<p>Here is a chart from the St. Louis Fed. I read about all these reasons why corporations aren’t hiring…and then I stumbled on to this graph. hmmmm</p>
<p>[Corporate</a> Profits After Tax (CP) - FRED - St. Louis Fed](<a href=“http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP]Corporate”>Corporate Profits After Tax (without IVA and CCAdj) (CP) | FRED | St. Louis Fed)</p>
<p>So…where are the jobs?</p>
<p>Their CEOs should be featured on the Hoarders show… cash hoarders.</p>
<p>Lol…some of them would be all stars…</p>
<p>Now an unemployment chart.</p>
<p>[Total</a> unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons (U6RATE) - FRED - St. Louis Fed](<a href=“http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/U6RATE]Total”>Total Unemployed, Plus All Persons Marginally Attached to the Labor Force, Plus Total Employed Part Time for Economic Reasons, as a Percent of the Civilian Labor Force Plus All Persons Marginally Attached to the Labor Force (U-6) (U6RATE) | FRED | St. Louis Fed)</p>
<p>Profits are at all time highs…and Unemployment…</p>
<p>And a gdp chart…</p>
<p><a href=“http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDPC1/[/url]”>Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPC1) | FRED | St. Louis Fed;
<p>dstark- you should see what companies try to do to avoid State taxation. Two interesting avoidance attempts that were fought out in court were Geoffrey v South Carolina and Lanco vs Director, Division of Taxation.
Basically they took the copyright of their logo (Toys R Us is Geoffrey and Lanco is Lane Bryant) and incorporated them in States with no corporate income tax. Next they said that on every sale that was made a fee had to be paid for using the copyright. The fee just happened to be the entire profit on each sale. So of course no tax was due the State on income- there was no income. So the States said fine but the company owning the logo is required to file in our State because you have a presence here- your logos are on the stores and on every tag plus you have representatives coming in to our States to make sure there is no misuse of the copyright. The States won both cases.</p>
<p>You see that dip in corporate profits in 2009-2010? That’s what scares those companies from hiring.</p>
<p>There’s a bell curve with corporate profits. If you see upward trending revenues, you hire people to handle it, so while your income is good, your expenses impact your profitability. When you have flat or slightly up revenues, you can only manage profits by reducing headcount, reducing benefits, etc. Therefore you maximize profits - but you’re not increasing revenue. As time goes on, you have to keep reducing headcount or other expenses in order to maximize margin, but of course this eventually impacts customer service, production, etc., which ultimately impacts revenues even more and finally starts to decrease profitability.</p>
<p>Notice however that companies reduce expenses by reducing headcount, holding down pay of the regular workers. You almost never see the CEO pay getting docked or kept the same. </p>
<p>The issue, in my opinion, has nothing to do with taxes, and only indirectly with economic outlook - it’s revenues, first last and always. Companies not hiring or paying employees results, in the aggregate, in fewer customers and lower revenues.</p>
<p>Berkshire Hathaway owes about a billion dollars according to the IRS. And GE somehow paid nothing in federal income taxes last year?</p>
<p>The US has the second highest corporate tax rates in the world, second to Japan. Japan is in the process of considering lowering theirs. </p>
<p>Many US corporations have brought their company overseas to places like Ireland and Switzerland because of their lower taxes. In some case a third of the rate in the US.</p>
<p>I am not a republican. But all of you folks really need to read up on this. 60 Minutes did a segment recently. I will probably be deleted because this is considered political. But check it out.</p>
<p>morrismm, please note that dstark’s chart shows record profits AFTER tax.</p>
<p>I think my state should sell off some of its assets to the private sector in order to raise cash. After all, corporate profits are really high, and we need to get in on the action.</p>
<p>I’d start with naming rights…for the state. Heck, what’s with this Washington State anyway? George Washington hadn’t a clue that we even existed, and certainly never visited! George Washington Bush may have settled in the town to the south of us, but we aren’t called “Bush State”. Let’s sell it off - we could be Micro-State, or the Commonwealth of Verizon, or perhaps Starbucksland. </p>
<p>And then, the naming rights for various state departments, to be reauctioned off every time there is a change in administration (and new stationary made! Good for the economy.) The Department of Health is short of money? How about the Philip Morris Department of Health? The Ford Motor Department of Transportation? The Office Depot Department of Licensing? The Wal-Mart Department of Early Learning? The Waste Management Inc. Department of Ecology.</p>
<p>Then the roads. The state shouldn’t be in the business of maintaining roads. After all, there aren’t that many state vehicles. Auction off all the highway names, for cash, and agreements to maintain them.</p>
<p>There is all that free space on the sides of schools, and on school buses, both inside and out. We could have the Johnny Walker Red short bus! Or the Adderall Middle School!</p>
<p>The state and municipalities shouldn’t be in the naming business. Heck, in New York City, they still do public schools by number! Duh! What’s with that?</p>
<p>Hows the economy of Ireland doing- low tax rates and all?</p>
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<p>how can berkshire hathaway owe a billion dollars in taxes? Didn’t Buffet just get a lot of press for saying tax rates should be higher? Why doesn’t he pay what the IRS says he owes???</p>
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<p>There is a vicious rumor going around that if you raise the cost of labor to employers you get less labor. So, if a small business has an employee who costs $20000 per year, for example, but now that employee will cost $25000 because the employer expects to have to pay mandatory health insurance, the small business will reduce that employee’s hours worked, layoff the employee, or refrain from hiring a new employee. But it’s just a rumor. Surely the laws of supply and demand could never apply in the real world.</p>
<p>So if the average worker over a 30-year-period, adjusted for inflation, is paid LESS than they were 30 years ago, businesses should be going gangbusters, and hiring everyone in sight. Right?</p>
<p>It depends on revenue adjusted for inflation and productivity. Labor budgets are set based on revenue and productivity expectations. If revenue is expected to be unchanged and productivity is expected to increase, an increase in the cost of labor means less labor.</p>
<p>Productivity has increased massively over the past 30 years. The costs per labor unit have declined significantly. Wages are essentially flat. So we have full employment, right?</p>
<p>So…where are the jobs?
"There is a vicious rumor going around that if you raise the cost of labor to employers you get less labor. So, if a small business has an employee who costs $20000 per year, for example, but now that employee will cost $25000 because the employer expects to have to pay mandatory health insurance, the small business will reduce that employee’s hours worked, layoff the employee, or refrain from hiring a new employee. But it’s just a rumor. Surely the laws of supply and demand could never apply in the real world."razorsharp</p>
<p>What’s IBM’s excuse? They stole my retirement health care insurance many years before Obamacare had been invented. Noticed their stock price lately?</p>
<p>Corporate profits are at an all time high…</p>
<p>So let’s look at corporate taxes as a percentage of gdp…</p>
<p>[Corporate</a> Income Tax as a Share of GDP, 1946-2009](<a href=“Statistics | Tax Policy Center”>Statistics | Tax Policy Center)</p>
<p>Hmmmmm…</p>
<p>Let’s see…corporate profits are at an all time high and corporate taxes are very low…</p>
<p>And wages…I have the numbers up to 2006… </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-31-06inc.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-31-06inc.pdf</a></p>
<p>But look at how many more jobs they created in that period!</p>