Is This Real Growth?

 Financial FAQs

“Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2026 (January, February, and March), according to the second estimate released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Real GDP was revised down 0.4 percentage point from the advance estimate, primarily reflecting downward revisions to investment and consumer spending.” BEA.gov

FRED/Q1gdp

Economic growth this year is improving because corporations are making record profits—up 17 percent annually in Q1 2026 from an average 13 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it looks like much of the growth may be part of the tech bubble—such as massive overinvestments in chips and artificial intelligence (AI)—creating a bubble which by definition and past history will eventually deflate.

Why the sudden jump in corporate profits to 17 percent? It’s mostly from investing in the massive buildout of artificial intelligence centers and the infrastructure. How long can such GDP growth continue, especially if those future investments, such as in AI programs or the chips that power AI, may take years to turn a profit?

Republicans’ Big Beautiful Tax Cut Bill encouraged corporations to invest as much as possible this year because they could write it off in the same year, and those investments are generating serious profits in the buildout of AI data centers, for starters.

But the Biden administration’s $5trillion in investments to modernize the American economy—the CHIPS, Infrastructure, and Inflation Reduction Acts—are also contributing to the surge in growth.

Yet largely because of the Trump Administration’s mismanagement; even attempts to cancel or impede many of the Biden administration programs that would actually improve inflation, healthcare, environmental protection, and bring the manufacture of computer chips home; we are seeing those profits going into irrationally exuberant, overinvestment in future technologies with uncertain futures instead that is pushing major stocks and market indexes to record highs.

The announcements on the possibilities of AI are mind boggling. Zack Kass, Open AI pioneer and author of bestseller, The Next RENAISSANCE: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential, has said:

“If directed wisely, it will secure our needs, accelerate discoveries that serve human flourishing and unlike the products that commoditize our attention today, free us to invest in connections creativity and love.”

It will free whom, and what will they do then? It is causing massive layoffs at the likes of Amazon (30,000 employees to date) who hope that programs like Claude and ChatGPT can do much of the thinking and future planning for these corporations.

Consumers aren’t doing so well that actually make up most of the GDP growth equation. Their so-called Disposable Income (an economic term) declined to “slightly less than -0.1%” in April.

It resulted in a lowering of the personal savings rate to almost 2%, one-half of its more normal 3-4 percent rate in recent years. Consumers are stretched in other words; more than half of their incomes are now spent on the soaring costs of gasoline/energy products, household necessities, and food. This is another reason we may see slowing GDP growth ahead.

There is no question that AI has enormous potential for good, in what British economist JM Keynes made in a famous prediction in 1930, should there not be too many bumps in the promised road to a greater freedom from work:

“Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem-how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.” JM Keynes

But Keynes said this in 1930. How long has it been since then?

Harlan Green © 2026

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What is Worrying Consumers?

 Financial FAQs

 “Consumer confidence tumbled in November to its second lowest level since April after moving sideways for several months,” said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board. “All five components of the overall index flagged or remained weak.”

Conference Board

Why are consumers worrying so much? Maybe they don’t like government shutdowns? Or, maybe it’s because higher prices and the tariffs are hurting small businesses that depend on imported goods? Or, there are fewer available jobs. Actually, it’s all of the above per the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey.

“Consumers’ write-in responses pertaining to factors affecting the economy continued to be led by references to prices and inflation, tariffs and trade, and politics, with increased mentions of the federal government shutdown.”

It’s also becoming obvious that consumers don’t like bully behavior, such as Republicans ramming through the continuing budget resolution without Democrats’ input.

Republicans were in fact attempting to take down Obamacare (ACA) once again by not including the subsidies in the continuing resolution that made it available for middle and low-income folk, I said last week.

Retail sales data finally released for September showed consumers were still shopping and dining out, but not as much.

So what will happen now? This was all before the shutdown. My guesstimate with anecdotal evidence from the likes of Walmart, Target, et. al., is that the more affluent consumers that own homes and stocks will come storming out of the gates after the shutdown and maybe party through the holidays. Government workers will be receiving extra paydays, for instance—i.e., weeks of backpay.

Doug McMillon, Walmart’s outgoing chief executive, cited by MarketWatch, said on the chain’s earnings call that middle-and-upper-income households drove growth in the U.S. during the third quarter. He also said that “lower-income families have been under additional pressure of late.”

And the financial markets have been rallying as it looks like the Fed will cut rates once again in December. Consumers will rally as well as they race to borrow and purchase during the holidays. That’s because polls say they expect inflation to surge over the next year when things will become more expensive.

And Trump has grown wilier with his tariff pronouncements, not touting their benefits so loudly, for instance, which was alarming consumers, while finally admitting that tariffs have been raising prices. His MAGA followers are suffering the most. He must have finally looked at his poor poll numbers that are even lower than during his first term.

The other unspoken shoe to drop that affects consumers is the shrinking job market. ADP payrolls reports that just +42,000 private payrolls were added in October. Trade, Transportation, Education and Healthcare added the most jobs. But -51,000 jobs were lost in other sectors such as Information and Information and business services.

“Private employers added jobs in October for the first time since July, but hiring was modest relative to what we reported earlier this year. Meanwhile, pay growth has been largely flat for more than a year, indicating that shifts in supply and demand are balanced,” said Dr. Nela Richardson, Chief Economist

It’s pretty obvious that we are living in uncertain times, and the old Republican playbook of tax cuts combined with DOGE and Project 25 slashing of government benefits isn’t yet hurting the 10 percent of consumers that have assets, but that leaves 90 percent of Americans still living paycheck to paycheck.

What will happen to them?

Harlan Green © 2025

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Full Speed Growth Ahead--Part II

 Popular Economics Weekly

The September Consumer Price Index (CPI) continued to decline, further evidence that the inflation battle has been won. All eyes are now on whether strong economic growth can continue with the labor market beginning to falter, which the Fed has said is a primary concern.

An early sign of labor weakness is that the weekly initial claims for unemployment has risen. The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits surged by 33,000 to 258,000 in the week that ended Oct. 5, the Labor Department said on Thursday. This is the highest level of initial claims since early August 2023.

Some of the increase may be due to one-off events like the Boeing strike and hurricanes ravaging the east coast. But that’s another reason the Fed should continue to cut interest rates for consumers that are facing uncertain futures, whether it’s more frequent natural disasters as our planet continues to warm, or future labor unrest.

