The New York Times (NYT) has been struggling to figure out the web, which has led to a debate over whether to charge for electrons that has spanned years. Well, the Times seems likely to take the plunge, hoping to replicate the successes of the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal ... except, of course, that the Wall Street Journal is famous for not really delivering profits. Fortunately, the new pay wall is expected to look more like the Financial Times than the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times is considering a "metered" system. Visitors will be able to read a certain number of articles free before being required to subscribe.

A friend of Arthur Sulzberger, according to New York Magazine's Daily Intel, said that the final word could come in a few days, a sentiment corroborated by a newsroom source who said that the plan could be announced within weeks. Yet, plans need to be implemented, so it could take months for the Times to begin charging for content.

The newspaper industry continues to blame Google (GOOG) for its woes, and Google continues to claim its innocence. The search engine giant's CEO, Eric Schmidt, says that his company could actually help the newspaper industry survive the shift from print to digital ... a shift that's been more than a decade in the making, he was kind enough not to note.

According to Schmidt, publishers need to dig into the online environment and find new ways to generate revenue. "With dwindling revenue and diminished resources," he wrote in an op-ed piece published in News Corp's (NWS) Wall Street Journal, "frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame."

Most online news services give their readers access to their daily news stories for free, the main exception to that rule being Wall Street Journal Online, which charges users a annual fee to access all its content. This, however, may change shortly as the soon to be owner, Rupert Murdoch, appears to be toying with the idea of opening up the site's content to anyone wishing to see it.

This brings up an interesting discussion, and one that could have major consequences. Unlike most sites that have tried (and failed) to charge annual subscription fees, Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ)'s Wall Street Journal Online has proved able to successfully do just that. The site pulls in $79 for an annual subscription from its estimated 1 million users. That's a nice little chunk of change that Mr. Murdoch is considering throwing away.

But would he really be throwing away anything? That is where the debate comes into play. How many internet users would start to use Wall Street Journal Online for their primary news service if they were allowed unlimited free access? My opinion is that the number would be large, much larger than its current numbers, and as we all know... visitors equal revenues. In this case, visitors would equal huge advertising revenues.

The WSJ.com (paid article) has an excellent piece – called "Buyout Bonanza" – that takes a look at the perils of the buyout craze. That is, Corporate America may be on the fast-track for rapid debt accumulation.

Funnily enough, the article looks at the buyout of a gambling company, Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:HET). The deal has a value of $17.1 billion, of which about $10 billion consists of debt. True, the company has gobs of cash flow: $2.5 billion a year. Yet, this still amounts to more than 8X the value of the debt. That's certainly in the risk zone. Keep in mind that the average deal has a ratio of 5.7X.

The problem is that – with huge amounts of private equity – there are likely to be many more huge companies that go private and as a result, take on huge amounts of debt. In a way, the end of 2006 was a highlight of things to come.

However, if the economy falters – which it is bound to do – we could see a variety of marquee companies dive into default. But so far it's a gamble a myriad of big companies are willing to take.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates DealProfiles.com.