
Apple's cash hoard swells to $246B - jgrahamc
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/31/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-record-24609-billion.html
======
breatheoften
What possible reason could Apple have to repatriate their cash hoard (even
with a tax holiday?)

They don't manufacture anything in the us -- do they need those kinds of
billions to hire more software developers in Cupertino -- that seems pretty
unlikely to me. Do they need it to build more US apple stores (nope they've
got that covered).

They are already paying a dividend with free cash flow from their US business
...

I can't imagine why they would ever want to "increase investment" in the us vs
the many far more productive things they could conceivably do by spending that
money outside the us ...

~~~
drawkbox
You are right, really if we want companies to bring money back we just need
lower taxes. The games companies play to eek out an additional 5% and overcome
taxes is massive. Better to have lower taxes here in the US while our dollar
is still valued so high to offset and maybe they will have a reason to
repatriate and continue investment here. We need more money moving in our
country immediately, the velocity of money[1] and gdp to compensation [2] are
horrid right now, worst in history.

Our dollar being too high in value is an advantage to wealthy and buying more
abroad but harms workers here competitively no matter what they do. It also
makes companies with money in other areas able to do more outside of the US,
good but also bad.

Another thing that would help immensely is companies no longer being allowed
to provide benefits, a legacy bug, just salary, enough to get their own
services as those are private and companies should not be involved in that.
Healthcare would need to be either single payer or private but solely
individual and not tied to your employer which is a single point of failure,
it may also fix medical pricing one day if more consumer focused.

Both lower taxes and companies not having to worry about providing
benefits/healthcare would be immense competitive moves. Companies in Canada,
UK, Mexico etc etc don't have to worry about providing healthcare benefits and
it makes it easier to start a business, change jobs and in general allows more
focus on business and products.

[1]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V)

[2]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=2Xa](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=2Xa)

~~~
toomuchtodo
We don't have to lower taxes. We just change the tax law to tax that money
whether they bring it back to the US or not.

~~~
valuearb
So you are saying that you want Samsung to be able to build phones tax free in
China, but Apple should pay 40%+ income taxes (CA+US) for doing so?

Please let me move all my retirement savings into foreign stocks before you
pass this law, please.

~~~
MarkMc
California has enormous advantages in intellectual capital that outweigh a
high tax rate.

Imagine it is 2007 and you can choose to invest in Apple and receive 60% of
profits, or Samsung and receive 100% of profits. What's the better investment?

~~~
opo
>...Imagine it is 2007 and you can choose to invest in Apple and receive 60%
of profits, or Samsung and receive 100% of profits. What's the better
investment?

Imagine it is 2007 and you can choose to invest in Yahoo and receive 60% of
profits, or Samsung and receive 100% of profits. What's the better investment?

~~~
MarkMc
That's a good point. But surely you accept that California has _some_ inherant
advantage? If the effective tax rate is 15% in South Korea and 20% in
California, investors will still pour money into Silicon Valley won't they?

~~~
opo
>...But surely you accept that California has some inherant advantage?

For now at least, it does seem to have an advantage and draws capital. (For
example, Samsung has a huge R&D center in silicon valley.) Of course for every
successful IPO in the valley, there are many others who don't make it near
that far.

The original poster was saying "...We just change the tax law to tax that
money whether they bring it back to the US or not.". This would mean for
example, that when selling in China, Apple would have to pay Chinese AND US/CA
taxes on the profits made there and Samsung wouldn't - this would put US
corporations at a huge disadvantage to their competitors. While I can see the
goal is to get more tax money from corporations, it is obvious to see there
would be a number of unintended consequences.

~~~
MarkMc
I'm still not sure the original poster is wrong. Yes, Apple's would be at a
disadvantage due to higher tax rates but maybe that would be offset by the
inherant advantages that California offers tech companies. If such advantages
are strong enough to overcome a 5% difference in tax rates with South Korea,
maybe they are strong enough to overcome a 40% difference. Investors will moan
and complain but ultimately they will continue to find startups in California
because it still offers the best return on investment.

~~~
opo
>...Yes, Apple's would be at a disadvantage due to higher tax rates but maybe
that would be offset by the inherant advantages that California offers tech
companies.

What you are forgetting is that US law doesn't discriminate against foreign
owned companies. (Which is good - it encourages investment in the US.) So if a
corp with US headquarters would pay 30-40% taxes on profits made in non-US
countries, this would make those companies very uncompetitive against a
foreign company.

>...they will continue to find startups in California because it still offers
the best return on investment.

If something like this was done, there may still be lots of money invested in
CA, but eventually it would be mostly companies with a HQ outside of the US.