FREDcpi

“In September, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 2.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.3 percent in September (SA); up 3.3 percent over the year (NSA),” said the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Up just 2.4 percent in a year, retail inflation has reached the Fed’s target rate, for all intents and purposes. Continuing to hold interest rates too high for too long could precipitate more job losses.

NY Fed President John Williams said recently that it was now time to help the labor market.

“The FOMC “instituted and maintained a very restrictive monetary policy stance until the data gave us confidence that inflation is sustainably on course to 2 percent,” President Williams said. “With this progress toward achieving price stability, moving toward a more neutral monetary policy stance will help maintain the strength of the economy and labor market.”

Williams predicted what more balanced growth would look like:

· Real GDP to grow between 2-1/4 and 2-1/2 percent this year and to average about 2-1/4 percent over the next two years.

· The unemployment rate to edge up from its current level of about 4 percent to around 4-1/4 percent at the end of this year and stay around that level next year.

I reported another important fact last week. The BEAsaid that profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) almost doubled in the final revision. So strong economic growth continues as inflation is declining.

Even more optimistic growth predictions for third quarter growth come from the Atlanta Federal Reserve GDPNow estimate.

AtlantaFed

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2024 is 3.2 percent on October 9, unchanged from October 8 after rounding. After this morning's wholesale trade release from the US Census Bureau, the nowcast of third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 3.4 percent to 3.3 percent.

So why has job growth been so high, even with the Fed’s restrictive credit policies for the past two years? A grand total of 256,000 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in September.

September’s unemployment report showed governments, and the construction industry created 56,000 new jobs. These are largely jobs in rebuilding our infrastructure, a product of Bidenomics. Another 156,000 jobs were added in Leisure/Hospitality, Education and Healthcare.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), aka Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), was signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021. The law authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending with $550 billion of that figure going toward "new" investments and programs.

Need we say more on what is continuing to power economic growth?

Harlan Green © 2024

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March Payrolls Soaring

 Popular Economics Weekly

I said last week I don’t believe Wall Street investors are irrationally exuberant at present, contrary to those that say we are now in a stock market bubble with the record level S&P and DOW indexes.

That’s because March nonfarm payrolls increased 303,000, far above the 200,000 average poll of economists, and the unemployment rate fell slightly from 3.9 percent to 3.8 percent. This may finally put a dent in those pessimists polled that would deny the US economy is continuing its surprising surge.

FREDnonfarmpayrolls

Why? Government employment increased by 71,000, higher than the average monthly gain of 54,000 over the prior 12 months. It was mostly in local government (+49,000) and federal government (+9,000). Construction added 39,000 jobs in March, about double the average monthly gain of 19,000 over the prior 12 months.

This is largely because of President Biden’s New New Deal legislation such as the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts, but also expanding CHIPS production and a host of health care addons, all government largess that is boosting overall economic growth.

Health care added 72,000 jobs, as Biden has expanded healthcare coverages, while Obamacare enrollment is up 21 million this year.

Will this finally begin to change the irrational pessimism of Main Street, in the main ordinary working adults in the PEW study I’ve been highlighting?

In a poll by PEW Research, “About three-in-ten Americans (28%) currently rate national economic conditions as excellent or good, while a similar share (31%) say they are poor and about four-in-ten (41%) view them as “only fair.”

There’s still the inflation worry, which combined with the 8.5 percent Prime Rate that sets credit card and installment loan interest rates, is making consumers nervous.

So the key to trends are short and long term inflation expectations measured in the various surveys. And consumers don’t see inflation improving in the near term, which I maintain is in part due to the too-high Prime Rate.

I highlighted a recent National Bureau of Economic (NBER) working paper that concluded one reason consumers remain unconvinced that economic conditions have improved is because if borrowing costs were included in the inflation data, the inflation rate would be much higher.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data released the February 2024 Survey of Consumer Expectations, for instance, which shows that inflation expectations remained unchanged at the short-term horizon, while increasing at the medium- and longer-term horizons.

The Conference Board is similarly less sanguine about inflation: “Consumers remained concerned with elevated price levels, which predominated write-in responses, said Dana Peterson, its Chief Economist. “March’s write-in responses showed an uptick in concerns about food and gas prices, but in general complaints about gas prices have been trending downward.

Most Americans are exhausted and still recovering from the pandemic. And they rely on their immediate experience; much of it due to the post-COVID gyrations of the economy.

PEW in the recent poll said, however, expectations for future economic conditions are more positive than they were last spring: Today, roughly a quarter say that they expect economic conditions will be better a year from now (26%) – up from 17% in April 2023.

There is hope, in other words, the pessimists will eventually realize a surging stock market means higher corporate profits, so stocks aren’t yet overvalued. Companies wouldn’t be hiring this many workers if profits weren’t growing, so their jobs are safe.

Harlan Green © 2024

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The Main Cause of Pandemic Inflation?

 Financial FAQs

FREDprofits/gdi

The St. Louis Fed (FRED) graph of corporate profits as a percentage of Gross Domestic Income (GDI), a good proxy for gross domestic output (GDP), explains much of what boosted inflation during the COVID pandemic. The product shortages and supply chain shortcomings caused the sudden scarcity of goods, but not the sky-high retail inflation that consumers in particular experienced.

Corporate profits accounted for the largest share of the price hikes experienced since the pandemic. Data from the U.S. Commerce Department shows that 2021 corporate profit margins were the largest they've been in 70 years, some 16.7 percent in 2021, the last year annual profit data was available.

That is why consumer CPI inflation surged in 2021 and is slowly returning to more normal levels. You name it—food service and energy companies took advantage of the sudden shortages in their efforts to maximize profits.

BLS.gov

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose just 0.2 percent in July, and the yearly rate of inflation rose to 3.2 percent from 3 percent in the prior month, the consumer price index showed. It was the first increase in 13 months.

The core rate without food and energy prices over the past year slowed to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent and is the lowest rate in almost two years.

However, a large share of the remaining core inflation includes housing rents and used car prices that have remained stubbornly high. Since when is the Fed responsible for bringing down rents and car prices? These prices are controlled by intermediaries like realtors and auto dealers that want to maximize their own profit margins, not by the Fed.

There is also a surge in business productivity reports Brian Bethune, a Boston College economics professor. Business productivity jumped by 3.7 percent while unit-labor costs rose just 1.6 percent.

