Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Large companies don't want to retain a large cash position for obvious reasons.

You keep saying this, but it's not true.

In fact, the greatest, most well run large companies in the entire world that everyone is dying to invest in are the ones with huge cash positions. For obvious reasons.

See: Apple, Amazon, Google, Berkshire, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco. Just blue-chip, incredible companies. All far larger than any of the airlines. And all of them have 40-100+ billion in cash on hand. And most of them pay no dividends and the ones that do pay very small dividends.

They use said cash to reinvest in their businesses, acquire other businesses, and to have cash on hand in case of a rainy day. Like today. The tech companies are notorious for keeping cash on hand in order to weather downturns and take advantage of market slumps (like this one) to pick up assets on the cheap. You will see them buy up a shitload of companies and not have to take a single dollar from the US government. Why? Because they are run by smart nerds in Silicon Valley, not dumbasses on Wallstreet whose only goal is to juice up stock price at any cost in order to make themselves more money. American's CEO's compensation was 100% tied to stock. If anyone doesn't think for one second his only goal in running that company was to juice the share price up as high as possible in order for him to make as much money as possible for himself- well that person is a fool. Wallstreet sacrifices the future for today. It's designed to.

Part of the reason why those aforementioned companies are some the greatest companies in the entire world that EVERYONE wants to invest in- is because they continually reinvest in growth. They don't throw good money away for bad like the dumb airlines did with their irresponsible extreme stock repurchasing scheme. 96% of free cash flow. GONE. On their own stock. Didn't set aside anything for a rainy day. Didn't reinvest in the business to fuel growth. Bought their own stock. Now they are in the shit with no cash and hand and no cash flow coming in- and they want Uncle Sam to do something about it. F 'em

Ultra large companies can sit on large cash positions, yes, in part because they are ultra large and have enormous market caps.

Large companies sitting on large cash positions often find themselves being taken over using their own cash against them.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/03/25/american-airlines-waste-cash-flow-share-buybacks.aspx

The company I worked for was a large company, but not ultra large, and they did stock buy backs to limit how much cash we had sitting around.  Some of this was because we could borrow at say 1.5% and were paying a 3% dividend.  And some was to make it more difficult for any takeover to happen.

Obviously, cash spent on buy backs didn't disappear unless the stock price collapses.

And of course Apple is famous for huge stuck buy backs.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-buyback-dividend-earnings-multiple-yield-51578342838

It may be time for Apple to boost its dividend and scale back its mammoth stock-repurchase program.

The company has favored its buyback program in recent years, but Apple shares are no longer a bargain after doubling in the past year .

During its latest fiscal year that ended in September, Apple bought back $67 billion in stock and paid out $14 billion in dividends. The shares, which rose $2.37, or 0.8%, to $299.80 on Monday, trade just below the record high of $300 set on Jan. 2.
Apple now trades for almost 23 times projected earnings of $13.10 a share in its current fiscal year, considerably above its average forward price-to-earnings ratio of 14 in the past five years. Its shares now yield 1%.

Very high number of deaths announced today in the US, but the number of cases seems to be dropping now. Thank goodness.

is there a good reason for this?

otherwise, it's just bad business

Having over 20 years in the restaurant industry its my feeling thats its not a bad business but a business that

has a profit margin much lower then other businesses 

It doesnt take much to go from a profit to a loss

The higher end restaurants can't manage with carry out, at all.  Their dishes don't make sense to package up to take home, to me.  And, they are losing HUGELY on alcohol sales.  The ones in between are trying, but largely not doing anything like the business they were.  The low end places are doing pretty well, as is Kroger et al.

It's a brutal business always running close to the edge.  I know the change in tax write offs was the death nell of the place I had a one percent share in.  It took a few years but the writing was on the wall.  It's one thing to have some couples come and spend say $75 for a meal and quite another to have a business group come and drop several thousand on an expense account.

We're getting take out  more often from next door and the other place, but I am used to cooking dinner.  We would dine out maybe twice a week.  I noticed even for lunch I was often dropping $40-50.

What are your thoughts about that change?  I think I come down on the side of taxpayers not being forced to subsidize restaurants through the tax code, but I can see the other side of the argument too.

I know you weren't asking me, but....

I almost ALWAYS come down on the side of taxpayers not being forced to subsidize anything.

It's my thought that many small business owners are good at what they do and have a passion for it.

Baking, brewing beer, cooking/BBQing and serving meals, pouring drinks and serving beer, repairing cars or cell phones, whatever

what many of them are NOT good at is accounting or running a business.  Many times it's a chore or something to put off or not invest time in.  Also, sometimes these fine folks are NOT good at taking advice from people that have this knowledge or skill.