~~~
MarkMc
The thing is, Apple hasn't really made those profits in a foreign country -
there is very little profit to be made from manufacturing mobile phones in
China which is why Apple outsources this task to Foxconn. There is also little
profit to be made in selling phones - if Apple's retail arm was a separate
company it would have no leverage to negotiate a good deal.

The bulk of Apple's profit has come from design, marketing and engineering by
employees, plus outstanding judgment and leadership by Steve Jobs. Those
things were done in California. The problem is that Apple uses accounting
tricks to transfer the profit to Nevada or Ireland or some other low-tax
jurisdiction.

It doesn't matter where the company's headquarters are located. If Samsung has
profitable operations in California it should be taxed on that activity at the
same rate as any other Californian business. That leads to another point -
there are plenty of Californian businesses which _cannot_ use the same
accounting tricks that Apple uses. So you have a situation where two
businesses that draw from the same pool of resources pay different tax rates.
It could be that Business A uses those resources more efficiently but Business
B gets funding because its tax rate is lower. That strikes me as inefficient.

Running a business in California is like growing crops in a particularly
fertile field. You get a great yield, but you should also pay high rent.

~~~
opo
You are bringing up a few new issues here.

In regards to Apple, Tim Cook in his testimony to congress said:

>...The Company’s FY2012 total US federal cash effective tax rate was
approximately 30.5%.1

>…Apple does not use tax gimmicks. Apple does not move its intellectual
property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the US
in order to avoid US tax; it does not use revolving loans from foreign
subsidiaries to fund its domestic operations; it does not hold money on a
Caribbean island; and it does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands.
Apple has substantial foreign cash because it sells the majority of its
products outside the US. International operations accounted for 61% of Apple’s
revenue last year and two-thirds of its revenue last quarter. These foreign
earnings are taxed in the jurisdiction where they are earned (“foreign, post-
tax income”).

[https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/Apple_Testimony_to_PSI.pdf](https://www.apple.com/pr/pdf/Apple_Testimony_to_PSI.pdf)

>...It doesn't matter where the company's headquarters are located.

If you are a US company, it does.

>...If Samsung has profitable operations in California it should be taxed on
that activity at the same rate as any other Californian business.

It is. The difference is that Samsung subsidiaries that make a profit in
Germany don't have to South Korea corporate tax when they want to invest in
South Korea. In fact, the US is the ONLY country (other than Eritrea) that
does this - every other country has figured out that this discourages bringing
investment capital back to the home country. The guy who posted the original
snarky post about just taxing all the worldwide income of a US corp didn't try
to defend it when people posted some of the more obvious consequences. US
companies need a level playing field against the companies from other
countries

>...That leads to another point - there are plenty of Californian businesses
which cannot use the same accounting tricks that Apple uses.

I think you are referring to how some of the big corps essentially pay no US
corporate tax. A number of economists have said a much better system would be
a revenue neutral system where you remove the corporate tax and increase taxes
on capital gains and dividends as that is much easier to tax and corporate
taxes tend to hurt the workers in a company and hurt the consumer by
increasing prices. But that is a different issue.

>...Running a business in California is like growing crops in a particularly
fertile field. You get a great yield, but you should also pay high rent.

CA has unique strengths and weaknesses for a business. There are smart people
all over the world so there is no absolute guarantee that CA will do as well
40 years from now as it has done over the 40 years, but that again is a
different issue and worthy of its own discussion.

------
matt_wulfeck
They're smart to wait for a more favorable tax environment for repatriation.
It really is backwards that we tax money returning to the United States so
aggressively. It's greatly in our interest to bring that money home.

