The reason they aren’t mentioning it is because corporate profits actually fell slightly last quarter, so they weren’t a record. Annualized profits were $2.97T in Q3 vs $3.00T in Q2.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=18673&rid=53
▪️For some reason Reich selects non-financial profits, a subcategory of profits. I’ll post a screenshot in the comments so you can see. But he doesn’t specify this or explain his use of a subcategory, and makes the false claim that corporate profits reached a record last quarter.
▪️Keep in mind, it’s not surprising that nominal corporate profits would rise during high inflation. Profits are business income, and just like nominal wages for employees, tend to rise. If there’s inflation and profits stay the same, then they actually fall in real terms, just like wages.
▪️But it’s disingenuous of Reich to harp on profits driving inflation, when he never does the same for wages, despite wages being $9.7T per year (in 2021) and rising. We also never hear “wages reached a new record last quarter” from him.
https://www.bls.gov/cew/publications/employment-and-wages-annual-averages/2021/home.htm
▪️But neither wages and profits are drivers of inflation. Those are (mostly) the result of productive economic activity. Strangely, Reich is silent on the $5T added to the Fed’s balance sheet during Covid. Money created out of thin air, not from production, and the real driver of inflation.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
It’s bizarre to see them seesaw back and forth that Trump is totally clueless and aloof, just golfing all day, then all of a sudden he’s a dangerous king/dictator who’s diligently plotting to seize absolute power.
▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are ...
