Free Republic

When the Mayans envisioned the world coming to an end in 2012 — at least in the Hollywood telling — they didn’t count junk bonds among the perils that would lead to worldwide disaster. Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could overload the debt markets. With huge bills about to hit corporations and the federal government around the same time, the worry is that some companies will have trouble getting...

awmakers in Washington have reached a "fundamental agreement" over the basic terms of the biggest bail-out of Wall Street since the Great Depression. Speaking on Capitol Hill this afternoon, senior representatives from both the Republican and Democratic parties said that while precise details had still to be agreed, they had managed to secure an overall deal. Emerging from a meeting which had lasted all morning, Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said that a deal had been reached which will see at least $700 billion worth of taxpayer funds given to the US Treasury to start...