Post-War American success was shared by a broad range of people on the socio-economic spectrum, many of them recent immigrants. The notion of free markets succeeding over a communist enemy provided a certain cohesion to the narrative of what was happening. Are we getting richer? Well, we have a better system and we’re all prospering.

What does this system say about us? Does it make sense? Does it speak to a variety of people?