Why are US corporate profits so high? Because wages are so low
What's particularly disturbing is the sheer greed being shown in pursuit of these profits.  There was a recent article about an auto plant in Michigan that went through near-bankruptcy but is now making a $2bn/year profit.  The profit was attributed in part to $50m/year in reduced wages that were extracted from the union in exchange for not closing the plant.  Those concessions represented over one third of the wages but only 2.5% of the resulting profits.  That's just disgusting.  They should have kept the wages steady and enjoyed their more-than-sufficient 1.95bn/year in profits.