http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14340470
Apple now has more cash to spend than the United States government.
Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (£45.3bn).
Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn.
The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill to raise the country's debt ceiling, allowing it to borrow more money to cover spending commitments.
If it fails to extend the current limit of $14.3 trillion dollars, the federal government could find itself struggling to make payments, and risks the loss of its AAA credit rating.
The United States is currently spending around $200bn more than it collects in revenue every month.
Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financial results.
In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at $7.31bn.
Spending spree
With more than $75bn either sitting in the bank or in easily accessible assets, there has been enormous speculation about what the company will do with the money.
"Apple keeps its cards close to its chest," said Daniel Ashdown, an analyst at Juniper Research.
Industry watchers believe that it is building up a war chest to be used for strategic acquisitions of other businesses, and to secure technology patents.
Bookstore Barnes and Noble and the online movie site Netflix have both been tipped as possible targets, said Mr Ashdown.
The company may also have its eye on smaller firms that develop systems Apple might want to add to its devices, such as voice recognition.
Apple dipped into some of its reserves recently when it teamed-up with Microsoft to buy a batch of patents from defunct Canadian firm Nortel.
The bidding consortium shelled out $4.5bn for more than 6,000 patents.
god damn :eek::eek::eek: that all i have to say:facepalm:
Comments
Get your kits packed, lads. Let's jump this ship. Looking quite forward to Tuesday to see how the US fares.
Except we don't have Armored Cores or MT's. Though, exoskeletons are making a lot of progress....HAL is only $2,500 USD.
In the meantime, temporarily nationalise apple.
:facepalm:
I think the U.S. just needs to cut its spending. Why the fuck are we still in Afghanistan and Iraq? We killed both of the fuckers we wanted to kill. Imagine how much money the government would save if they pulled everyone out of the Middle East and reduced the military back to peace time numbers.
And the only reason that our government is so piss-broke is because we let our corporations move as much of their labor overseas as possible, and then tax them and the wealthiest Americans next to nothing. Also, we refuse to even consider cutting the "defense" budget (Which should be re-named the "Provide security while private companies steal resources from foreign countries" budget).
With a flat tax, either the government would be perpetually broke and/or cancelling public services/works projects or the middle class and poor would be paying enormous amounts of taxes compared to what they do now.
There are people who make more money than they know what to do with, and we still give them cushier tax-deals than the guy who can barely afford a car to drive to work. FDR said that people should be taxed based on their ability to pay taxes, and I think that makes perfect sense. If you're making stacks of money from either a thriving business or investments or a very high paying job, why should you pay the same portion of your income to taxes as a single mother working a pair of jobs? If we tax the former, he loses some of his disposable income, and has to choose cheaper type of wood trim on his yacht or a slightly cheaper resort on his next bi-yearly vacation. If we tax the latter, they cease to be able to afford basic necessities (In turn, they don't spend into the economy. Most spending doesn't come from the top 1%, it comes from everyone else. This is why the wealthy pour so much support into a national sales tax. To shift the tax burden onto us).
A flat tax isn't really all that fair, and it would hurt the economy because all of us would be paying more taxes (Not to mention spending more to pay for things that used to be provided to the public by the government) and spending less money on consumer goods. The only people it really benefits are those in the wealthier minority.
I don't even want to think about some of the military projects that they haven't told us about. With all that they spend on the military, they probably have fucking gundam suits by now.
Also, this is why we have no fucking money. It's not a "spending problem" like those corporate shills tell us. It is indeed a revenue problem.
sounds like a good idea. we all could use more hand outs