“Apple and Microsoft both have bigger piles of cash than the UK Treasury, a report has revealed,” Sophie Murray-Morris reports for The Telegraph. “The figures, calculated by the US Trust, show that several companies have more money to spend than the UK does.”
“Apple has the largest cash reserves, with £95bn, far greater than the cash held by Malaysia, Turkey or Poland,” Murray-Morris reports. “The large cash reserves stem from reluctance on the part of US companies to bring overseas profits back, due to the taxes they would be forced to pay. Non-financial US firms had a staggering £956bn to spend at the end of 2013, a 100 per cent increase in their cash balances from 2007.”
“Microsoft has the second largest cash reserve of any company at £50bn, £45bn less than Apple,” Murray-Morris reports. “Microsoft and Apple’s cash reserves both dwarf the UK’s figure of £41bn.”
Read more in the full article here.
They also don’t want to bring the money back because they (rightly) figure that it will be wasted. Who the hell would volunteer to just hand over billions of dollars in their earnings to the US government? This is the same group of incompetents who spent over $200,000 remodeling a damn bathroom.
The moral of this story is that spending tax $’s or £’s on waging wars bringeth not gains in this day and age despite winning but they do certainly bringeth loses!
Hard to understand. The USA and most countries are deep in debt. So, my local coffee shop has more that the USA and all those others.
Not hard to understand. Companies and their management are rewarded for turning a profit. Politicians and the government are rewarded for spending money.
I think we’re well past the point of Apple having any inferiority complex with Microsoft. Is it really necessary to edit their name from the title?
The US could always sell it’s carrier fleet to China. This should raise enough cash for the next round of bent bankster bailouts.
Only three countries have significantly bigger wealth reserves than Apple: China, Japan and Russia.
(USA do not count as they usually just print out however many dollars they need, according to decisions of bankers in Federal Reserve meetings.)
its not that countries have so little money: when you add up all the taxes including income, sales , property taxes, levies on carbon, water, tolls on roads and indirectly on goods as you pay for corporate taxes as well (hidden in the goods you buy), taxes on dividends on the stock you bought with you already taxed income, taxes on your inheritance …. etc , citizens pay something like 50% or MORE of their earnings in taxes….
no it’s not that countries don’t have cash it’s just that politicians like SPENDING…
Exactly. The government doesn’t have an income problem, they have a spending problem. They collect more than enough in taxes to do the job they’re constitutionally obligated to do.
Let’s not overlook an important metric to measure another wealth; Gross Domestic Product.
This is how we measure a country’s value to the worlds markets.
The USA used to be rich in GDP until Labor costs became unsustainable. Outsourcing has led to less innovation and more remixing of the same old product in a different package and planned obsolescence to keep the market churning.
England has much wealth but little liquidity and so aren’t flush with cash. Their greatest value is, Its history, which is priceless and transcends their mortality.
Island living with everyone on top of one another is an unsustainable lifestyle. Mother Nature is forced to make course corrections from time to time.
Apple’s cash does not eclipse their intrinsic wealth. They could spend all their cash and would be as wealthy, especially if these expenditures added to their current wealth.
Big difference between cash money and real wealth.
Jay-z & Beyonce have a lot of cash but very little wealth. It was the same for Michael Jackson, however he possessed much more wealth than money. He spent his money buying wealth, which has been steadily sold off piece by piece.
From my iPhone…
Not a problem since all the United Kingdom’s cash is borrowed from Russian gangsters.
Most UK debt is held by pension funds and banks in the form of bonds. Only 30% is held by entities from outside of the UK.
Why is this news? Companies are supposed to have cash reserves because they don’t distribute their profits as they come in. Governments are not supposed to have huge reserves because they are not making any profit at all. If they are building up reserves, it means that their taxes are too high. Are any of you in favor of raising taxes to build up government cash reserves? I thought not.
Dude, it’s just an exercise in observational analysis and has more to do with putting things in perspective than being newsworthy.
I don’t know why you took the time to explain it to us but God bless you for it.
Take a bow. G’head take one.
There is no new thing under the sun. — Eccelesiastes 1:9
Still, we must speak about something, lest we go mad from muteness.
Still, we must speak about something, lest we go mad from muteness.
Speak for yourself.
I don’t know why you took the time to explain it to us
We, us, what’s the difference?
There is no new thing under the sun. — Eccelesiastes 1:9
Says those who believe everything is preordained.
What kind of vehicle do you drive?
I stopped driving cars in 2010. I did drive a Honda Accord.
Of course I live in Phoenix so travel is not an issue. We have Light Rail.
I too drove a Honda Accord. One day a hole appeared in the solid housing of the radiator. Replaced it along with thermostats & hoses & AC, then sold it. Now I have a Lexus, quite handsome in leather & gold. I feel more confident driving it. I no longer keep glancing nervously at the temperature gauge on those long hot trips through high mountain passes.