61% of the cash reserves of U.S.-based companies are held overseas [View all]

[dkf]

@ezraklein: 61% of the cash reserves of U.S.-based companies are held overseas: http://t.co/7LfCS7MdpW

We've known for a while that Apple has a mind-bogglingly large stockpile of cash: $147 billion, as of the latest count. On Tuesday, we learned that it's also a huge chunk of the total amount of cash held by U.S.-based companies overall, not including banks: About 10 percent, according to a report from Moody's.

The more interesting thing, though, is how Apple's domination reflects an increasingly unequal cash distribution across American corporations generally.

First of all, it's important to note that cash reserves have been rising steadily over the past five years, as corporations seek to shore up their reserves -- a behavior known as "liquidity preservation" -- in an uncertain economic environment. "The financial crisis really highlighted a greater need to get better control of your own financial future," explains Moody's analyst Richard Lane.

Another factor may be the compounding effects of globalization. Companies are making more and more of their profits overseas, and lose a lot of it to the U.S. Treasury when they bring that cash back home, which they have to do in order to paying dividends and doing share buybacks. So they've tended to sit on it instead -- and now, 61 percent of the total stockpile is stored outside the U.S.