In the 1980s Japanese companies raised cheap equity-linked debt to build lots of factories, shops and so forth in the expectation that the economy would continue to grow at a fair clip.
Deflation pushes up the real burden of debt, while the value of assets linked to that debt, such as house prices, may have to fall even more sharply in nominal terms to return to a fair level.
Last week, Hargreaves Services, a coal-mining and logistics company based in Durham, bought the debtlinked to secured assets that belonged to another big Scottish coal producer ATH, which was forced into administration in December.