[Proodustommor]

Nope. They have about $10bn in cash. The rest is about $20bn in short term liquid equities, about $10bn in net receivables and vendor trade receivables (meaning money they paid to vendors in advance), about $80bn in long term marketable securities of which about 60% is non-US, almost $10bn in in property value, and another $10bn in intangible assets (including $1bn in inventory). Then there is about $10bn in deferred taxes and goodwill.

So the 'cash in the bank' figure of $150bn is actually $10bn... and for a company worth north of $600bn, it's a relatively small percentage.

In this context, "cash in the bank" doesn't literally mean cash-money. It means liquid financial assets that bear interest. This would include cash and equivalents, short term investments and long term investments. Even if they're not cash-equivalent, they are interest bearing securities that are marketable and are delivering returns well below those of Apple's operations.

They don't make Apple more competitive and they don't offer investors much in the way of returns. It's very important for companies to have cash on hand to fund new initiatives and research, fend off competitive advances, etc. Apple has so much "aggregate money" on hand that it can do all of this and more, and it cannot invest the difference effectively. This is the problem I am talking about and it's real.