>Do you mean US profit share of US GDP or of world profit share of "Gross
>World Product"?
The first.
>Or in general, whose profits as a share of what? As long
>as money from outside the US is invested in US stock markets, it seems to
>me it's not just US profits and US GDP that counts. Consider, by way of
>example, a highly profitable Singapore firm deciding to "park" a certain
>proportion of its earnings in a portfolio made entirely of US firms (or, to
>match the GDP definition as opposed to the old GNP, firms producing
>entirely in the US). The Singaporean firm's action will tend to bid up
>those stock values, and thus raise returns in the form of capital gains,
>even though US GDP remains unaffected. It's at least plausible, no? I'm
>not asserting that's what happened because I don't have any numbers.
Sure, but this works both ways. US investors have plenty of foreign stock holdings - as I recall the numbers (not enough free memory right now to load up Excel and factcheck this) it's pretty close to a wash. (Debt's another story; there, the US is in a $2 trillion hole.) But even if an inflow of foreign capital did boost US stock prices, if you believe that trees don't grow to the sky, then prices can't go higher ad infinitum. Though maybe this is a New Era.
Doug