~~~
cylinder
As an individual I am taxed on income I earn overseas. Why shouldn't a
corporation?

~~~
valuearb
Because it would be really foolish for our tax system to do that, and cripple
US competitiveness.

Imagine Samsung builds phones in China. It's chinese subsidiary has to pay
Chinese taxes on the profits from selling those phones. But it doesn't have to
pay income taxes to the US on them.

Now Apple builds phones in China. It's Chinese subsidiary has to pay China
income taxes on the profits from selling those phones. Now it also has to pay
and additional 40%+ income tax combined to the US & the state of California,
all because the subsidiary is owned by Apple USA?

Samsung would say, thank you US tax code! Our high end Galaxy phones can now
sell for substantially less than iPhones and we'll get even more market share!

The way things are today is and enough. Apple still owes that 40% whenever the
subsidiary pays those profits back to Apple US. Hopefully they'll pass a
repatriation bill so the federal rate will drop to 12% or so (20%ish with CA
state income tax), and Apple will bring the profits back.

You should really think about whether corporations should pay any income taxes
at all. Profits are either reinvested in growing the business (and creating
jobs), or paid to shareholders, who already have to pay taxes on them. Double
taxing profits before they can be paid to shareholders, or single taxing them
before they can be reinvested, is a significant disincentive to investing in
the US. It's trapped trillions in US capital overseas.

~~~
deepnotderp
Corporations shouldn't get taxed only if they reinvest the money. More often
than not, it's stashed in the Cayman islands or some other tax haven.

~~~
valuearb
Yea, the money in the Cayman islands is "invested", it's earning interest only
because it's being loaned out to other businesses.

But my point is rather than trap US capital in overseas bank accounts earning
limited interest, it's far better to have it brought back to the US and
invested directly in businesses (or returned to shareholders).

------
CalChris
Apple is able to use their _Double Irish with Dutch Sandwich_ strategy because
they can employ the army of tax lawyers and lobbyists necessary to keep the
government busy. XYZ Company cannot do this. So when you see that the United
States has a 35% top corporate tax rate, you need to remember Leona Helmsley's
observation: _We don 't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes._ That
rate would be lower if it were administered fairly. It effectively is lower.

~~~
valuearb
No it's not effectively lower, it's higher. Apple has to pay roughly 40%
because it's headquartered in CA, which has a 8.9% rate. That's the rate it
must pay if it repatriates overseas profits, there is little it can do to
change that. other than not repatriate.

The myth of Apple's low tax rate goes something like this. Let's say Apple
makes $10B in profits. $5B are profits of Apple US, and $5B are profits of
it's international subsidiaries. Apple pays about $450M in state income taxes
on the $5B and about $1.6B in federal income taxes on the remainder (35% of
the $5B minus state taxes).

It also pays income taxes in every country it has a subsidiary in on the
foreign $5B (let's estimate income taxes average out to 20%, or $1B), and
ships the remaining $4B to Ireland for storage until such time as US tax rates
aren't so onerous.

Now someone looks at Apples financials and sees it paid "only" $1.6B in
federal income taxes, even though it made $10B! OMG, they shout, Apple is only
paying 16%, no one is paying 35%, our tax system is a LIE!

But in this example, Apple paid over $3B in total income taxes, or 30%. And if
it repatriates the $4B, it will pay another $1.6B in state and federal income
taxes for a total tax rate nearing 50%.

And this doesn't count all the other taxes Apple pays, from property taxes,
sales taxes, VAT, import tariffs, etc, around the globe.

The "double dutch" strategy revolved around how much value you assigned to
your IP and moving that IP to tax favorable countries. It's no longer legal or
used. What costs and profits Apple assigns to subsidiaries is subject to
judgement and audit. But mostly it's just a smokescreen to ignore how terrible
our corporate income tax system is and it's rates are among the highest in the
world.

Apple pays a ton of taxes. We'd be better off not taxing corporate income, so
one can argue it pays too much.

~~~
narrowrail
One thing that confuses me in discussions of corporate taxes: Because taxes
are incorporated into the price of all products sold (COGS), all taxes are
paid by the customer in the end. Seems very inefficient to me, let's just get
on with a wealth tax (forget income or VAT (aka flat-tax)).

~~~
jellicle
Products sell for what the customer will pay, no less, no more. Studies show
that taxes tend to come out of the owner's share - they're paid by the owners
of the business.

If people are paying $1 for hamburgers today, and the owner gets a tax cut,
will hamburgers be sold for less? Doubtful.

~~~
sjy
Can you cite some of those studies? The effective incidence of corporate
income tax is controversial. With internationally mobile capital and immobile
labour, a source-based corporate income tax theoretically has no impact on
shareholders and results in lower wages for domestic workers, an observation
supported by some empirical studies [1].

[1] Mirrlees et al, Tax by Design (2011), p 438, citing Hassett and Mathur
(2006) and Arulampalam, Devereux, and Maffini (2007). You can get a PDF at
[http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5353](http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5353).

------
pokemongoaway
Invest in R&D you fools! Make a laptop to appease power users, many of whom
work for you! Capture our imagination instead of kowtowing to mainstream
desire for each product design!

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Yeah, they sure look like they can't decide what to do with their riches. It's
sad. Put money toward self driving car tech if you wish, you have so much to
waste. But where are your awesome next gen laptops, why nothing like a
chromebook, why their disasterous desktop machines (the coffee warmer form
factor, what where they thinking). The apple watch.

The majority of professional devs use apple laptops because they are a great
selection of tools and nice ui with unix tools. They can't build off that?