“At the same time, overall prices increased by 2.2% — well within the U.S. Federal Reserve’s target and the lowest inflation rate since the second quarter of 2020,” said Professor Bethune.

U.S. corporate profit margins have been excessive, said Bethune.

“In other words, there was “profitflation” — also known as “greedflation,” The ability of industry to raise prices aggressively, rather than defensively, is tied to increasing business consolidation and more mergers and acquisitions. Indeed, bank takeovers resurfaced in the first half of 2023 under severe liquidity stresses created by higher short-term interest rates; that story is not yet over.”

The inflation battle has been largely won, and corporate profit margins are declining as supply chains catch up to demand. Profits declined – 4.1 percent in Q1 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Consumer spending is tapering as well that has been the main cause of said demand, so that personal consumption expenditures (PCE) were up 5.4 percent YoY in June, down from the post-pandemic high of 13.1 percent in 2021.

Consumers provided most of the 2.4 percent increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the ‘advance’ (first of three) estimates of second quarter economic growth.

The story is not over for the Fed’s battle with inflation, either. High interest rates that are crimping corporate profits as well as consumer spending will continue to bring down the inflation rate. But we don’t want outright deflation China is experiencing that is causing massive unemployment among its youth.

We cannot really afford another recession, such as happened in 2007-09, or might happen again if the Fed continues to boost interest rates.

Harlan Green © 2023

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Is Job Market Still Too Hot?

 Financial FAQs

CalculatedRisk

No matter how hard it tries, the Fed hasn’t been able to slow hiring in the hopes that it will bring down inflation—because corporations have record profits and are only beginning to lay off workers.

But watch out this year as the $trillions in New Deal spending of bipartisan bills just passed is funding projects that need good jobs, such as the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts.

So what is the Fed to do, discourage the long overdue modernization of the American economy?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS report showed 10.5 million job openings and was “little changed” from past months.The above graph shows job openings (black line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

“The number of job openings was little changed at 10.5 million on the last business day of November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, the number of hires and total separations changed little at 6.1 million and 5.9 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (4.2 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.4 million) changed little.”

That means approximately 400,000 jobs were created in November—the difference between hires and total separations.

BusinessInsider

And here’s a graph once again of corporate profits that fell to their lows in the 1980s before soaring to new heights.

So this Friday’s unemployment report will be closely watched by Fed officials, with few giving any indication that they want to slow down their rate increases.

Minutes released Wednesday from the Fed’s Dec. 13-14 meeting showed the central bank’s policymaking arm recognizes that inflation has begun to cool somewhat but its participants still view price growth as “unacceptably high”.

Wow, this is while the overall picture is of a slowing economy, with the ISM’s manufacturing survey showing contraction. U.S. manufacturing activity slipped to 48.4 in December from 49 in the prior month, according to the Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday. This is the lowest level since May 2020.

And job layoffs have increased sharply before the holidays. The worker-friendly Guardian was not slow to react.

“After corporations complained of labor shortages through 2021 and 2022, several companies have shed workers in mass layoffs as 2022 comes to a close. Job cuts in the US have risen this year, with a 6% increase for the first 11 months of 2022 in comparison to last year.”

Consumers are already cutting back spending as retail inventories pile up and more stores begin to discount. That will become more serious now that the holidays are over. It would be nice if there was more consistency in federal policies!

So my answer is the job market is not too hot. Many more jobs will be needed to aid our economic recovery as well as modernize those regions that have fallen behind at a time when we need all Americans to participate in the recovery.

 

Harlan Green © 2022

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Corporate Profits the Inflation Culprit?

 Financial FAQs

BusinessInsider

Another just published economic indicator predicts inflation could be moderating faster than predicted by most analysts.

The New York Fed’s consumer expectation survey just out reported median one-, three-, and five-year-ahead inflation expectations decreased to 5.2 percent, 3.0 percent, and 2.3 percent, respectively, according to the November Survey of Consumer Expectations. Median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—decreased at the short-term and medium-term horizons and is way done over the longer 5-year term.

This should hearten inflation doves, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said in a 60 Minutes CBS TV interview that “I believe by the end of next year, you will see much lower inflation, if there’s not an unanticipated shock.”

It looks increasingly like the economy is doing the Federal Reserve’s work in bringing down inflation, as I said recently with gas prices now below pre-pandemic levels, and shipping and raw material costs declining.

But there is still a major roadblock to be considered—record corporate profits, the highest in history as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (see above graph). And it tells us why producers can raise prices faster than the inflation rate. It reached its high point of 14.8 percent of GDP in July 2021.

More than half of the companies surveyed by the small business services reviews website Digital.com reported raising prices beyond what was required to offset rising input costs, said Business Insider.

“What’s interesting about our findings is that more than half of respondents say that while they used inflation as a reason for price increases, they expect higher profits as a result,” says Digital.com’s small business expert, Dennis Consorte.

Food prices are now the biggest worry for inflation watchers. The government will release October figures for food and other costs in its Consumer Price Index report Tuesday.

Food prices rose 10.9 percent year-over-year in October’s CPI report. Food at home — grocery store or supermarket purchases — increased by 12.4 percent, ticking down from 13 percent in September, and rose 0.4 percent on the month, the smallest monthly increase in the category since last December.

But several categories rose far more than the overall rate of inflation. Egg prices rose 43 percent year-over-year in October, butter increased by 26.7 percent, and flour and prepared flour mixes were up 24.6 percent. Lettuce prices rose 17.7 percent year-over-year, while bread and milk prices rose by 14.8 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

Let us see if tomorrow’s CPI inflation report continues to indicate inflation declining.

What to do about corporate profits? That’s a long story, a very long story. The Business Insider graph shows it started its record climb in 2009 when recovering from the Great Recession.

Harlan Green © 2022

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What is Real Cause of Inflation?

 Financial FAQs

FREDcpiinflation

Fed Chair Jerome Powell just said Americans must now feel the pain if the Fed is to bring inflation back to its long-term 2 percent annual target. But why? The 2 percent inflation rate that prevailed since the end of the Great Recession resulted in higher unemployment and less than 2 percent annual economic growth—not enough growth to lower the unemployment rate to what it is now—3.5 percent.

Instead, it may be record corporate profits doing the most damage in boosting inflation and must be tamed.

In fact, it was difficult work to bring the inflation rate back to 2 percent, since the danger was too-low inflation and the danger of disinflation, or even deflation at the time, because Asian countries could produce an oversupply of consumer goods, keeping prices low and more American workers unemployed.

