Unemployment: 10.2%. Corporate Profits: Up 10.6%

Feeling better yet?

Corporate profits, which logged some record-breaking soars during the Bush years, are back to their not-so-old form: 10.6 percent in the third quarter, four-tenth better than the national unemployment rate. That’s not all. Productivity, still at 1.8 percent in 2007 and 2008 despite economic slowdowns, was up 6.9 percent in the second quarter this year and 9.5 percent in the third. If you’re still employed, you’re working harder, doing the work of those around you who’ve been fired, and you’re doing it for less. That’s how you get corporate profits in double-digits blowing a big raspberry to the unemployed.