>Shouldn't these figures be averaged according to the business cycle,
>from peak to peak. Since business cycles don't coincide with the
>beginning and ending of decades, these figures don't reflect how the
>economy expands and contracts.
True, but the text referred to decades, not bizcycles. In GDP growth terms, the current/recent expansion was slightly faster than the 1980s expansion (1982-90) and slow than the late 1970s (1975-80). But the differences are insignificant. Hourly earnings growth was positive in the recent expansion, and negative in the earlier two.
>Cockburn makes the assertion (without figures) that the "rate of
>profits was falling the non-financial corporate sector,
>significantly so in manufacturing." As Marx points out the fall in
>the rate of profit can be offset the accumulation of the mass of
>profit, so how can this be measured for 1998-2000?
Profitability for non-financial corps rose pretty steadily from 1982 to 1997, and has been going sideways to down since.
Doug