Now we have too high inflation because the COVID pandemic closed economies that produced those cheap supplies, so we have the supply and supply-chain problems with a Ukraine-Russian war adding to the scarcity.

In addition, corporate profits are at all-time highs. MarketWatch’s economist Rex Nutting highlighted the record growth since World War Two:

"After-tax corporate profits rose at a 41% annual rate after inflation in the second quarter of the year and have risen at a 17% annual pace since the pandemic recession ended two years ago. Meanwhile, the inflation-adjusted purchasing power of individuals’ after-tax income has fallen for five quarters in a row.”

FRED.gov

In fact, those record profits have been at the expense of workers’ salaries, says Nutting. The data show that hourly compensation declined at a -1.5 percent annual rate in the first half of the year after adjusting for inflation and is now down -2.3percent since the end of the pandemic recession.

So, Fed Chair Powell may be barking up the wrong money tree when he said the Fed might cause substantial pain to consumers more than businesses. What if it isn’t rising wages, but corporate profits that are enabling corporations to boost prices, rather than paying their employees more?

“Moreover, there will very likely be some softening of labor market conditions. While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses,” he added.

Consumers’ personal consumption expenditures have barely keep up with rising prices, which means they will have little effect on future inflation. Personal Consumption Expenditures rose just 0.1 percent in July, vs. being as high as 8.6 percent in April 2021 when their pockets were bulging with the pandemic relief payments.

So let’s not blame the consumer for the inflation that the Fed wants to tame, who  is fighting so many other battles. The new Inflation Protection Act enacting a minimum 15 percent tax rate on corporations and one percent on stock buybacks will hurt those that can afford it--record corporate profits that puts the blame game where it belongs.

The Fed could also continue downsizing their holdings of securities. Selling more of their $4 trillion plus in Treasury securities ($4.97 trillion on June 8) could raise interest rates more gradually, thus avoiding the danger of another recession.

On June 1, 2022, the Federal Reserve initiated the process of reducing the size of its balance sheet to address rising inflation. According to a May press release, the Fed will initially cap its monthly purchase of Treasury securities at $30 billion for June, July and August – for context, the Federal Reserve purchased an average of $80 billion in Treasury securities per month between March 2020 and March 2022. The cap is set to increase to $60 billion in September and will likely remain at that level through the end of calendar year 2023. The Federal Reserve will also reduce its holdings of mortgage-backed securities over the coming months.

Maybe it’s businesses that should be feeling more pain, rather than workers?

Harlan Green © 2022

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

U.S. Economy Resumes Growth In Q2

 Popular Economics Weekly

The panic selling in financial markets of late is in part because first quarter 2022 GDP growth contracted after last year’s huge 5.6 percent growth surge, triggering worries of an imminent recession.

The U.S. economy shrank by a 1.5 percent annual rate in Q1, new government figures show, largely because of a record trade deficit. And corporate profits fell for the first time in five quarters.

But corporate profits are still at record levels, up 12.5 percent YoY, and GDP is still growing 10.5 percent annually. So quarterly statistics that financial markets follow can fluctuate wildly, which isn’t very helpful in looking at longer term trends.

BEA.gov

The BEA attributes the first quarter decline in GDP to temporary factors and most economists predict a second quarter resumption in economic activity.

“In the first quarter, an increase in COVID-19 cases related to the Omicron variant resulted in continued restrictions and disruptions in the operations of establishments in some parts of the country,” said the BEA. “Government assistance payments in the form of forgivable loans to businesses, grants to state and local governments, and social benefits to households all decreased as provisions of several federal programs expired or tapered off.”.

In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that ‘scores’ current legislation for its effect on economic activity said U.S. economic growth will exceed 3 percent in 2022, while “roaring inflation has topped and will cool each month to around 2 percent by some point in 2024,” according to a government forecast published Wednesday.

The CBO estimated that real gross domestic product, or GDP, will be driven by consumer spending and demand for services, according to the report. It revised its estimates for GDP growth in 2023 and 2024 upward to 2.2 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

“In CBO’s projections, the current economic expansion continues, and economic output grows rapidly over the next year,” the CBO said in its report. “To fulfill the elevated demand for goods and services, businesses increase both investment and hiring, although supply disruptions hinder that growth in 2022.”

One reason the CBO has become more optimistic about stronger growth—the shrinking budget deficit from increased activity.

The U.S. budget deficit will shrink dramatically to $1.036 trillion for fiscal 2022 from $2.775 trillion last year as a strong recovery prompts a surge in revenues and lower outlays, but slowing growth will start to reverse the trend due to higher inflation and rising interest rates, the Congressional Budget Office said.

FREDcorpprofits

U.S. corporations are making record profits as a percentage of GDP—in fact, the highest profits since World War Two, per the St Louis FRED historical graph from 1950 that I discussed in my last blog. During the pandemic it dropped briefly to 8 percent of GDP, but quickly rose to its current 11.2 percent, the best on record.

And consumers are still shopping as if there’s no tomorrow that make up some 70 percent of economic activity. So once again, why should investors be held hostage by shorter-term, quarterly projections that only become valid over the longer term, anyway?

Harlan Green © 2022

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Is the Age of Narcissism About to End?

Answering the Kennedys’ Call

Are we nearing the end of what historians and psychologists have called the Age of Narcissism, an era that has spawned populist governments and closed borders, the breakup of traditional families and communities, and the election of Donald Trump?

The Greeks may once again be an example for western liberal democracy after a multi-year struggle to reject their own neo-fascist autocracy that attempted to capitalize on this modern age of discontent.

Foreign Policy Magazine reports that the leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn political party were found guilty on Wednesday of a range of criminal activity, including using the party as cover to run a criminal organization.

“The ruling followed a trial that lasted five-and-a-half years. Several dozen party members and associates, including 18 former lawmakers and party leader Nikos Michaloliakos, were found guilty on a variety of charges, including murder, attempted murder, assault, and possession of weapons.”

Does this sound familiar? The FBI and Michigan’s State Police just arrested 13 members of two neo-fascist Michigan militia groups for plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Witmer and try her for treason, after their plan for an armed occupation of its state capital fell through.

This is while President Trump has refused to disavow white supremacist violence as well as autocratic foreign leaders for their abuse of human rights.

