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Comment by adam419 | Hacker News Reader

Because Apple et al can put the extra capital to better use than the united states government.

Apple appears to be terrible at deploying capital. Most of it is just sitting around in cash. It's actually hard to imagine a worse allocator of capital.

I suppose the government could confiscate a hundred billion and use it to invade a small country for a few weeks.

I'm not going to put down your imagination but it didn't take me long to think of a worse use.

I was thinking today that Apple could plow that money into Solar City's SolarBonds [1]. Short maturity dates are available, so they'd be getting their capital back quickly, its a safe investment, and it both helps their image and the environment.

https://solarbonds.solarcity.com/

> its a safe investment

Anything that returns more money than treasury bills at the same maturity date is de facto not "safe."

"less safe".

I sometimes wonder if Apple knows more about investing than they let on? They obviously care about money. Why would they let billions sit around in cash? I won't even speculate, but here's a graph of their horde of cash and when we gave it to them. Yes, I said we(the world of course). (Don't want to offend anyone concerning Apple.)

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/22/charting-apples-growing-s...

This way they can attack big projects and commit suppliers to building out new factories, granting exclusivity on contracts, etc., as opposed to someone who's very efficient at deploying, but then has trouble getting liquidity when times get rough.

By Apple et al I meant private enterprise.

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