[valuearb]

No, it's all the massive taxes on repatriated profits. Apple doesn't even have $250B because it borrowed $78B to pay out as dividends.

When the 12% tax holiday is approved, almost all of that money comes back and most gets paid as dividends. You don't need it overseas for safety, and you don't need to burn $30B a year if your revenues disappear. A "skeleton crew" can spend a couple billion a year developing new profits in the nuclear meltdown scenario.

[AndrewKemendo]

You don't need it overseas for safety, you just keep more of it for safety.

[valuearb]

You don't need $250B for "safety". Apple needs maybe $50B tops. If it has a bad year it's going to slash spending. It's got professional management that know pretty much how much it will make in a quarter and how much it can spend. It also has access to further financing, both debt and equity.

Repatriate the $250M, payoff the $78M in debt, and pay out at least $100M to shareholders. Apple will have over $100M in cash again by the end of the year.