U.S. Government shuts down.

[Jester]

Corporate profits after tax will rise on that EXP(x) type curve as GDP rises.

Except the exponential curve on corporate profits is rising *much* faster than GDP since 2000. The share has doubled since the 1980s.

Capital builds on capital. That is the notion of Capitalism. They build enterprise, which transforms raw materials, and labor into good and services that people buy. The profits are shared with investors, and reinvested in new enterprise.

There are two processes in a horse race. One is the accumulation of capital, which will *lower* rather than increase corporate profits, as more and more capital competes with itself for the same stock of workers. The other is innovation, which opens up new things to apply capital to, increasing productivity. (These are the two often conflated, but actually distinct, roles of capital allocation and entrepreneurship.)

And then, of course, there is political economy: Just get the government to charge you less taxes, underwrite your losses, or just plain redistribute money towards you. That also works.

-Jester