Trump is the man that has been diagnosed by multiple mental health professionals with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), “using other people as instruments of gratification even while craving their love and approval,” in the words of social historian Christopher Lasch.

While suffering from COVID-19, Trump has held several coronavirus super-spreader campaign events that infected some 34 supporters, Senators, and White House staff with COVID-19 to date; showing no concern for their health and safety.

Christopher Lasch was perhaps the first to broach the subject in various critiques of modern American society. This included his 1979 best-seller, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations that took “what was still mainly a narrow clinical term and used it to diagnose a pathology that seemed to have spread to all corners of American life,” per a recent NY Times summary of his book.

Lasch saw this as a societal pathology that took individualism to its destructive extreme of ‘me first’ over concern for others that broke up communities in the headlong rush to a post-WWII, consumer-driven economy. The extended family was transformed into the nuclear family of a married couple with children; grandparents migrating to senior living centers; as the growing middle class moved to  suburbs and away from traditional family and community values.

“In Lasch’s definition (drawn from Freud), the narcissist, driven by repressed rage and self-hatred, escapes into a grandiose self-conception, using other people as instruments of gratification even while craving their love and approval,” said the review. “Lasch saw the echo of such qualities in “the fascination with fame and celebrity, the fear of competition, the inability to suspend disbelief, the shallowness and transitory quality of personal relations, the horror of death.”

I contend that Greece’s example may be the first sign of the demise of the culture of narcissism, and its white supremacist, neo-fascist roots that have spawned so-called populist governments in Hungary, UK’s Brexit movement, and Presidents for life in Turkey and Russian.

We are now seeing its demise in the return to traditional households within the American populace, where families are once again coming together. NY Times’ Timothy Egan wrote a wonderful Op-ed on his yearning for the extended family that he saw returning in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The PEW Research Center reported that 64 million Americans were living in multigenerational households—the highest number on record, and an increase of almost 70 percent from 1980. Last year, for the first time in 100 years, the average number of people in the American household started going up instead of down, to 2.63 people per unit,” he reported.

The Age of Narcissism was probably a historical anomaly anyway, said Egan, which probably began its demise before the pandemic, as millennials remained stuck in their parents’ home during the Great Recession because of the lack of jobs and failure of Wall Street. It’s really an indictment of what our narcissistic culture has spawned since the 1970s—a modern, self-interested capitalism that enshrined “greed is good” and maximization of profits as the sole responsibility of modern corporations.

Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the courthouse to await the verdict of Greece’s Golden Dawn trial, reported Foreign Policy. When the news came, the crowds erupted in applause and cheers. “The mood here today is resonant of the celebrations we saw with the liberation of Athens from the Nazis. It’s a great day,” said Petros Constantinou, a leading anti-racism activist.

Harlan Green © 2020

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

 

Government Was Never the Problem

Popular Economics Weekly

MarketWatch.com

President Reagan’s all-encompassing campaign slogan that “government is the problem” was never the problem. But competent governance has been a problem; in as much as incompetent leaders have been the problem dogging the overall prosperity and sustainable economic growth in our free enterprise capitalist system.

Herbert Hoover was an incompetent leader who was very image conscious (as is our current President). He helped to precipitate the Great Depression by ignoring the changing times—and a stock market crash due to record income inequality of that time. The “roaring twenties” unleashed so much irrational exuberance that the public came to believe anyone could become a Great Gatsby that lived beyond their means if they played the financial markets right.

It took one of our greatest presidents to look behind the mirrors to lift our spirits and win World War II. But then President Roosevelt had already a lifetime of experience running government as an Assistant Navy Secretary in the 1920s, then as the Governor of New York.

Hoover was a mining engineer before entering politics. President Reagan, the ‘Great Communicator’, was also image conscious as a former actor. His rise to power came from being the great communicator for Big Business that wanted to gain more power and globalize its work force; therefore Reagan reduced the power of labor unions to bargain for their rights and instituted trickle-down economics.

We know how that ended. Whole industries were deregulated in the name of free enterprise and allowed to form monopolies. Very little of our national wealth has consequently trickled down to the rest of us; except maybe for the top 10 percent income earners since the end of the Great Recession.

Corporate CEOs now earn more than 300 times the average salary of their employees. AT&T’s CEO is apparently scheduled to retire with a lifetime $274,000 per month pension.

President Reagan became a great leader for the wealth-holders in extracting more wealth for themselves, in other words, but not for those workers that actually produced it. And now we need competent governance more than ever to extract us from this oncoming Great Recession, or Depression, depending on how quickly Americans can return safely to work from the damage done by COVID-19.

Even Treasury Secretary Mnuchin predicts we could reach a Great Depression level unemployment of 25 percent, if we don’t return to work sooner. But studies show that the recession will be prolonged if we return to normal before implementing all the CDC-administrations guidelines of social isolation, testing, and contact tracing until an effective vaccine is created.

“We need to find ways of getting the people who are healthy, who are at lower risk, back to work and then providing the assistance to those who are most at risk, who are going to need to be quarantined or isolated for the foreseeable future,” Minnesota Federal Reserve Governor Kashkari said in a recent CBS Sunday interview.

But such a plan depends on leaders that can lead all Americans, the poor as well as wealthy. Whereas, Jennifer Senior New York Times Op-ed contributor has perhaps described the current administration best: “Vice President Pence may talk about a “whole-of-government approach” to the pandemic, but what we really have is a government of holes,” she said recently.

We will have to slog a long, hard road until we get to either an effective therapy or a vaccine, even with good leadership. It’s hard for me to see a quick, V-shaped recovery because of what we are facing, and now we have so much mixed-messaging coming from Washington that creates even greater uncertainty.

The only competent leadership is in states like New York, California, and Michigan—mostly blue states with Democratic governors. So I ask, why must the response to a pandemic that doesn’t recognize borders be so partisan?

Harlan Green © 2020

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

A New Year’s Wish—Greater Prosperity for All!

Popular Economics Weekly

Although this cannot happen until results of the 2020 presidential election overturn a Republican Senate, I wish for something that President Eisenhower has said best. With higher tax rates that prevailed in the 1950-1970s, corporations in the past chose to spend their wealth on investments for future growth that were tax deductible, rather than pay the government.