~~~
jimmaswell
It sounded ludicrous to me but apparently it's true that a lot of developers
use Apple laptops. I don't get it, I've used an Apple computer for a week at a
time a few times and it was thoroughly less convenient and more frustrating
than on Windows, not even including having no Visual Studio and such.

~~~
PeterStuer
Part of it is practical, it is easier to virtualize other OS's on OSX than the
other way around, but also don't underestimate the 'status symbol' of 'look,
my employer spends money on me'.

~~~
jimmaswell
How is it easier to run VirtualBox on OSX than Windows?

~~~
emehrkay
Symlinks in shared folders

~~~
Mahn
This is possible on a Windows host in a hackish sort of way, though I imagine
it's more seamless on a OSX host, being Unix.

------
anigbrowl
Another year of record corporate cash piles, another year of the same old
tired rationalizations for a policy that doesn't make good economic sense but
seems tied to the future of the gravy train.

I know all the technical and philosophical arguments in favor of doing this,
but most people neither know nor care, and their anger is reaching boiling
point. Apple won't be the first target, but when enough people are angry
enough to take action that's not going to be any comfort. My advise is use it
or lose it, because angry people don't make good listeners.

------
israrkhan
Apple Is reportedly planning to bid for Toshiba semiconductor business unit.
Perhaps they would also want to control critical parts of their supply chain.
They can use this cash to acquire foreign companies. I do not expect them to
bring this cash back to USA without a major tax break. Perhaps that is what
they are waiting for.

------
lobster_johnson
There was a brief window, back when Apple started taking off post-Jobs, when
their pile of money put them in danger of a hostile, leveraged "bust-up"
takeover -- i.e. an outsider could buy the company with borrowed money by
using Apple's assets and cash flow as collateral. I always found that idea
fascinating. Of course, that moment passed pretty quickly.

~~~
lilbobbytables
Why isn't that still a concern?

~~~
afthonos
The idea was that they would borrow enough money to buy a majority of Apple's
stock, and then repay the loan with the cash reserves. For that to work, the
cash reserves must be close to half the value of the company.

Since Apple's market cap is now $790B, half the value is $370B, which means
that even with the cash reserves, they'd be $123B short of being able to
repay, and they'd need it available on day one to execute the hostile
takeover. And like they say, $100B here, $100B there, soon you're talking real
money.

~~~
valuearb
Apple has also taken on debt since then, needed it to fund dividends since
most profits trapped overseas. Also any acquirer still has to pay the taxes on
repatriating those overseas profits if they want to use them in the
acquisition. Given effective tax rates (US + CA) over 40%, they can only use
barely more than half the overseas profits.

Essentially Apple's available cash is much less than it appears.

~~~
_pmf_
> since most profits trapped overseas.

That's certainly one way to put it.

------
faragon
In my opinion, Apple should buy TSMC (~100 billion) and Qualcomm (~100
billion). It would be a hell of competition for Intel and AMD, now that Moore
Law seems to reach its limits.

~~~
kgdinesh
If Moore's law has reached its limits then what's the point of buying them?

Apple can do something on its own, the technology of these makers will won't
be worth in the long term anyway.

~~~
faragon
Opportunity cost.

------
cm2187
Hum. A quick look at their financials [1]. Their balance sheet only shows
$130B of shareholders equity. What it means is that half of that
cash/liquidity is not attributable to its shareholders but is effectively
borrowed cash. I am sure there all sort of good (tax?) reasons for that. But
it doesn't mean Apple is sitting on $246B of liquidity they can spend as they
please. They are sitting on more like half of that they can actually spend.

Still a staggering amount though.

[1]
[https://images.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q1FY17ConsolidatedFin...](https://images.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q1FY17ConsolidatedFinancialStatements.pdf)

~~~
cs702
No. They ARE sitting on $246B of liquidity and they CAN do with it whatever
they want.

The company's short-term and long-term debt total $77B, but they can repay
that over time from future profits. All other liabilities on the balance sheet
are ordinary items like accounts payable and deferred revenues, and those will
be fulfilled during the ordinary course of business too, without ever needing
to touch a single dollar of the $246B pile.

