I just heard on the radio that Worldcom's bonds have been downgraded to "junk" status. I knew the company was in trouble, but now saddled with 32 BILLION dollars in DEBT, the folks that they owe money to are asking for bigtime collateral.

Wow...how can a company operate with 32 billion dollars in debt, especially uncollateralized debt. That just boggles my mind.

It also happens that there have been more downgrades to junk status last year than any prior year. I hope we start coming out of this soon...!

Seems like I heard that Xerox was similarly downgraded a few weeks ago. At least I think it was Xerox. It was some huge company whose stock was downgraded to junk status. Does anyone remember who that was?