Corporate tax rates since then have dropped to a low of 21 percent today.  What have corporations done instead with their record profits? Rutgers Economic historian James historian has been sounding the alarm about the results:

” So corporate profits do not drive economic growth — they’re just restless sums of surplus capital, ready to flood speculative markets at home and abroad. In the 1920s, they inflated the stock market bubble, and then caused the Great Crash. Since the Reagan revolution, these superfluous profits have fed corporate mergers and takeovers, driven the dot-com craze, financed the “shadow banking” system of hedge funds and securitized investment vehicles, fueled monetary meltdowns in every hemisphere and inflated the housing bubble.”

The architects of the Reagan revolution tried to reverse these trends as a cure for the stagflation of the 1970s, said Professor Livingston, but couldn’t. “In fact, private or business investment kept declining in the ’80s and after. Peter G. Peterson, a former commerce secretary, complained that real growth after 1982 — after President Ronald Reagan cut corporate tax rates — coincided with “by far the weakest net investment effort in our postwar history.”

There are many ways to look at the huge wealth disparities suffered by Americans whose household incomes have stagnated since the 1970s, when maximum tax rates were still in the 70 percent range. Americans wanted lower taxes so they could become voracious consumers, rather than pay for government services, which caused public investment to decline at the same time that it became the government’s job to create all the necessary public investments to protect consumers, and invest in their future.

It was public spending that in the past had enabled the building of our modern infrastructure of interstate highways and energy grid, as well as scientific research that led to the moon landing and Internet, for starters.

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts had similar effects between 2001 and 2007: real growth in the absence of new investment. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, retained corporate earnings that remain uninvested were 8 percent of G.D.P. in 2000. 

They have reached a record 14 percent of G.D.P. since then, even with a looming $1 trillion annual federal budget deficit.

Populareconomics.com

Sadly, corporations began to spend their growing wealth from lower taxation on themselves and their lobbyists that where able to push through legislation to strengthen their monopolistic consolidation (via deregulation) and labor unfriendly legislation,

It has resulted in the likes of such undemocratic lobbying entities as ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the advancer of red state policies such as voter ID laws that restrict voting rights, protector of NRA gun rights like Florida’s Stand Your Ground law that protects shooters rather than their victims, and the fossil fuel industry that has no interest in protecting our environment.

The ironic result is that consumers haven’t become wealthier with all the available and cheap consumer goods, haven’t really benefited from higher GDP growth, even with the increased employment we have today in lower-paying service jobs.

The decline in corporate tax rates to the current 21 percent has been disastrous for householders’ wealth and health. It is at the core of America’s record income inequality.

So let us wish for a greater prosperity for all in the New Year!

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Q3 GDP Unchanged

Popular Economics Weekly 

FRED

The Commerce Department’s final estimate of third quarter U.S. economic growth was unchanged at 2.1 percent, as strong consumer spending was offset by weaker business investment and shrinking inventories.

Consumers were the difference, as they kept up spending at a 3.2 percent annual pace, which was not quite as strong as the second quarter’s very strong 4.6 percent rate but enough to counteract the drop in business investment and inventories. Companies are not restocking their shelves as if they expect things to improve next year, in other words.

In fact there was a significant decline in spending that would create future growth. Q3 investments in structures fell 2.3 percent and spending on equipment declined 9.9 percent.

Why? Corporate profits are declining. Adjusted pretax corporate profits were revised in the final estimate to show a -0.2 percent decline instead of a +0.2 percent increase. Profits have fallen 1.2 percent in the past year, suggesting that business investment is unlikely to accelerate anytime soon.

The Business Roundtable on Wednesday said an index that measures CEOs’ outlook for the economy fell for the seventh quarter in a row, adding to doubts about future growth. The index slipped 2.5 points to 76.7, a bit below its historic average, reports MarketWatch.

Once again CEOs are saying the trade fight with China is widely viewed to have weakened the global economy, dampened U.S. exports and hurt American manufacturers.

“CEOs remain cautious in the face of uncertainty over trade policy and an associated slowdown in global growth and the U.S. manufacturing sector, which is currently contracting,” said the Roundtable.

This is while another indicator of future growth was basically flat. 

“The US Leading Economic Index (LEI) was unchanged in November after three consecutive monthly declines. Strength in residential construction, financial markets, and consumers’ outlook offset weakness in manufacturing and labor markets,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board. “While the six-month growth rate of the LEI remains slightly negative, the Index suggests that economic growth is likely to stabilize around 2 percent in 2020.”

This is what happens when corporate profits decline. It has to mean CEOs will eventually cut back on hiring as well. Stocks are rallying to record highs on news that a Phase I trade agreement with China should be signed in January. But its details are extremely vague, as China says it doesn’t want to buy all the agricultural products that Trump is demanding to help him in his re-election, for starters.

That is to say, there are too many details to still be worked out. And there is so much geopolitical uncertainty that companies will have to deal with in the New Year—Brexit, the EU maybe in recession, Trump’s impeachment trial, Russian interference with the 2020 election, etc.

So lots to worry about. The CEOs are saying why not keep some cash on hand for the next rainy day?

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Will Corporations Become More Responsible?

Popular Economics Weekly

Tradingeconomics

It is a sea change in economic thinking when corporate CEOs that belong to the Business Roundtable sign a Statement of Purpose to consider more than maximizing their profits, when maximizing corporate profits at the expense of their employees, social responsibilities, environment, and the public-at-large has been their reigning mindset until now.

They have just announced a Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, in which they “share a fundamental commitment to all of our Stakeholders”.

“The American dream is alive, but fraying,” said Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Chairman of Business Roundtable. “Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term. These modernized principles reflect the business community’s unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans.”

While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:

• · Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
• · Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect.
• · Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.
• · Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.
• · Generating long-term value for shareholders, who provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow and innovate. We are committed to transparency and effective engagement with shareholders.

It was in the 1970s that conservative economist Milton Friedman led the charge against Keynesian economics and government regulation that had rescued America from the Great Depression. The New Deal happened because Americans were willing to try anything to bring back jobs during the Great Depression, for fear that capitalism no longer worked.

A 2016 Forbes article described the Roundtable as comprised of 192 CEOs, and one of the most prominent lobbying groups in Washington, D.C. In 2015, the group spent $19.3 million on lobbying, making it the eighth biggest spender that year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Corporate profits have been on a tear for years, reaching a record share of GDP and Gross National Income in 2018 with the corporate tax cuts. What did they do with those profits? Invested it mainly in buybacks to boost share price and CEO incomes.

