Tribune deal went bad, fast - here's how it happened [NEWSWEEK]

What's the difference between Smart Money and Dumb Money? Twelve months, the popping of a credit bubble, and about $800 million.

NVDL: Right now, anyone in debt - corporates too - are in trouble. Cash is king - real cash.

clipped from www.newsweek.com Zell loaded up the company with nearly $13 billion in debt, which required interest payments of nearly $500 million in the first half of 2008. The plan, such as it was, was to pay down debt not with operating cash but with asset sales. One problem: most of the assets were themselves dumb money assets - trophy properties such as the Chicago Cubs, office buildings, and big city newspapers that couldn't support a lot of debt on their own, and whose purchase would require easy credit. In May 2008, Zell managed to sell Newsday to Cablevision for $650 million. In September, it sold a chunk of CareerBuilder.com for $135 million. In June, Tribune put the company's headquarters buildings in Chicago and Los Angeleson the market. So far, no takers.