Dangers of big cash piles
This is something to concerns me as an Apple shareholder. Having $200 billion and counting of cash laying around means they could get a really stupid idea and blow $50 billion buying Uber or something equally ridiculous. Bad enough they spent $3 billion on Beats, which seems like it can't ever be recouped, but I fear if this first "large" acquisition comes to be viewed as a success, it opens the floodgates to dip into that cash pile.
While I despise Icahn, I agree with his idea that Apple should return substantially all its cash to shareholders (I know much is overseas, so they'd need to sell debt in the US) to eliminate this temptation. You don't need to worry about saving for a rainy day when you're piling on nearly a billion a week. Pretty sure they don't have to worry about funding new initiatives like driverless cars or a working model of a Death Star.
Had Microsoft done the same, Ballmer wouldn't have had that big pile of cash he started thinking he should do something with other than roll around in Scrooge McDuck style.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
