Charles Hugh Smith: We Are All Hostages of Corporate Profits

``If we strip away the hype and propaganda, we are left with a troubling reality: there is no engine of "growth" other than speculative bubbles based on cheap credit and soaring corporate profits... We are now drifting through the troubled waters of the third phase, the phase of diminishing returns and stagnation: the tricks of increasing liquidity to fund stock by-backs and central; bank purchases of assets are no longer goosing profits or "growth."''