【政经一日闻】“贫穷”的美国政府，可用现金不及苹果公司现金储备

Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (￡45.3bn). Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn.在最近来自于美国财政部的数字显示，美国政府现在拥有的可支配现金为737亿美元。悲剧的是，苹果公司近日公布其可支配现金储备有764亿美元。

The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill to raise the country's debt ceiling, allowing it to borrow more money to cover spending commitments. If it fails to extend the current limit of $14.3 trillion dollars, the federal government could find itself struggling to make payments, and risks the loss of its AAA credit rating. The United States is currently spending around $200bn more than it collects in revenue every month.美国政府的议员们近期将会投票决定是否要增加美国的债务上限，这样做的目的在于批准美国政府更高的借贷来满足开销。如果这次投票不能通过增加超过14.3万亿的限额，那么美国政府会发现自己在支付方面出现困难，而且也很可能丢掉AAA的信用评级（进一步了解信用评级）。按照当前的情况，美国政府每个月的开销比其支出要多2000亿美元。

Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financialresults. In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at $7.31bn. With more than $75bn either sitting in the bank or in easily accessible assets, there has been enormous speculation about what the company will do with the money. "Apple keeps its cards close to its chest," said Daniel Ashdown, an analyst at Juniper Research.但是反观苹果公司，根据最近的财报显示苹果公司的赚钱速度非常快。在这3个月的结算中，苹果的净利润比去年同期增长了125%，达到了731亿美元。手中握有750亿的现金在银行或者非常容易变现的资产，业界已经对于苹果想要用这些钱来干什么有了各种各样的猜想。一位来自Juniper Research的研究员这样说：我们都不知道苹果葫芦里卖的什么药。

Industry watchers believe that it is building up a war chest to be used for strategicacquisitions of other businesses, and to secure technology patents. Bookstore Barnes and Noble and the online movie site Netflix have both been tipped as possible targets, said Mr Ashdown.业界的观察者们普遍认为苹果正在酝酿一场很大的收购战，同时也准备继续捍卫他们自己的专利。Ashdown表示，Bookstore Barnes、Noble和Netflix都是可能被收购的目标。

The company may also have its eye on smaller firms that develop systems Apple might want to add to its devices, such as voice recognition.苹果公司也可能正在物色一些和自己的行业息息相关的公司，比如那些开发系统的公司，苹果可能会很乐意把那些技术加入到自己产品中，比如音频识别系统。

Apple dipped into some of its reserves recently when it teamed-up with Microsoft to buy a batch of patents from defunct Canadian firm Nortel. The bidding consortium shelled out $4.5bn for more than 6,000 patents.而最近苹果也和微软共同合作，开始动用自己的资金储备来购买已经破产了的加拿大公司Nortel的专利。这个联合财团开出了45亿美元来收购这6000多项专利。