You may have missed this fascinating Real Time Economics article (Corporations Not Hoarding Cash) buried at 5am Saturday morning in the WSJ, but here it is:
In the Federal Reserve quarterly “Z1 flow of funds” report released late this past week, there was a slight discrepancy in the amount of corporate cash in Q1.
It was “up to” $1.74 trillion dollars.
And by up to, I mean down from $2.23 trillion dollars.
Did this money actually go missing? From the Fed report, its not clear whether or not this based on a significant accounting revision from recent quarters — meaning it never was really there in the first place. Alternatively, the money actually was pent, and corporate America added an additional half a trillion dollars in economic activity.
I suspect its the former . . .
Whoops! Where did I put that half trillion dollars?

Chart courtesy of WSJ
Source:
Number of the Week: Corporations Not Hoarding Cash
Ben Casselman
Real Time Economics, June 9, 2012
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/06/09/number-of-the-week-corporations-not-hoarding-cash/
This post originally appeared at The Big Picture and is posted with permission.
3 Responses to “Missing: $496.5 Billion in Corporate Cash”
Don Peacock • June 10th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
maybe our A G could catch a crook or 2…or not
terry • June 11th, 2012 at 8:25 am
crooks don't catch crooks
R. Coutinho • June 12th, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Ouch! My jaw hitting the floor actually hurts.