~~~
cm2187
You can only distribute to your shareholders your reserves. They do not have
$246B of reserve. And yes they can spend some of it, but that will come in
deduction of their equity (through P&L). This is not the balance sheet of some
risky start up who will borrow to pay their bills. I believe Apple has a
AA+/AAA kind of rating. These investors are not in there for the risk.

------
Waterluvian
What is the endgame of a corporation?

Does Apple hold on to $246B because they simply have nothing sensible to use
it on and have no need to give it away?

How big can a corporation get before the whole system kind of breaks down or
governments break it apart?

~~~
akvadrako
This is an interesting question, but I doubt even the people in charge have a
clear picture in their head. Maybe corporations will become sovereign
entities, with their own citizens and social structures.

That amount of money would be a good start for buying counties outright and
building a military.

------
happycube
It's amusing that literally 20 years ago, Apple was a bit cash-strapped and
got a $150m investment from Microsoft...

~~~
IBM
Charlie Munger had something to say about that.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ownc_LP3t08&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ownc_LP3t08&feature=youtu.be&t=6m57s)

~~~
nodesocket
I'm headed to the Berkshire shareholder meeting for the first time in May,
super excited to listen to Warren and Charlie impart their wealth of
knowledge.

------
Animats
Even building the Mothership in Cupertino didn't make a dent in that cash.
It's supposed to open soon, but it doesn't look finished yet.

------
wtfishackernews
Excuse my potentially dumb question, but what is the point of hoarding cash
like that? would it not be more useful to reinvest it?

~~~
mariodiana
Technically, it is being invested. The money isn't kept in a big pile under a
giant iMattress in Cupertino. Whatever holdings Apple keeps the money in is
earning some interest, dividends, or whatever. "Cash" here only means
something like "readily convertible."

But, "hoarding" here means that Apple is neither directing investment
directly, nor returning the money as dividends to its stockholders, right? I'm
guessing the reason is because Apple is investigating future business
opportunities which may require deep pockets. In other words, it's possible
Apple is involved in exploring some future, highly speculative investment in a
new industry, so that they can be "the next Apple" in some economic venture
other than phones, tablets, and desktops.

Just to take one example: developing, producing, and marketing a self-driving
car will cost a bundle. And, who really knows what Apple is up to? It's fair
to say they may have many pokers in the first right now.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
The money is mostly in Braeburn Capital, I believe.
[https://qz.com/393093/the-mysterious-fund-in-the-desert-
that...](https://qz.com/393093/the-mysterious-fund-in-the-desert-that-manages-
apples-cash/) [edit: better source]

~~~
jpalomaki
From the linked article: "Braeburn is a variety of apple that is
simultaneously sweet and tart."

~~~
smcl
I was always confused that it's not an apple of Scottish origin - "Brae" is
scots for "hill", and "burn" is scots for "little river"

~~~
jdminhbg
It was first cultivated at an orchard in NZ called Braeburn which is almost
certainly named after a Scottish person or place.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braeburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braeburn)

------
nodesocket
I'd love to see Apple acquire Stripe. Let me make a case for why this could be
a great addition.

    
    
      1.) Apple pay. Apple pay has not caught on, and perhaps Stripe could push it over the tipping point.
      2.) Acquire Stripe's team of amazing designers, front-end engineers and operations engineers.
      3.) Further revenue into Apple's increasingly massive services business
    

The problem is Stripe is crazy Silicon Valley over valued. Consensus is that
Stripe recently raised 150M at a 10B valuation. 10 billion? No way!

Payments processing is a very slim margin business. From their 2.90% and
$0.30, Stripe will make about 1% on average, the rest goes to Wells Fargo.
That doesn't seem too bad except that Stripe's total processing volume can't
nearly justify that crazy valuation.

------
sidcool
I would buy a bunch of startups and diversify business. Kinda like Alphabet
did. Let there be smaller startups within Apple with funding from Apple. Not
sure if they are already doing it.

------
beezle
No, it did not swell to 246B. Or are we not counting the debt and other
obligations they have issued to pay out dividends and do share buybacks? This
has been their game for a while now so to trumpet the asset side in isolation
is disingenuous by the press and purely clickbait. (another minor point is
that the figure is cash + short and long-term marketable securities).

