Cut The Overhead and WIn the Game

Kevin Drum at Mother Earth highlights something that ought to make most everyone just a little irritated, especially considering that 2/3 of the bastards paid absolutely nothing in income taxes last year. Something is very, very wrong.

Fortune magazine reports on corporate revenue:

Last year, Fortune 500 sales fell 8.7% to $9.8 trillion, the largest percentage decline since 1983.

And yet profits soared:

For 2009, the Fortune 500 lifted earnings 335%, to $391 billion, a $301 billion jump that's the second largest in the list's 56-year history....The 500's profits virtually returned to normal after years of extremes — bubbles in 2006 and 2007, collapse in 2008 — despite a feeble overall recovery that's far from normal.

I am not sure this has ever happened before. How can corporate profits triple during a recession while sales fell 8.7%?  How do you increase profits when sales fall? You cut overhead.  "In 2009, the Fortune 500 shed 821,000 jobs, the biggest loss in its history — almost 3.2% of its payroll."  It sure seems to me that the only people suffering due to the 'recession' are workers. The fat cats on Wall Street are doing great and spending those multi-million dollar bonuses. The corporations are making huge profits. The only people having any worries, losing their homes and dying without health insurance are us plebes.