FRED

The result was has been record income inequality, as many manufacturing and other high-paying jobs were exported overseas via the growth of multinational corporations in the name of globalization. The FRED graph above illustrates the growth of corporate profits (blue line) over wages and salaries (red line), particularly since the last two recessions (gray columns).

But now income inequality and corporate social responsibility is in the headlines with the upcoming presidential campaign. Senators Sanders and Warren have been the loudest in calling out corporate “corruption”, a code word for using their power to enrich Wall Street and their stockholders, rather than Main Street.

Is this scaring Big Business enough to fulfill their commitment to serve Main Street, as it did during the Great Depression? The tide seems to be turning, as it is becoming increasingly evident that the record income inequality is causing corporations to rethink the role of capitalism in creating jobs that make America a better place to work and live.

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

US Economic Growth Continues For How Long?

Popular Economics Weekly

BEA.gov

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was "second" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 2.2 percent.

The growth is confounding some economists, as Q1 growth has been weak over past first quarters, per the BEA’s graph, while inflation is almost non-existent, with the core GDP price index up just 1.3 percent and declining.

But it’s not so confounding if we know it reflected an upturn in state and local government spending on infrastructure and other public services, since states are no longer waiting for the promised federal infrastructure bill that Trump is unable to come up with (hence the walkout of the scheduled meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that was to announce an infrastructure spending agreement).

Today's estimate reflects downward revisions to nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment and upward revisions to exports and personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Imports, continued the BEA report, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, were revised up; the general picture of economic growth remains the same.

But the Q1 growth uptick from December may be an anomaly as corporate profits are also falling, which is limiting their investments in new plants and equipment. Adjusted corporate profits before taxes fell at an annual 2.8 percent pace, the biggest decline since 2015, according to MarketWatch.

Corporate profits have risen just 3.1 percent in the past 12 months, down from 10 percent less than a year earlier. That can explain why business investment rose just 2.3 percent in the first three months of the year, the revised GDP figures show.

Econoday.com

Business investment is the seed corn for future growth, which means governments have to take up the slack if private business cuts back on basic spending that boosts productivity; or the US risks slumping back to 2 percent or less growth as happened prior to the Republicans’ December 2017 tax cuts that reduced corporate tax rates and gave a temporary boost to growth.

It’s therefore is a mystery why the Trump administration hasn’t made infrastructure a higher priority. It would create thousands of high-paying jobs.Congressional Republicans and Democrats have come together on a $2 trillion infrastructure bill, but can't get Trump's attention.

Most worrisome is the continued fall in interest rates, which has inverted the yield curve between 3-month and 10-year bond yields once again. The 10-year bond has fallen to 2.15 percent at this writing, the lowest in 5 years. Investors are fleeing to longer-term bonds because they fear an imminent slowdown.

Who can blame them with the China trade war taking on more ominous tones? China is now threatening to restrict the export of strategic rare earth minerals used in some of our most sensitive technology in response to the US banning of Huawei technologies in developing the US 5G Internet of the future.

One time frame given for a recession if the yield curve remains inverted for a prolonged period is 18 months—which would put it in the middle of next year’s Presidential campaign. But there’s also the possibility that the Federal Reserve will begin to lower interest rates to right the yield curve if they see a looming recession.

University of California economics Professor Peter Rupert summarized the odds of a looming recession in a recent forecast. Are there signs of a slowdown soon? “There are always some signs of slowing,” he said. Is there a recession coming? “There are always signs of a coming recession.” But when? “No one knows, sorry!”

Harlan Green © 2019

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Q3 Economic Growth Still Strong

Financial FAQs

 Econoday.com

Q3 real GDP growth was up 3.5 percent, according to the U.S. government Bureau of Economic Analysis. “With this second estimate for the third quarter, the general picture of economic growth remains the same; upward revisions to nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment were offset by downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and state and local government spending,” said the BEA.

Consumer spending is up 3.6 percent, and there is virtually no inflation. Prices are rising 1.7 percent annually per the GDP price deflator that measures the prices of all final goods and services produced domestically.

Econoday

Soaring corporate profits weren’t a big help to growth, however, as most of the profits are being spent on stock buybacks, though there was a slight increase of capital expenditures. Investment in equipment climbed 3.5 percent vs. virtually no increase in the preliminary estimate.

And spending on structures such as office buildings and drilling rigs fell 1.7 percent instead of -8 percent in the first estimate. Profits were up 19.4 percent after taxes, and tax payments fell 32.9 percent from last year. Corporates profits are therefore up 10.3 percent in a year, the best showing since 2012.

We also now have the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which is much more accurate than the previous reports from 13 federal agencies in pinning down the damage to economic growth. If nothing is done to mitigate its effects on coastal cities’ flooding from rising sea levels, increasing wildfires in drought-stricken regions, and the increasing frequency and ferocity of hurricanes and tornadoes, economic growth will suffer substantially.

“In the absence of significant global mitigation action and regional adaptation efforts, rising temperatures, sea level rise, and changes in extreme events are expected to increasingly disrupt and damage critical infrastructure and property, labor productivity, and the vitality of our communities.”

Need we say more about ignoring physical reality in all its forms? Profits must be invested where they will do the most good. If corporations won’t heed the looming threats to not only the environment but livelihoods as well, then government will find a more beneficial use for the $trillions being hoarded in the private sector.

Harlan Green © 2018

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Corporate Governance Reform—Women Make A Difference

ANSWERING THE KENNEDYS CALL

NYTimes.com

California State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson’s upcoming Senate Bill SB826 on reforming corporate governance will make corporations more responsive to the needs of the societies in which they operate by requiring more women to serve on their boards.

This is heady stuff, as research has shown that women on a corporate board are more likely to “create a sustainable future” by, among other things, instituting strong governance structures with a high level of transparency.

A 2012 UC Berkeley Hass School of Business study entitled, Women Create a Sustainable Future, to list just a few of the benefits of adding more women to corporate boards, are more likely to be:

· Companies that proactively invest in renewable power generation and related services.
· Companies that proactively address the environmental risks embedded in their financing decisions.
· Companies that provide strong employment benefits and performance incentives and offer employee engagement and professional development programs.
· Companies that offer products with an improved nutritional or healthier profile and have sought credible verification for its healthier status.

“Women and sustainability are two sides of the same coin …. Corporations build better societies if they have balanced boards,” said Halla Tomadottir, executive chair and co-founder of Audur Capital in Iceland, interviewed in the study. Ms. Tomadottir was on the all-female board of the only Icelandic bank that didn’t go into bankruptcy in 2008 during the Great Recession.

