via Bloomberg
U.S. corporations’ after-tax profits have grown by 171 percent under Obama, more than under any president since World War II, and are now at their highest level relative to the size of the economy since the government began keeping records in 1947, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Profits are more than twice as high as their peak during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and more than 50 percent greater than during the late-1990s Internet boom, measured by the size of the economy.
The Republicans would like you to believe that, shortly after taking office, President Obama reached into his Six Demon Bag and blasted his enemies with the power of tyranny, socialism -- all that kind of thing -- but that simply isn't the world we live in. We live in a world where corporate profits are soaring and labor costs are bottoming out.
There are conservative pundits who claim Bill Clinton was only able produce a budget surplus because of the internet boom in the late 90s, not because he raised taxes, so it will be amusing to see what they say if President Obama manages to, at the very least, put the country on a path toward repeating that success in the absence of another economic bubble.
The president's unwillingness to endorse the creation of another bubble waiting to burst is an under-appreciated quality of this administration. And we should not forget that the previous administration responded to a recession with a massive tax giveaway to the rich and the "ownership society" which lead to whole-sale mortgage fraud and the lingering mess we find ourselves in today.