"First Quarter Corporate Profits Tumble Most Since Lehman"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-03/top-first-quarter-corporate-profits-tumble-most-lehman

"Last Thursday's second release of the Q1 national accounts showed a 14% decline in the BEA's measure of adjusted, after-tax corporate profits. In just one quarter, profit margins dropped from 10% to 8.7% of GNP.... The chart on the left of Exhibit 1 shows that the Q1 dip in profit margins was unusually large. As the chart on the right shows, the decline was felt across-the-board, with corporate profits in the domestic financial sector suffering the sharpest drop and domestic non-financial and rest-of-the-world profits showing large declines as well. In addition, corporate taxes rose as a share of profits, accounting for about one-tenth of the decline in after-tax profits."

"headline reported profits are currently artificially inflated upwards to show a roughly 5% yoy increase, which is incidentally the same pace that the MSCI trailing reported stockmarket profits are rising by - both are misleading investors as to the underlying strength of profits."

Goldman Sachs
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"Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification.

Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don't need to see his identification.

Stormtrooper: We don't need to see his identification.

Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.

Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.

Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.

Obi-Wan: Move along.

Stormtrooper: Move along... move along."

Star Wars scene when Obe Wan gets through a stormtrooper checkpoint using his Jedi powers