Just to be clear, I'm mostly talking about companies drastically scaling back their plans for growth in recent years, which obviously impacts private investors in the equity markets as well. Countless CEOs have gone on the record saying they've postponed hiring and capital investments because of the current tax and regulatory environment, in addition to the general dysfunction of Washington.

As you point out, Apple is sitting on over 100 billion, and countless other companies are sitting on amounts of capital that were previously unheard of. You can't honestly argue that it's a coincidence that all of these companies are simultaneously gun-shy to invest in growth.