Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

The biggest boom is in loans to highly indebted companies. These deals, known as leveraged loans, rose some 60 percent over the last year, to $480 billion.

"There's been a party going on for the last year," said Mark Gold, who manages $4 billion in loan portfolios in New York for Trust Company of the West. The market has been so robust, he said, that there will eventually "be some blowups, probably within the next year or two."

Investors Flock to Loans Made to Companies Deep in Debt
By RIVA D. ATLAS

Charter Communications, the cable company controlled by Microsoft's co-founder Paul G. Allen, is struggling to hang on to subscribers even as it is weighed down by a hefty $19 billion in debt. Charter continues to lose tens of millions of dollars, and its stock trades at a mere $2 a share.