Frequent questions here have to do with price gouging and corporate profits, especially during recessions. I've tried to answer a few.

Theoretically, of course, profits tend to zero in a perfectly competitive market, but markets aren't theoretic, and there are profits. So how should I understand/explain the FRED graph of Corporate profits after tax (here). Is it saying that corporate profits have shot up over the past 70 years? How is this graph best contextualized? For instance, comparing with GDP (indexed to 1970, here) or personal consumption income (indexed to 1970, here) suggests that profits tracked GDP most of the time, but something changed in 2003 and 2020 - is this right? Is GDP a fair comparison to contextualize the data? What changed in 2003/2020?