~~~
pisarzp
It's not NET cash, so it's right not to include debt.

------
nodesocket
Heads up, this is from January. For all negative nancies, if you bought $AAPL
on this day (1/31) you'd be up a nice 16%.

------
return0
Hmmm... how much does a big car company cost?

~~~
pacificmint
Here are the current market caps of the big car companies. Of course to buy
them you'd likely have to pay a premium on the market cap, but it gives you a
ballpark:

Toyota Motor Corp 174.2B

Daimler AG 75.8B

Volkswagen AG 71.9B

Honda Motor Co Ltd 52.0B

General Motors Company 50.0B

Tesla Inc 49.5B

Ford Motor Company 44.2B

Nissan Motor Co Ltd 39.3B

Tata Motors Limited 22.5B

Ferrari NV 13.3B

Harley-Davidson Inc 10.5B

~~~
return0
thanks ... even more hmmm now .... my bet is on Tesla, with a daimler and
ferrari on the side

~~~
sumedh
I see lot of comments about Apple should buy Tesla but I dont think it will
happen. Elon Musk is not the type of guy who will take orders from others
which will happen if Apple takes over Tesla.

------
andy_ppp
Might as well start their own hedge fund with that much cash. They could build
the best trading/hedge fund infrasin the world in house then make billions
selling it to other players.

------
neom
Will they buy: a) a bank b) a car company c) healthcare provider/insurance
company

:)

~~~
omarchowdhury
With $250 billion, they can buy all 3.

------
mongol
With that kind of cash, would it make sense to start a bank?

~~~
homakov
Banks is 99% regulation and paperwork and 1% account table. They won't be
around long enough this way to be interesting for Apple.

------
peterwwillis
Weird question: What if Apple folded tomorrow? What happens to the cash? The
people? The [global] economy?

~~~
perlgeek
Uneducated guess: first their creditors, then their stakeholders.

But how can a company fold and still have money left? Typically if companies
stop operating, it's because they have no money left to pay their bills and
debts.

------
bookbinder
$246B is more than a "rainy day" fund. Unless they are planning to buy Disney
or a small country, they should return some of that money to their
shareholders.

They could pay out half of their fund and still make do with $123B in the
bank.

~~~
pg314
The $246B is misleading: it doesn't count the $79B they raised in debt to
finance their capital returns.

They are returning a lot of money to their shareholders: through dividends and
share buy-backs. They plan to have returned $250 billion in capital to the
shareholders by the end of march 2018.

They are also partly limited in their options: most of the cash and
equivalents is stuck abroad, and subject to a 35% tax if repatriated to the
US. It doesn't make sense for their shareholders to repatriate that money if a
tax holiday (which means they would pay around 10% instead if history is any
guidance) is very likely in the near future. In the mean-time they can borrow
to finance the capital returns, but it would be unwise to overdo the
borrowing.

------
skdotdan
Stock buyback?

~~~
sumedh
Jobs called Buffett and asked what he should do with all extra cash, Buffett
said buy it back but Jobs did not listen.

------
walkingolof
Wonder at what point a government would just seize the money, there are few
looser compared to what good you could do with the money.....

------
LeicaLatte
Startup idea: Create a country. Setup tax laws so that huge corporations,
politicians, business folks can hoard money. Profit.

------
jlebrech
they should enter the airliner industry, electric passenger jets or glider
jets. and take that worldwide quite quickly.

------
heifetz
this is an article from Jan 31st!

~~~
jasongill
I thought the same thing - "wow, they really haven't added much cash this
quarter" \- nope, this is just an old article

------
5_minutes
And still they cant make a 15" laptop with a normal keyboard.

------
intrasight
As a stockholder, I consider that my cash. And it saddens me that I can't get
to it ;)

------
aklemm
At this point aren't they at risk of thieves (elected officials) conspiring to
take huge pieces of that money?

------
shmerl
It's sad when so much money is hoarded by such a nasty company.

------
LeicaLatte
Textbook tech depression, often alluded to by industry watchers like Marc
Andreessen. $246B in the bank and not able to use it for good.

------
z3t4
It would surprise me if it's just cash, like literally just laying there. It's
probably used to fund startups etc. You should probably be lucky that they are
not liquidating it. If it's just laying there doing nothing though, I think
that would be bad for the economy, making interests return negatives.

