Very true, Ail. Cash on hand can give asset-poor companies the impression of stability to the market. That can be very important at times because more than a few companies have undeservedly tanked when the market opinion turned on them. The market can break a company like that if public opinion turns sour enough, whether it's true or not.

This is kinda off topic but who profits from loads of people defaulting on their loan payments , the economic chrisis must mean that the money is going into someones pockets right ? I mean the money can't just disapear can it ?. I like to think of money like energy  .

IS america or UK really in a recession ? here in the UK there's quite a few job losses and such but apart from life being more expensive everthing seems to be business as usual ,i'm a student and i can't say i'm feeling the effects on any economy downturn . economic growth is slowing down in the UK but it hasn't halted or become negative so we can't technicaly be in a recession.

Edit : fixed 2nd paragraph didn't make sense.


I wish i could bring you guys to the exam hall :(.

Noone really profit now.

The profit was made back 2-3 years ago when people were sold mortgage they coudn't afford and bought houses they coudn't afford...

On a positive note the ones that made the profit ( mortgage companies, banks, home builders) are now the one loosing cash so there is a justice :P

PS : Oh and money can totally disappear or appear overnight....

1) example : you own stock of company , a rumor is spread about that company and the stock  goes up by 10%.

Well that's money that was created right there . Money would have disappeared if the company stock had tanked.

It's true there are things like short-selling that allow some people to make money when a stock goes down but generally speaking when the stock market goes up, money is created, when it comes down, money diseappear....

There are tonns of way to generate and make cash disappear, you really would be surprised...

does microsoft have 100 billion dollars *insert dr.evil pinky to lip laugh*

i doubt even the all mighty microsoft can buy sony, i mean they couldnt even buy yahoo.

@Ail: It all depends on the definition of "disappear". People who saw the latest Batman movie know why.

 Microsoft did not buy Yahoo because of that "yahoo," Jerry Yang. It was not because they lacked the resources.

All the bolded is wrong.  As for Blu-Ray, man it would stick in MS's craw to use the format after MS failed to get its own codecs into the living room in the form of HD-DVD.  Java ftw.

PS3 is outselling 360 nowadays, and 360 will be outsold handily this gen by PS3.

I wouldn't buy a MS-owned Playstation/Xbox console unless the hardware was designed by Sony rather than MS.  Having to use MS-designed hardware would cause me to move to Nintendo/PC only.  I wonder if Sony's gaming division includes the hardware engineers that designed the quiet, cool, stable, multifunctional sleek wonder that is PS3.

A lot of SCE's profits are hidden by expenditures to other divisions of Sony Corp (like Sony Disc Manufacturing and Sony Pictures). I don't think Sony would never "sell" their gaming division, which is often in the black despite these internally redistributed funds.

Take the first two letters of "analysts" and add "us"...

Do you have any numbers to back that assertion up?

Otherwise, I could just as easily claim that some of SCE's expenses are also debited from other divisions, and we'd be back at square one.