You can use profits-to-GDP metric, for example: http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/03/news/economy/record-corporate-profits/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/03

You can use profits-to-GDP metric, for example: http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/03/news/economy/record-corporate-profits/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/03/news/economy/record-corporat.... It's no guarantee profits won't go even higher, of course, but they are quite high now.