Class wars—American style

Paul Krugman is correct (which is not something I often have the occasion to write): “that while the election is over, the class war isn’t.”

The same people who bet big on Mr. Romney, and lost, are now trying to win by stealth — in the name of fiscal responsibility — the ground they failed to gain in an open election.

Yes, but. . .

The class wars are not just about fiscal deficits, taxes, and entitlements—although they certainly are about those, to the extent they impinge on how much of the surplus corporations and members of the 1 percent get to keep.

They’re also about what happens long before government taxes and expenditures come into play. As it turns out, U.S. corporate profits reached a record high in the third quarter of this year, even adjusted for inflation, according to a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

source

Profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) increased $67.3 billion in the third quarter, compared with an increase of $21.8 billion in the second quarter. This is particularly significant since corporate profits from the rest of the world actually declined slightly in the third quarter, which means that all of the increase in corporate profits came from U.S. sources.

Yes, class wars are taking place in the United States but, in typical American fashion, the focus is on the debates over the so-called fiscal cliff in Washington, D.C. (where the winner of the presidential election and his allies have a slight edge)—all the while ignoring what is taking place within corporations in the rest of the country (which we never had a chance to vote on).