Portugal, Greece and (to a lesser extent) Spain still have big current-account deficits, and so are still adding to their already high foreign liabilities.
That said, GM has well-known problems: too much debt, too many dealers and brands, high labour costs, and crippling liabilities to pensioners.
Debt-service ratios are lower, and their liquidity ratio the ratio of short-term assets to liabilities is historically high.
Liquidity for major non-financial corporations has never been better as measured by the high ratio of liquid assets to current liabilities.
FORBES: Three Horsemen Of The Shopping Apocalypse: Apple, Google And Amazon
This is why a high current ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities) raises my level of skepticism when I look at a company.
FORBES: Buffett: Don't Be An EPS Worshipper, Look For Penny-Pinchers
Not only will Transocean try to keep cash levels high to deal with any other Macondo-related liabilities, it will also be shouldering the cost of an expensive rig construction program.
FORBES: Icahn Could Push For Dividends At Transocean, The Only Major Driller Not Paying Shareholders
The 35% federal corporate tax rate is now the highest in the industrial world, leading companies to locate their most profitable operations outside the U.S. Big multi-national corporations such as GE have secured enough special deductions and tax credits to zero out their U.S. tax liabilities on their existing operations even as the high marginal rate encourages them to expand overseas.
FORBES: The Choice Of 2012: Obama Austerity vs. Romney Growth
Merck dismisses the high numbers, but it likely faces one of the biggest liabilities in drug history.
That was splendid for the purchasers, but rather unwise of the life companies, which had no way of hedging their liabilities with fixed-interest assets with a similarly high yield.
California is another place where businesses have come to view three years of budget uncertainty and huge pension liabilities (not to mention the state's already high taxes and complex regulatory regime) as an inducement to migrate elsewhere.
WSJ: Steven Malanga: How Retirement Benefits May Sink the States
The June funded ratio, which measures assets to liabilities. is only 74% for CalPERS even using a high-rate of return assumption for its investments.
FORBES: New Study: With Giant Pension Debts, California Is Screwed
This does away with actuarial jiggery-pokery in estimating liabilities and so exposes the true volatility of pension funds with a high weighting of their assets in equities.
ECONOMIST: The companies with the biggest holes in their pension funds
应用推荐