[PEN-L:267] Re: Re: rising rate of profit

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

JayHecht@xxxxxxx wrote:

>Did you net out financial income from industrial profits ?  For example, GMAC
>and GE finance provide significant income to GM and GE.

For GM (and the other auto companies),it's almost entirely to finance the
sale of their cars & trucks. They're capturing their former bankers'
profits. GE, of course, is another story, with a vast & mighty financial
empire.

A lot of the profit rise in the 1990s has been from a decline in interest
costs, both from lower debt loads and lower rates. If you add interest and
profits together to estimate a corporate surplus, that line is pretty flat.

Doug