RE: cash is king?The article you linked to says nothing about what your advocating though WW. As you said previously........ "
Give it back to shareholders, its ours, How about a dividend then?" The article is all about increasing spending on productivity, not getting rid of cash simply to increase the SP a bit or to put a few pennies in shareholders hands with a dividend. Both of these options do nothing for the company in the end, unless they plan on doing a PP, where the increased SP would be handy.
They can increase spending on productivity without burning the cash up though. They can simply adjust their budget so that productivity gets a larger chunk. I'm sure with increased ordering activity they have already had to increase the productivity portion as well.