Silicon Valley and the next $100 billion stimulus

A handful of companies in the technology sector are sitting on a combined cash hoard of over $100 billion. The biggest cash reserve belongs to Apple, which is currently sitting on more than $76 billion in cash. Meanwhile, Google has $37 billion, Dell $11 billion, Qualcomm $5.6 billion and Accenture has $5.3 billion — all in cash on hand. To put this into perspective, the deficit-ridden Federal Government has less than $74 billion in cash at its disposal. At a time when every single measure to resuscitate the economy seems to have been exhausted, is it possible that Silicon Valley could be tapped to provide one last stimulus? You can think of that $100 billion in cash the same way you would think about cash in your own personal portfolio: It’s nice to have around for a rainy day, but inflation gradually erodes its value over time. Hoarding cash on your balance sheet is the corporate world equivalent of hiding cash under your mattress and waiting for the right opportunity to come around. Which is why, of course, Wall Street investors and investment bankers have been putting so much pressure on companies like Apple to do something — anything — with all that cash.

$100 billion is New Deal territory. As a result, maybe the best use of all that cash is on capital-intensive projects that can put engineers and skilled IT workers to work now. Now is Apple’s chance to do something big, something that people will be talking about as part of Steve Job’s final legacy. What if, on October 4, in addition to announcing whatever new technology the company plans to introduce, it also announces a massive capital spending project that acts as a stimulus for the economy?