{"id":242540,"date":"2017-07-31T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=242540"},"modified":"2017-08-01T16:00:44","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T20:00:44","slug":"the-big-story-corporate-profitability-at-six-year-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2017\/07\/31\/the-big-story-corporate-profitability-at-six-year-high\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Story: Corporate Profitability at Six-Year High"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I want to start with a couple of stories that may not move mountains in the daily perusal of the news. The first one here in the Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Companies Post Profit Growth Not Seen in Six Years.<\/a>” Now, the reason I want to focus on this, folks, is because if you pay attention to the news, which I have often advised and suggested you not, then you would be forgiven for concluding the country is falling apart.<\/p>\n

\"\"You would seem to be perfectly logical if, after a daily diet of news, you think everything is coming unglued and that we are in heap big trouble because Trump doesn\u2019t seem to know what he\u2019s doing and doesn\u2019t have staff that\u2019s loyal and whatsoever else that\u2019s associated with this. The collusion story, which, by the way, more and more media outlets are now having to begrudgingly admit is falling apart. And you know why?<\/p>\n

Jared Kushner\u2019s statement after he came out of his so-called testimony before the committees. It\u2019s interesting, some of the least expected or least anticipated things can carry huge amounts of weight. And Kushner coming out, saying what he said, and eventually ultimately saying that the real insult here is to Trump voters by saying their votes are irrelevant and votes don\u2019t count. It was a powerful statement.<\/p>\n

\"\"That story is starting — it is not ever gonna go away because the Democrats have too much invested in it, but the weight of it and the credibility behind it is beginning to wane now. Health care I think is still something that\u2019s at the top of many people\u2019s minds and especially the betrayal of John McCain.<\/p>\n

Sadly, McCain\u2019s behavior on the floor of the Senate and his vote, which is in direct contradiction to promises he\u2019s made on the campaign trail, unfortunate to have to say this, but McCain\u2019s actions and his vote give credence to much of the criticism McCain has faced throughout his political career, it validates it.<\/p>\n

That vote on health care, he runs for office telling people, you know, in a contested race, that repealing Obamacare has to happen. Nothing is more important. We\u2019ve got to do it. It\u2019s the scourge of the land. And when the time came to do it, McCain thumbs down, and the media and the left embrace him. And it was clear to me, and in a human sense you almost can understand it, this was Trump\u2019s payback. It contains payback for Trump\u2019s comments about him on the campaign trail shortly after he announced.<\/p>\n

But back to the profitability story here. I realize that there are a lot of young people who are not gonna be impressed by this, a lot of people who have been force-fed education from the left, have been raised to hate companies, to hate corporations. That they\u2019re all evil, that they hate their customers, that they kill their customers, that they screw their customers, that they\u2019re destroying the planet, you know the gamut of things said.<\/p>\n

And in this atmosphere of media coverage that suggests the country is in a nosedive, that we are in the midst of chaos and calamity, the fact of the matter is, that out there in the real world where commerce takes place, commerce that is related to and encourages the increasing standard of living of people, where actual life is occurring.<\/p>\n

See, I don\u2019t think Washington, D.C., is actual life. I mean, people are alive there, and they\u2019re living, but it\u2019s disconnected to daily life in the rest of the country. And the evidence for that is just watch the news every day. And you\u2019ll find out that what is interesting to people in the news often is not interesting to you and certainly is not relevant. If anything, it\u2019s a distraction or it\u2019s the equivalent of reading gossip magazines and articles and so forth.<\/p>\n

But out in the real world there are real things happening that affect real people, and the real things happening happen to be pretty good. Strong earnings. “U.S. Companies Post Profit Growth Not Seen in Six Years — America\u2019s largest companies are on pace to post two consecutive quarters of double-digit profit growth for the first time since 2011, helped by years of cost-cutting, a weaker dollar and stronger consumer spending,” which is related to stronger consumer confidence.<\/p>\n

2011 is six years ago. We never got headlines like this during the Obama administration because headlines like this were not the objective. “Profit growth” was not something Obama and his people were interested in, unless (outside chance) the profit was associated with major Obama donors, and then the profit was tolerated and not targeted. But for the most part, Obama and the Democrats have been targeting profit politically all of my life as an evil thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"And they have been educating our kids to believe that profit is an evil thing, that it denies people things. Profit benefits corporations and corporations hate people is the basic theme. “Earnings at S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 11% in the second quarter” which ends today, “according to data from Thomson Reuters, following a 15% increase in the first quarter. Close to 60% of the firms in the index have reported second-quarter results so far.” A bunch of them starting tomorrow, Apple among them.<\/p>\n

“Corporate America\u2019s strong earnings performance comes as several policy initiatives that were expected to help boost companies\u2019 bottom line — corporate-tax cuts and increased government spending on infrastructure — have been sidetracked,” even though those things haven\u2019t happened. And then you throw in what “culminated with the recent failure of the health-law bill.” You throw that in — and that it is still happening. There have to be reasons for it.<\/p>\n

“The second-quarter profit gains are spread across industries from Wall Street banks to Detroit\u2019s car factories to Silicon Valley\u2019s software labs. Earnings are expected to decline only in the utilities sector…” I wonder: What is dominant in “the utilities sector”? How do utilities fail? Everybody has to have \u2019em. The government regulates \u2019em, but what is it that could possibly explain utilities failing? I would think it would probably be green energy in that such as all of this time and money wasted in solar and even greater time and money wasted in wind.<\/p>\n

