[pg314]

You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that it is currently sitting in a foreign warehouse as bricks of $100 bills collecting dust. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to page 49 of Apple's yearly report [1] at the end of 2016 its cash and equivalents were invested as follows (amounts in millions): * U.S. Treasury securities 41,697 * U.S. agency securities 7,543 * Non-U.S. government securities 7,609 * Certificates of deposit and time deposits 6,598 * Commercial paper 7,433 * Corporate securities 131,166 * Municipal securities 956 * Mortgage- and asset-backed securities 19,134

The repatriation is just a tax/accounting fiction. Yes, Apple now has more flexibility to do with that cash what it wants (mostly return capital to shareholders through dividends and buybacks), but on aggregate for the economy it doesn't make a huge difference.

[1] http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-...

[danjayh]

I know this post is a few days old, but having that cash invested in treasuries, bonds, CDs, etc. is as close to a warehouse as it can possibly get. I strongly suspect that a good chunk of it will be spent on capital investments once it's repatriated.