~~~
dmoy
"just cash" has a reasonably specific definition for corporate accounting, and
definitely does not include investments in startups. It's gotta be liquid in
like <<1yr or something.

Also not sure what you mean by "the economy", since the majority of that cash
is likely not in one country...

~~~
z3t4
What I mean with bad for the economy is that $246B not used is $246B in
potential being lost, every second, 24 hours a day. With that much money you
could care diseases, end hunger, create world peace, etc.

~~~
dmoy
Yea no arguments here

------
zackmorris
That's 2.5 million startups that never saw the light day, at $100,000 a pop.
When I was in my 20s and hungry to change the world, that would have been FU
money for 5 years.

It occurs to me that the problem isn't wealth inequality, but opportunity
cost. If you subscribe to the corporate ethos, life is fantastic right now.
But if you don't, then you're likely struggling to make rent. Large
multinational corporations are standing in the way of progress in a way not
seen since the gilded age.

P.S. I like Apple and have always owned a Mac. This is not directed solely at
them, I just think that this is not the progress we're looking for.

~~~
pavement

      Large multinational corporations are 
      standing in the way of progress in a 
      way not seen since the gilded age.
    

Hmmm, I understand the sentiment, but geeze, how I cannot agree with that
statement.

Yes, operating within confines of someone else's corporation, or beneath the
general corporate regime in general, is stifling, and you, yourself, and I,
myself, are unlikely to benefit as handsomely as those whom are in control of
the corporation or their regime. But I wouldn't say progress-in-general is
being held back by large corporations.

I also wouldn't say that Apple locking up 250B in a bank account represents
them withholding the freedom of others to operate, by blowing that kind of
cash frivolously, and putting it back into economic circulation. I'd say it's
their windfall, and they've clearly been saving up for the next big leap
they're about to take.

If anything, progress is moving right along at kind of an insane pace. Almost
too fast. Kind of too fast.

I get that certain avenues of progress have been held back, and one might draw
a correlation between internal combustion and leaded gas in the 20th century,
and file sharing and proprietary software in the 21st century, but these
examples are narrow in scope.

When you step back, look at the whole picture, and take the way things are
today, and hold that up, next to the way things were 20 or 40 years ago, the
differences are kind of shocking. Things are radically different, showing
drastic changes between each generation.

Sometimes I think if we went faster, everything would burst into flames just
from the ambient friction of social upheaval incidental to rapid change.

~~~
psyc
But progress is relative, and it may be that the potential is far greater than
what it is. We don't know, because most people aren't allowed to try things.
And that isn't merely what money represents, it's what it is. Money is
allocation. Those that have it literally decide, broadly, what gets done and
what doesn't get done.

------
throwawaybug
They should buy Uber and Tesla. Both are in markets that shouldn't trigger
antitrust concerns. Apple has a patent portfolio that would make the waymo
lawsuit go away. Apple would get revenge on google for dicking it over with
android vs the iPhone. It would acquire visionary leadership (Musk and Holden)
and pragmatic/effective gets things done leadership (Kalanick). Musk+Kalanick
= Steve Jobs. These two acquisitions would give them the car manufacturing,
self driving car talent, and the market in ridesharing. SpaceX also makes
sense since they have plans to put 4000+ satellites up which would erode the
only other advantage Google has, which it it's network.

~~~
jonthepirate
Why would you buy Uber if you can get the same thing for 1/10th the price in
Lyft? People actually like Lyft.

~~~
throwawaybug
If you think Lyft is the same thing for 1/10th the price, then you're blinded
by your distaste for Uber. Uber is global in scope. Uber is well ahead of Lyft
in terms of getting control of their losses (IIRC from leaked financials from
both companies, Lyft is losing money at more than twice the rate as Uber and
Uber is closing the profitability gap faster). Uber serves many more markets
such as food delivery and freight, so there are more growth opportunities.
Uber is doing a ton of R&D in the self driving car space and has a lot of the
talent in the market. Lyft is basically just copying Uber's lead. Once you get
past the few vocal outrage culture people, lots of people like Uber too.

Basically Lyft is a plaything that only looks the same as Uber if you only
consider the US market and picking up and moving people. Even then, it's a
distant number two.

~~~
bdcravens
Is Uber's position defensible given a competitor with enough resources?

~~~
pfarnsworth
Who is that competitor and who would be the investors? Someone would need to
invest billions to make a gamble that they could make a dent in marketshare vs
Uber. That doesn't seem like great way to spend billions.