Perhaps her most famous quote, made in the Michael Moore documentary, Where to Invade Next? was “One woman on a board is a token, two women a minority. It takes three women to make a difference.” (sic)

“Take for example, a company like Nestlé,” says the Hass study, “which has recently turned its focus toward creating shared value with its product offerings in three areas: nutrition, water, and rural development. Nestlé uses science-based solutions to improve the quality of life through food and diet. "This type of social initiative is well aligned with corporate sustainability for Nestlé. Our research findings to date suggest that having more women corporate directors is correlated with these types of strategies and outcomes. Nestlé’s Board of Directors has three women.”

Senator Jackson’s bill, “no later than the close of the 2019 calendar year, would require a domestic general corporation or foreign corporation that is a publicly held corporation, as defined, whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California to have a minimum of one female, as defined, on its board of directors, as specified. No later than the close of the 2021 calendar year, the bill would increase that required minimum number to 2 female directors if the corporation has 5 directors or to 3 female directors if the corporation has 6 or more directors.”

The behavior of corporations and corporate boards has come under scrutiny particularly since the December 2017 massive corporate tax cuts that its supporters touted would repatriate some of the $3 trillion in overseas assets, as well as raise the incomes of its employees.

But that hasn’t happened to date, as the focus of corporations’ increased profits since then have been to return the windfall to investors and corporate CEOs—either by buying back more shares, going private, or indulging in Wall Street’s merger and acquisitions’ game, rather than creating sustainable programs that would profit society at large as well as themselves.

In a 1970 Times magazine article, the free market economist Milton Friedman argued that businesses' sole purpose is to generate profit for shareholders. Moreover, he maintained, companies that did adopt "responsible" attitudes would be faced with more binding constraints than companies that did not, rendering them less competitive.

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” -Milton Friedman, New York Times Magazine, September 1970.

How the world has changed since then! We now know that ignoring environmental and social issues can be bad for business. Companies that pollute their local communities risk poisoning their customers. Ignoring the state of the local school system can mean depleting the pool of qualified workers. Exploiting workers risks higher turnover and training costs, not to mention greater difficultly in attracting the most qualified candidates.

As part of its findings, SB826 provides some impressive supportive data about the benefits of board gender diversity, including the following:

“(1) A 2017 study by MSCI found that United States’ companies that began the five-year period from 2011 to 2016 with three or more female directors reported earnings per share that were 45 percent higher than those companies with no female directors at the beginning of the period.
(2) In 2014, Credit Suisse found that companies with at least one woman on the board had an average return on equity (ROE) of 12.2 percent, compared to 10.1 percent for companies with no female directors. Additionally, the price-to-book value of these firms was greater for those with women on their boards: 2.4 times the value in comparison to 1.8 times the value for zero-women boards.
(3) Credit Suisse conducted a six-year global research study from 2006 to 2012, with more than 2,000 companies worldwide, showing that women on boards improve business performance for key metrics, including stock performance. For companies with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion, those with women directors on boards outperformed shares of comparable businesses with all-male boards by 26 percent.”

The business world can no longer afford to ignore what it takes to create a sustainable future, a future in which our children can enjoy the fruits of our labor. How can we otherwise tolerate a world growing more populous with limited resources and a warming planet?

Harlan Green © 2018

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

What are Corporations Doing With Their Tax Cut?

Popular Economics Weekly

Economists are predicting second quarter GDP growth of as much as 3.8 percent, up from 2.2 percent in Q1 2018. But it may be a one-time surge, as all indications are the massive 2017corporate tax cut that lowered their nominal tax rate from 35 to 21 percent won’t create any more jobs than are normal in a fully-employed economy by investing, say, in more production capacity (i.e., in capital expenditures).

Instead, corporations are returning their one-time windfall of up to $300 billion to the stockholders, part of their already $2.1 trillion cash hoard that corporations haven’t been able to find a use for. So stock buybacks are the preferred use of their cash, or more M&A acquisitions like the AT&T purchase of Time Warner.

Graph: FRED

This isn’t helping the ordinary tax payer, as Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts of up to $1 trillion over the next ten years had to be enacted to pay for the corporate windfall and consequent addition of $1.5 trillion to the national debt. Federal tax revenues are plunging in consequence, as shown in the FRED Graph.

It isn’t boosting the stock market very much, either; just keeping the DOW and S&P indexes from falling further after the first-quarter selloff, with a 1.6 percent S&P 500 decline in the first quarter offset by a 3 percent gain in the second quarter, reports CNBC, leaving the index barely up about 1.4 percent for the year.

“Stocks right now are hanging by a thread, boosted by a bonanza of corporate buying unrivaled in market history and held back by a burst in investor selling that also has set a new record,” said CNBC.

Companies announced $433.6 billion in share repurchases during the period, nearly doubling the previous record of $242.1 billion in the first quarter, according to market research firm TrimTabs, per CNBC.

At the same time, investors dumped $23.7 billion in stock market-focused funds in June, also a new record. For the full quarter, the brutal June brought global net equity outflows to $20.2 billion, the worst performance since the third quarter of 2016, just before the presidential election. The selling is particularly acute in mutual funds, which saw $52.9 billion in outflows during the quarter and are typically more the purview of the retail side.

Why the selloff in stocks? Much of it has to do with the misinformation campaign of Trump officials, who literally maintain the opposite of reality. The Republican’s tax cut orthodoxy has always maintained that tax cuts create more jobs—that repatriating some $300B in overseas’ profits will be spent at home. But that’s only when corporations choose to invest in future growth, as I said, rather than enriching their CEOs and stockholders with higher dividends, or M&As that usually dilute shareholder equity,.

The national debt is on track to approach 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, said the nonpartisan CBO, which analyzes legislation for Congress. That amount is far greater than the debt in any year since just after World War II when it was 120 percent of GDP, which paid for WWII.

The numbers don’t lie. Tax revenues are in fact declining, which means those tax cuts aren’t paying for themselves. It also means a larger share of the tax revenue pie will have to be spent on interest payments, and therefore less on the programs that benefit most Americans—on healthcare, education, R&D, environmental protection, workplace protection, and poverty programs like food stamps—anything that would boost the standard of living for those living on the edge.

Harlan Green © 2018

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen