Bloomberg points to big US companies that hold $1.73 in cash of which %1.1 trillion belongs to the 50 biggest companies according to Moody’s Investor Services. Most of the money is hoarded overseas but repatriating would subject it to a 35% US tax and spending it or even giving it back to shareholders is a pain. A hypothetical situation “if big American corporations and European politicians had any imagination” would be to engineer a bailout for nearly every bankrupt country.

Back in 2012, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was asked if he could use the stash to bail out Greece. He laughed the suggestion off as a joke but Apple’s hoard that now numbers $194 billion in cash despite paying out generous dividends and buying back stock. Bloomberg points to the hypothetical situation of Greece getting debt relief from companies and how this would solve the Greek problem: “Many executives would probably welcome the move to a warm seaside, and Greece would have the beginnings of a powerful tech cluster, which owould draw in other companies and create service jobs. With such help, the Greek government could probably afford to be less austere than its creditors want it to be.”