Free Republic

On a recent morning, Neil Meehan opened a spreadsheet he has come to dread. It showed the number of intensive-care beds available in an area of New Hampshire that is home to 350,000 people: two. A day earlier, there was just one. Very often there are none. Meehan, the chief physician executive at Exeter Hospital, has worked in emergency medicine for nearly three decades. He has lost track of the number of unprecedented things he has witnessed

DECEMBER 31, 2009 Bond Investors Bet on Japan's Day of Reckoning GREGORY ZUCKERMAN AND JOANNA SLATER Some hedge funds are starting to wager on painful times ahead for Japan, the world's second-largest economy. These investors, including some who made successful bets against risky mortgages and financial companies in recent years, anticipate trouble for Japan's financial system. Their concern: Government borrowing continues to climb while demand for the nation's debt could taper off. A collapse of the Japanese government-bond market "is going to happen; it's a question of when," said Kyle Bass, head of Hayman Advisors LP, a Dallas hedge fund,...