>About hte mystery of how profits can grow faster than the economy, has
>there been a long-term increase in the "corporateization" of the
>economy? I thinking of this: local store (which is counted in GDP, but
>is not traded on exchanges) is forced out of business by Wal-Mart (which
>is). Coul the discrepancy simply be due to more of the total GDP being
>controlled by publically traded companies? Are there any numbers on
>this?
Yes, this explains bit of it. The gross domestic product of nonfinancial corporate business was 52% of GDP in 1929. It fluctuated a bit into the late 1940s, and then started rising about 2 percentage points a decade into the 1980s, when it stabilized around its present level, 60-61%. The ratio of the market value of nonfin corp biz stock to the GDP of nonfinan corp biz is the highest it's been since the flow of funds numbers start in 1952.
Doug