“Companies also continue to reap the fruits of their recent zeal for cutting costs, [Christopher Probyn, chief economist for State Street Global Advisors] said. ‘We underestimated some of the cost-cutting and restructuring that has gone on within the various industries; that has permitted earnings to keep doing well.\u2019 Sales, too, rose in the quarter, by an expected 5%, the second-biggest increase in more than five years…” So it makes you wonder what could happen if the Senate and if the Congress could actually get out of Trump\u2019s way and work with him.<\/p>\n

Imagine if there actually has been a repeal and replace of Obamacare and imagine if we really would get tax reform, which Newt Gingrich says: If we don\u2019t, then it\u2019s sayonara for a lot of people. (Newt\u2019s actively engaged on this.) “Gingrich: 2018 Election Could Be ‘Tough\u2019 If No Tax Reform By Thanksgiving.” Now, many of these companies — you know as well as I do — have been anticipating this happening.<\/p>\n

They have been anticipating much of the Trump agenda, and they have been pre-investing in it, assuming that business circumstances are going to exist after major tax cut reform. And many people are still invested in the idea. They haven\u2019t given up on it. The failure to repeal Obamacare\u2019s got everybody thinking that no legislation\u2019s gonna happen and this is leading people to analyze why no legislation is gonna happen. The more people that begin to think that legislation\u2019s tied up, such as tax reform or health care reform…<\/p>\n

\"\"If that\u2019s tied up simply because a bunch of insiders simply want to deny Trump\u2019s success, then there\u2019s gonna be hell to play. Everybody is trying to blame Trump in the media and in the establishment. They\u2019re trying to blame all of this dysfunction, if you will, on Trump for not knowing what he\u2019s doing, for not having decent liaisons from the White House to Capitol Hill, for not being a great negotiator, not knowing a thing about the art of the deal, not even knowing what\u2019s in the legislation. The lists of criticisms aimed at Trump are endless.<\/p>\n

But, as far as the American public is concerned, Trump\u2019s out there trying to get this stuff done. That\u2019s what they see, and they see a dysfunctional Senate. They see candidates who promised things all during campaigns and when it comes time for the pedal to hit the metal or the rubber to hit the road? Nada. Nothing happened. But while all this is happening, there is profit growth, and with profit growth comes economic growth. With profit growth comes new jobs. Now, as I say, much of our country has been educated to resent news like this.<\/p>\n

Much of our country has been taught and educated — propagandized — to think this is scandalous. If a company\u2019s doing well, that\u2019s unfair, because companies are not people! Corporations are not people, and when corporations are doing well, it automatically must mean — to young people who\u2019ve never been taught critical thinking — that everybody else has to be doing bad. Because to them, life is a zero-sum game. That\u2019s why these stories are important.<\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a companion story to this. It is a Pew poll I found from Breitbart. “Most Americans Say the Democrat Party Has Become Too Statist<\/a>.” By the way, this is why I love it when Trump\u2019s out there doing his rallies. You\u2019ve probably heard him say, “In America we don\u2019t worship government; we worship God.” This is a twofer in the sense that both assertions literally cause insanity among Democrats and leftists. A, they do worship government, and, B, they don\u2019t believe in God.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s even a C: They really hate people who do. They mock them; they make fun of them. People who make it known that they are deeply religious, devoutly religious, believe in God? Those are problematic people to people on the left. So here comes Trump dropping these little miniature nuclear political bombs every time he makes that statement. The Pew survey was conducted throughout the summer. Of 2,504 adults 18 years of age or older, 61% of Americans see the Democrat Party as too government centered.<\/p>\n

Now, I know what some of you are thinking; it\u2019s hard not to be cynical here. The fact of the matter is, I remind you again at my own great peril: Democrats continue to lose elections, don\u2019t they? Despite — despite — the betrayal of the Republicans. Despite the claims of the Republicans to execute their promises and the failure to do so, the Democrats continue to lose elections. I will bravely predict that they\u2019re going to continue to lose elections. I\u2019ve seen stories in the last couple of weeks about their new campaign slogan.<\/p>\n

Better jobs, better wages, better future, better whatever. Everything they\u2019re doing — their phraseology, if you don\u2019t dig deep into it — sounds moderate to conservative. Hillary Clinton had nothing to campaign on. You know, people mistakenly say that she had no message. She had such a message; it was rejected. This is the thing that you have to keep in mind. Whenever you hear the media or any election analyst say, “Well, of course Hillary lost.<\/p>\n

“She was a lousy candidate. She had no message. She couldn\u2019t tell anybody why she wanted to run.” That\u2019s partially true. She couldn\u2019t tell anybody because if she had she would have lost by an even larger margin. Don\u2019t think the Democrats don\u2019t have a message. Don\u2019t think the Democrats are wandering aimlessly through the desert desperately trying to find an agenda. They\u2019ve got one. They just don\u2019t dare bear it. They just don\u2019t dare tell people what it is.<\/p>\n

And even despite that, people have picked up on it, as this Pew poll indicates. Of that 2,504 (a big sample) 18 years of age or older, 61% (a big number in any poll) “see the Democrat Party as too government centered, believing the state should be the only recourse for solving problems in society.” I think it\u2019s great that so many Americans see the Democrat Party that way, critically. Sixty-one percent essentially say the Democrat Party\u2019s become too statist.<\/p>\n