As the number of screens has rocketed, so has the debt that the cinema chains are carrying.

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"Instead of shackles and chains, traffickers use debt, coercion, fear and intimidation, " said David Abramowitz, vice-president of policy and government relations for Humanity United, a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing human freedom.

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It would unlock chains of inter-company debt, as well as weaning banks off the easy option of keeping big chunks of their balance sheet in (supposedly) risk-free government bonds and encouraging them to take more credit risk.

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Stocks held relatively well in the face of a tumultuous start to the year, with Egypt, Libya and the general MENA crisis sending oil prices through the roof, the Japanese earthquake-tsunami duo disrupting global supply chains, and European sovereign debt woes back in center stage.

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With that merry thought, an ambitious SCI overexpanded in the 1990s, buying individual funeral homes and small chains willy-nilly, saddling itself with debt.

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That shows up on the big hospital chains' profit-and-loss statements, where bad debt levels have almost doubled to 10% of revenue since 2000.

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Last year the culprits were obvious: Libya's turmoil had sent petrol prices sharply higher, Japan's tsunami disrupted supply chains, and over the summer politicians flirted with defaulting on the national debt.

ECONOMIST: The economy