Apple, tech companies to bring back $400B in overseas cash to the US

cnbc.com

18 points·SQL2219··9 comments

Clickbait post title leaves off that this is an estimate from a research firm. Title makes it seem like a sure thing.

Note, this article is about a presumption made by a tech research firm, not confirmation from any of the companies in question themselves.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16082839

That could be a lot of R&D. Apple, for example, could accelerate chip research, AR devices, etc.

They have R&D centers in Israel, China, Japan. Bringing the money back to the US is not necessary for this.

Most of this money is invested abroad already.

Lack of cash is not one of Apple's problems. If they wanted to invest more in the US they could.

Most of the money will probably just sit still in a wide variety of investments (bonds and other stuff; Apple is one of the biggest players in these markets); the rest will go into dividends and share buybacks. A symbolic percentage might go into R&D and Trump will tweet about it.

(I might be wrong, but that is what I expect.)

Or maybe QA, of which they seem to be lacking recently.

We bring the money back, but systems need to be put in place to keep the money here.

The statement ‘keep the money here’ assumes that the money was the US’ to begin with. But it wasn’t, it was foreign earnings through sale of products. And US companies should spend it how they see fit, ideally to drive further growth. That will likely involve sending some away again. But in an economically half-rational world that will drive a multiplier effect that will drive further growth

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