[tomjen3]

Yeah it is a huge problem: Without a way to source a billion dollars Intel can't build a new factory.

Now you could replace banks with e.g bonds sold in the public market, but you still need something to finance the IT of the world.

[Selfcommit]

If Intel is sourcing a billion dollar factory, shouldn't their revenue be multiple times that? If you're telling me the factory they need costs $1 billion, my response is that the cost is only that high in a market full of banks that make billion dollar loans...

[mikeash]

Intel's factories cost billions of dollars (actual cost is around $5 billion now, not a mere $1 billion) because they're unbelievably advanced. This isn't the housing bubble applied to factories. They're building a facility that uses the most advanced technology in the world on an industrial scale.

Their revenue is many times that, certainly, but that doesn't mean they just have billions of dollars lying about doing nothing, waiting for the company to need a factory.

[patrickk]

Sometimes it's not so simple. I recall Google issuing bonds because it was cheaper than repatriating non-US revenue from abroad to fund US investments (it would have been taxed twice, albeit at an extremely low rate on it's non-US revenue).

[tomjen3]

Lets say that that billion dollar factory will earn itself back over 10 years. Do you have 10 years of mortages saved up?

Also I am going to have to ask for a source for your hypothetical reply.