WHAT INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY RENDERS:

$1,265,836,000,000.

This is the amount of cash that S&P 500 companies (excluding banks and other financial institutions) are currently sitting on. As of the beginning of the third quarter in 2013, the largest U.S. companies collectively held $1.27 trillion. That's about 13.5% more than a year earlier. 

Remember, this is just the 500 members of the S&P. The number also excludes the cash held by the other 9,500 public companies that don't belong to the index. [...]

[M]ostly, companies are simply generating cash faster than they are spending it.

The widening difference between cash inflows and outflows has allowed businesses to sock away $150 billion over the past twelve months. As a result, cash stockpiles have ballooned from $1.11 trillion to $1.26 trillion -- an increase of $411 million per day.

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