[WS:] But doesn't Brenner argue the opposite, that is, declined profit
rates (profits/investments) precipitate stagnation and eventual decline?
I think that the issue is more conceptually complex than it appears on the surface. Facing declining rates of profits, individual capitalists may jump the ship and transfer their "non-performing" assets to someone else (e.g. securitization.) That may temporarily boost the profit rates of individual capitalists or even national economies. But that does not change the fact that the asset is fundamentally non-performing and thus a net loss. That loss might have been swept under the rug through various financial edifices, but you cannot paper over the crap forever - eventually it will hit the fan (as it has in 2007.)
So the real question is to what degree corporate balance books (and consequently national statistics) have been "enronized" i.e. showing artificial profits by covering up actual losses?
Wojtek
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 10:22 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 10:15 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>
> > My understanding is profits have been soaring on both the manufacturing
> and service side
>
> Yup. Doesn't Adam Smith have a line about how profits are highest in
> countries speeding most rapidly towards ruin?
>
> Doug
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