A Third Of Cash Is Held By 5 US Tech Companies (siliconbeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Moody's Investors Service released an analysis Friday that shows Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco Systems, and Oracle are sitting on $504 billion, which is roughly 30% of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015. Almost all of their earnings ($1.2 trillion) are stashed overseas in an effort to avoid paying taxes on moving profits back to the U.S. under the country's complex tax code. Apple has more than 90 percent of its money located outside of the U.S., according to its most recent filings. Moody's said in its report that "we expect that overseas cash balances will continue to grow unless tax laws are changed to encourage companies to repatriate money." Some of the other tech and Silicon Valley companies in the top 50 include Intel, Gilead Sciences, Facebook, Amazon, Qualcomm, eBay, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo.

Comments

Re: Remember where the responsibility is

[ScentCone]

And that supply is infinite? You can't restructure the economy, Sanders-style, around permanently tearing down successful people and businesses - there isn't a permanent supply of them. Which is why they have to come after the middle class next.

Re:And trump wants to legalize tax evasion

[roman_mir]

Please enlighten me with what you know. This should prove most entertaining.

- I bet. I had a chuckle reading your comment, then I realised that it is cruel to laugh at the economically illiterate, ignorant people, who have been brainwashed for this long and are so married into the system they can't get out of the Matrix, so to speak. It's like having fun at the expense of somebody with leprosy, sure sure, it's amusing but also a bit cruel.

To my knowledge, there is no country that actually uses gold as legal money. You personally might value it as a currency, but that is not a majority opinion.

- yes, yes, majority opinion is so important. Majority opinion gave you the economy you have today, the bubbles you had in the last 20 years, the wars, including wars on terror, drugs, etc. All those things won of-course. Majority opinion is nothing to sneeze at, it's like a stampede, it's not intelligent or sentient, but it sure is deadly.

real estate has actually done a better job of keeping its "purchasing power".

- until it doesn't. Property is not liquid, gold is. Try and sell your house in Detroit to somebody in Taiwan to buy plane tickets to South Korea, figure that one out. With gold, on the other hand, this is never a problem.

I'll also note that the very definition of an "inflation hedge" is an investment.

- I really do not need an economic advice from anybody to know what inflation hedge is. When government turns on the printing presses, implements wage and price controls, the shelves in the stores go empty. Is a can of food an investment? Well, for a very broad definition of 'investment', however it is an inflation hedge and it does cause shortages in countries where governments try to steal with printing or sudden currency exchange mechanisms that are also theft. Gold is an inflation hedge, people buy gold when they stop trusting other currencies. Other currencies are also inflation hedges. A Swiss Franc is an inflation hedge against a US dollar for somebody who sells a dollar to buy a Franc because they are worried about the falling value of the dollar. A Franc is not an investment.

Now, why do I bother with you? I guess it is a good deed to try and save the sick, but why bother really? Do I need you? No. Still, I will finish replying to this comment.

You're going to have to explain this conspiracy theory of yours a little more.

- oh yeah, it is a 'conspiracy'. The hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic was a 'conspiracy'. They also suspended gold standard before initiating the massive printing.

Greek hyperinflation in the 44, Zimbabwe, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Malaysia.

Some government don't technically lead to 'hyper' but still have gigantic rate of inflation, I lived through a few episodes back in the USSR myself. Argentina... Even Venezuela today, not necessarily 'hyper' but very high inflation leading to the same behaviour - people clearing out the shelves, buying foreign currencies and by the way, gold if they can.

Governments (through central banks) can encourage inflation by raising their interest rates

- oh, this is PRECIOUS, just precious. Governments encouraging inflation by raising interest rates :) Oh my my my, how hard it is to stay serious while replying to such amazing examples of total and complete ignorance.

Higher interest rate reduces inflation, doesn't encourage it. Savings are encouraged by higher interest rates, lower interest rates discourage savings and allow borrowing more and more since it seems to be cheaper, so it causes issuance of bonds by governments, that are then causing inflation in various other systems, such as foreign currencies being printed to buy the bonds. In case of Clinton era in the USA the Fed refinanced most of its long term debt by pushing interest rates dow