The title of the article should be "Google, Apple now powerful enough to hold the entire world to ransom". Given the numbers in the article, that's ~$520 billio

The title of the article should be "Google, Apple now powerful enough to hold the entire world to ransom". Given the numbers in the article, that's ~$520 billion of tax revenues they're withholding from the state, and ~$1.5 trillion of liquidity they're withdrawing from Ireland or wherever (someone check the numbers?). The thing going for the US is that it's still a good place to spend that money, otherwise they wouldn't be contemplating repatriation in the first place. Arguably, if these companies steadfastly hold on and do not repatriate their funds without a tax holiday, their shareholders should punish them for only making imaginary money... not that it'll hurt them in a real way. If the US were to grant this tax holiday, they should've set a 0% (or 5.25% or whatever) corporate tax rate to begin with. At least it'll be fair to everyone.