The debt burden will ease as solvent companies restructure their debt and insolvent ones go bankrupt.

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LendStreet provides loans to distressed debtor individuals to help them restructure their debt.

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In the short-term, people are also going to pay for companies that don't just pare their debt but also restructure.

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Investors urged him to expand his crisis-fighting tool kit to ensure Portugal, Greece and especially Italy and Spain can continue relying on debt markets to pay their bills while they restructure their over levered economies.

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The Maloofs have also been struggling with their casino business during the economic downturn, and were recently trying to restructure debt on the Palms Casino Resort.

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The second measure relates to a positive phenomenon numerous companies employed in the 1970s and 1980s that enabled them to restructure their balance sheets and avoid bankruptcy: They used stock or cash to buy back their debt.

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It isn't only Germany's Europe of Rules that is restricting policy choice: Policy makers are also held back by fear of the financial markets and by their past promises, such as that Greece would be the last euro-zone government to restructure its debt.

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