Gee, thank God we have a pro-business Republican M.B.A. president....

More than $88 billion of U.S. corporate debt is teetering on the edge of investment grade and soon may join the record amount of bonds downgraded to junk this year.

Hertz Corp., the world's largest car rental firm, and radio broadcaster Clear Channel Communications are among 46 companies that probably will be categorized as noninvestment grade, according to credit-rating company Standard & Poor's....

Not since the Depression of 1929 has corporate America received so many black eyes. General Motors, the world's largest automaker, Sears Holdings Corp., the biggest U.S. department store chain, and Eastman Kodak Co., the largest photography company, led 27 borrowers whose $499 billion of outstanding debt obligations suffered the ignominy of being downgraded to junk.

And if history is any guide, there will be no rebound soon. "You don't see companies get downgraded and work their way up, by and large," said Greg Peters, head of U.S. credit strategy at New York-based Morgan Stanley....

--Houston Chronicle/Bloomberg News

Kodak and GM and Sears are aging warhorses, but Clear Channel isn't -- what's it doing on the list?