MICHIGAN GANG OF PIGS (GOP)
http://www.businessinsider.com/profit-margins-are-getting-ever-fatter-2014-7
Business Insider
This comes at a time when profit margins are already at historic highs.
Ever since the financial crisis, sales growth has been weak. However, corporations have been able to deliver robust earnings growth by fattening profit margins. Much of this has been done by laying off workers and squeezing more productivity out of those on the payroll.
Stock market bears have warned that these margins are doomed to revert, leading to a correction in profits and stock prices.
For now, all signs point to continued margin growth.
"[T]he majority of earnings growth we have observed so far this quarter has been a function of margins, as companies continue to operate with as few expenses as possible," wrote analysts at JP Morgan Asset management.
Here's Butters' margin chart:
Butters' note include these anecdotes from this season's earnings conference calls.
“The first step to building the right
organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce. With this in
mind, we will begin to reduce the size of our overall workforce by up
to 18,000 jobs in the next year.” – Microsoft (Jul. 15)
“Alcoa continues to drive strong
performance across all businesses, delivering $302 million in second
quarter productivity gains across all segments and $556 million in
year-over-year productivity gains in the first half of 2014 against an
$850 million annual target. Productivity gains have been driven by
process improvements and procurement savings across all businesses.”
–Alcoa (Jul. 8)
Among the early reporters, companies in
food-oriented industries in particular have highlighted cost cutting
measures. For more information on food cost inflation, please see our
latest FactSet Economic Insight report at the following link: http://www.factset.com/insight/2014/7/econ-insight-food-inflation
“Cost savings from the company's CCI
program and the impact of higher-margin industrial products improved
gross profit margin, which rose to 39.9% from 39.3% in the year-ago
period.” –McCormick & Co. (Jun. 26)
“Our Consumer Foods supply chain cost
reduction programs continue to yield good results, and delivered cost
savings of approximately $50 million for the quarter.” –ConAgra Foods
(Jun. 26)
“In addition, supply chain cost-savings
from our ongoing Holistic Margin Management (HMM) program are expected
to exceed $400 million in 2015. We anticipate these savings will offset
input cost inflation, which we estimate at 3 percent for the new year.”
–General Mills (Jun. 25)
“We remain focused on cost discipline to
offset the negative effects of our gross profit dollar growth. We will
be accelerating our optimization efforts, taking additional steps to
lower our expenses company- wide.” –Walgreen (Jun. 24)
“We've continued to achieve a more
cost-effective platform. Transformative changes that we've talked about
the past in Darden's operations have significantly reduced costs by over
$150 million annually in selected operating areas around support
including supply chain, facilities management, water and energy usage.”
–Darden Restaurants (Jun. 20)
In general , Republicans have
Yet why are the Republicans, in Michigan and in general so desperate AS TO EGREGIOUSLY VIOLATE THE FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN PRINCIPLE THAT THE MAJORITY RULES; THE MINORITY FOLLOWS THE MAJORITY'S LEAD? Desperation is a sign of weakness. They sense a weakness in themselves , in their status as the elite ruling class. The 1% feels vulnerable to the 99% rising for income equality.
The majority supporting Obama nationally is even greater than current events reflect, because the House of Representatives's districts were gerrrymandered after the tea Republican surge in 2010; to there were more votes for Democratic House members in 2012, but that was not reflected in a Democratic majority in the House.
Majority rule
Obama is clearly acting more freely in a progressive way since he doesn't face anymore elections. He has big majorities for what he is doing.For the Republicans to try to thwart everything Obama tries to do is unAmerican, sore losers. Cheating bigtime.
Those majorities are bigger than the majority the media gives the impression he has. For one thing, the Republicans gerrymandered the House of Rep districts outrageously, really against the basic American democratic principle of majority rule and so fundamentally illegal. So, the whole charade since 2010 , as the main media (not just Fox) presents it , is the Republican House is equal with the President in every damn thing. The Republican House has brazenly tried to usurp Presidential Executive Power, and CBS, NBC, ABC, don't call em on it. Just report it as the two legitimate sides of national political discourse. The Republicans are political criminals right now in terms of the fundamentals of American democracy. Anyway, it gives the impression Obama has smaller popular majorities for his policies than he does.
Gerrymandering is unAmerican because it cheats on majority rule.
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