Jack, are you believing the chart because it feeds into ideology, or did you do any research or it to see if it was true? Since MSG Stan Hutchison gave his comment below, I'll include him with this because obviously he did all the research and understands the information behind the graphs based on his comments.

Here's the information from the FRED referencing the chart in the meme. I like the way the meme does the "propaganda" display of the chart to imply to the uniformed that "100" is the floor of the profits (they edited the chart on FRED and selected "scale to 100" for the end of Q1 for 2012 ... nice manipulation). I was going to adjust the "green pandemic zones" to be accurate but left them the same as your meme.

Not only is the chart portrayed so the uninformed looking at it would think "Wow! That's something like a 500% profit", but even if you do look at the numbers, you would think it's a 60% to 70% increase in corporate profits (Hey, they title of the meme is Corporate Profits, so it MUST be true).

Now, you are correct that the profits after the pandemic are higher, but your implication is that this is how much they made which is of course incorrect. I understand that the left wants to throw out whatever red meat they can to the masses to distract from the facts.

If you compare how much actual profit was made on the right ($2.60 trillion) instead of the misinformation (using the left's favorite term, but this time it accurately describes the meme) to the point that was just before the pandemic ($2.22 trillion) you'll see there is actually a 17.1% growth. Your chart implies that there was an actual 58% growth in profits.

Let's see ... what else grew over 17% since Biden took office? Come on class, we know this one. Anyone? Anyone? It starts with a "I" and ends with "nflation". Thanks Joe, you did that!

Stan, I await the attack of denial from the left somehow disputing the information. I don’t really expect you to provide any information that contradicts it aside from some opinion piece you can dig up with rhetoric saying it’s all due to corporations. Please provide some actual information and I’ll be happy to have a conversation instead of your normal snarky comments that provide nothing other than showing how little critical thinking is done by your side. Is the information used from the Fed wrong? Is there some secret fund from the ‘Corporate Cabal’ that has all the money hidden away that you have proof of? Anything?

I await the crickets that normally accompany the lack of response when I get off on a fact-finding tangent and club the progressives over the head with facts.

To pile on with the “you have to lead the left by the nose because they don’t apply critical thinking” lesson, this administration asked the Federal Reserve to look into the abuse of corporate profits and a report was published by Dino Palazzo, a Principal Economist on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. I copied some of the report down below, but you should actually read it so you understand it. I know, it's not as easy as throwing up a meme and saying "See! They made a lot of money!"

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/corporate-profits-in-the-aftermath-of-covid-19-20230908.html

Here are the key points, but I don’t want you to take my word for it, look at the detailed breakdown by the Fed about corporate profits. I know – it’s not going to fit your narrative, so as the left’s Patron Saint of Obfuscation, Nancy Pelosi, says “I reject your facts for my opinion”.

“Our analysis shows that much of the increase in aggregate profit margins following the COVID-19 pandemic can be attributed to (i) the unprecedented large and direct government intervention to support U.S. small and medium sized businesses and (ii) a large reduction in net interest expenses due to accommodative monetary policy. Once we adjust for fiscal and monetary interventions, the behavior of aggregate profit margins appears much less notable, and by the end of 2022 they are essentially back at their pre-pandemic levels.”

and

“Corporate profit margins were not abnormally high in the aftermath of the COVID- 19 pandemic, once fiscal and monetary interventions are accounted for. This conclusion is supported by the behavior of the net capital share, which remained well below its historical high levels, and by firm-level profit margins across different size categories, which behaved broadly in line with their pre-COVID trends. If there is any anomaly to note, it should probably be that the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by a persistent weakness in the profitability of middle-sized publicly traded firms.”

Finally, the second chart I put up was the exact same timeframe but looking at the profit compared to the previous year as a percent change. So during the shutdown you can see that the profits were negative for two quarters in 2020 and then skyrocketed when the economy was opening followed by the whipsaw effect until it starts to flatten down in a more predictable pattern.

What you don’t see are “greedflation” numbers. I know it’s a great talking point to distract from the ‘fantastic success’ of Bidenomics, but most aren’t buying it .. except for the die-hard supporters on the left (roughly 30% of the country). You know, that other 70% of Americans are just too stupid to know how good they have it because they are basing their opinion wrongly on how they are living in the economy instead of knowing what they should think because they aren’t listening to the White House.

Household debt is rising sharply and so is credit card lateness as people burn through their savings in order to afford things in Biden’s “booming economy”.
Job numbers are good. There is also a significant increase of those coming from the creation of government jobs, not jobs in the private sector.

***********
Here’s some of the key intro comments from the Fed’s report if you can’t be bothered to follow the link to the whole thing (it might contradict the narrative you are trying to spin).

September 08, 2023
Corporate Profits in the aftermath of COVID-191
Berardino Palazzo†

Overview

This note documents the behavior of corporate profit margins during and in the aftermath of the pandemic. As the traditional measure of corporate profit margin is heavily affected by fiscal support and its withdrawal, it also proposes an alternative measure. The note also provides insights on the dynamics of profit margin at firm level.

In the aftermath of COVID-19, inflation increased to levels that the U.S. economy has not witnessed for more than 40 years. This phenomenon has spurred a large quantity of policy commentary and academic research discussing its causes.2 One popular narrative goes as follows: in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid a surge in demand and contemporaneous supply chain bottlenecks, corporate businesses increased the price of their final goods and services above and beyond what was justified by changes in labor costs and input prices. The outcome was a marked increase in profit margins that has contributed to overall inflation.3

But were corporate profit margins abnormally high in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic? The answer depends on measurement. Using a measure of nonfinancial corporate profits from the national income accounts–before tax profits with capital consumption adjustment–we find that nonfinancial corporate profit margins, or profits over gross value added, increased sharply to about 19% in 2021q2 and slipped back to 15% in 2022q4, compared to about 13% in 2019q4. This contrasts sharply with the steep dive in margins that normally occurs during a severe economic contraction.

Our analysis shows that much of the increase in aggregate profit margins following the COVID-19 pandemic can be attributed to (i) the unprecedented large and direct government intervention to support U.S. small and medium sized businesses and (ii) a large reduction in net interest expenses due to accommodative monetary policy. Once we adjust for fiscal and monetary interventions, the behavior of aggregate profit margins appears much less notable, and by the end of 2022 they are essentially back at their pre-pandemic levels.

The rich seem to get richer regardless of who's in office, it's a matter of how bad the peasants get beat down

The thing is, in Washington anyway. They have to pay an enormous amount college graduates are wondering why they wasted 4 years of their life in school.