Here is a Reality Check of What Some Think is Really Going to Happen

From Bloomberg:

The biggest winners from the global buyout boom are hiring distressed-debt bankers in Europe at the fastest pace in five years.

``When the turn does come, it will be unlike anything we have ever seen before,'' said Iain Burnett, 43, managing director of Morgan Stanley's special situations unit in London. ``The scale of it could be considerable because of the size of some of these leveraged deals,'' said Burnett, who began his career in London a month before the October 1987 stock market crash.

Firms are paying as much as $3 million a year for bankers who advise bankrupt companies and for traders who specialize in defaulted debt, according to Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., the world's third-largest recruiting firm. That's on par with derivatives and commodities traders.

. . . . Restructuring groups are growing faster in Europe than in the U.S. as companies in the U.K., France and Germany pile on record amounts of debt, according to Standard & Poor's. . . .

. . . S&P forecasts the default rate, which was 2.3 percent in April, will rise above 2.5 percent by year-end in Europe. In the U.S., the 12-month default rate is 1.4 percent. . . .