03-01-2012, 11:10 PM
Rick-o wrote:
sit in a big pile earning next to nothing.
It's earning less than nothing. Apple, as a company, cannot invest such cash in anything other than cash and cash equivalents, ie. almost 0% interest which is below the rate of inflation. In other words, its cash hoard is actually shrinking if profits weren't being dumped into it every minute.
Of course, it can invest in other companies or buy other companies and/or technologies but they don't need tens of billions of dollars in cash to do so.