As of 12:30 PT

Update:

The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 100 points today, allowing the world’s most-watched stock index to close at a record high.

It marks the highest daily close since October 2007, just before the financial crisis punished the stock market.

For the latest information go to www.latimes.com.

Corporate profits

Workers’ wages as a percentage of the economy, which are hovering near record lows.

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:

The March 4 NYT headline lays it out bluntly: “Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs.” …Even those who are employed are finding that their wages are not growing relative to the explosion in corporate profits.

The grim figures in terms of the working class speak for themselves in the NYT story:

As a percentage of national income, corporate profits stood at 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, the largest share at any time since 1950, while the portion of income that went to employees was 61.7 percent, near its lowest point since 1966. [...]

Corporate earnings have risen at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent since the end of 2008, he said, but disposable income inched ahead by 1.4 percent annually over the same period, after adjusting for inflation.

As BuzzFlash at Truthout noted in “A Tale of Two Economies” last autumn:

However, what is more important than the unemployment rate is the overall degradation of work and wage stagnation and decline under the current corporate and business climate that devalues labor.  [...]

This is the primary story of economic distress in the United States at this time: the devaluation of those who are paid by the hour….

After all, we have two economies – and one of them you barely hear about as billionaires whine about the threat of higher taxes on their wealth.  The second economy, the economy of the privileged, is booming.  The other day the stock market reached near record highs. [...]

The rich are making out like bandits in the booming Wall Street economy that is based on profits squeezed out of firing workers, lowering net wages (adjusted for inflation), and outsourcing jobs to exploited labor overseas. [...]

[T]he March 2013 NYT article begins with these observations:

[...] With millions still out of work, companies face little pressure to raise salaries, while productivity gains allow them to increase sales without adding workers….

The result has been a golden age for corporate profits, especially among multinational giants that are also benefiting from faster growth in emerging economies like China and India. [...]

As the stock market soars, those who labor for a living are left further and further behind.

Please read the entire post here.