What does Apple’s excess of $65.8 billion in cash reserves mean in real world terms? Well, for one thing, Steve Jobs could walk into any home in the United States, peel off a few bills from his fold of walking-around money and then, merely by fluttering those bills rhythmically and speaking in a soothing tone of voice, convince even the sternest ethicist, most rigidly defined vegan or opulently well-to-do moneybags to eat his wife and children.
Or, put a less prosaic way? Apple’s stock reserves are so great that if something happened and Apple stopped selling anything at all, the company could keep going until 2018 on its savings alone.
Put even less prosaically — we swear this time — Apple’s cash is worth half of Google’s entire enterprise value. Wow. [via GigaOM]