Business life: My finance news blog

Treasurys were mixed late Wednesday following the government’s $21 billion offering of 10-year notes and after the Federal Reserve said economic activity is weak but recovering.

What prices are doing: The benchmark 10-year note was down less than 1/32 at 96-19/32, and the yield rose to 3.78% from 3.72% late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The 30-year bond was up less than 1/32 to 94-20/32 and its yield was 4.72%. The 2-year note was flat at 100-2/32 and yielded 0.96%.

What’s moving prices: Investors submitted bids totaling $63 billion at Wednesday’s auction of reopened 10-year notes. The bid-to-cover ratio, a measure of demand, was 3. That compares with 2.62 at the last 10-year sale in December.

It was the second of three auctions this week aimed at selling $84 billion worth of U.S. debt. On Tuesday the government received solid demand at its sale of 3-year notes. On Thursday, it will auction $13 billion worth of reopened 30-year bonds.

Meanwhile, the Fed’s reading on the economy, known as the Beige Book, said that while the economy remains weak, conditions are improving.

Separately, the Treasury posted a deficit of $91.9 billion in December, nearly double the shortfall of a year earlier need a personal loan with bad credit.

Bond prices were also pressured by comments from a key Federal Reserve official.

Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, said late Tuesday that the Fed should raise interest rates before unemployment reaches an "acceptable" level.

Plosser also said the central bank should not deviate from its plan to stop buying mortgage-backed securities this quarter.

What analysts are saying: Bill Larkin, a portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management, said Treasurys have been trading in a range since last week’s dour jobs report damped enthusiasm for more risky assets.

Government data showed Friday that employers cut 85,000 jobs in December after adding 4,000 jobs the month before. The nation’s unemployment remains at 10%.

Larkin said the market is also focused on the corporate sector as the quarterly reporting period gets into full swing.

"If earnings are mixed, we’ll probably stay where we are," he said. "If we get more strength in earnings, we could break out to higher yields." 

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Continuing a Thanksgiving tradition, every year I ask our staff what they’re thankful for, excluding family, friends and good health — none of which we ever should take for granted, but too often do.

Here’s what they said this year, with a few items from me thrown in for good measure.

• Mentors. Each year I try to learn from people. It could be co-workers, business relationships, friends or family. Having a mentor has helped me be a better salesperson and has helped me in personal and business relationships.

• Mistakes. You can learn from other people’s mistakes and your own. Making mistakes in life is natural and makes people even stronger if they learn from them.

• People who admit their mistakes. This is mine, and I’ll give you an example. In last week’s column, I misspelled the name of Rebecca Kenyon, a local woman who tried out for and made a pro football team here. No excuses. Stupid mistake.

• Is it too corny to say I am thankful for my job? I think of all those people at the Tribune who will be facing some tough times this holiday season. I really am thankful to be a part of a well-respected publication — my home away from home.

• I am thankful that it looks like a buyer may have been found for the Tribune after all, hopefully saving at least some of those jobs.

• For all the trials and tribulations that have come my way. It has caused me to learn that we all have two choices: We either pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make it through and become much stronger people, or we sit and wallow in self-pity and ask “Why me?” When we choose to push through whatever may happen in our lives, it gives us a better perspective of what life is really all about and how we need to focus on the present moment.

• Giving back and having compassion for people less fortunate. Whether it be monetary or hands-on support. Working with and seeing businesses and people who help the less fortunate has made me more aware that I need to give back more. Giving back to our community is something we all should be doing — not only during the holidays, but during the entire year.

• For the medical industry — particularly the nursing profession. … Health care workers are in the trenches every day taking care of people we love, and they truly are the unsung heroes of our community.

• The things I am grateful for this year are things in previous years I have taken for granted, probably along with many others. Seeing that this economy is so bad and a lot of people are losing their homes and jobs, I am extremely grateful for my job, for having a roof over my head and food on the table every night for my family and me.

• And all of us here at the Business Journal are thankful for you, our readers. We appreciate your continued support and feedback. We all have lots of things to be thankful for, and may we remember to think about them a lot more often in the year ahead.

Don Henninger can be reached at dhenninger@bizjournals.com.

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the Obama administration’s economic record and dismissed a call for his resignation from the senior House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee.

Geithner blamed the policies of the Republican party and President George W. Bush for the financial crisis that pushed the nation into the deepest recession since the 1930s.

Republicans “gave this president an economy falling off the cliff,” Geithner told Representative Kevin Brady of Texas as the two men interrupted each other during a hearing today. “I can’t take responsibility for the legacy of crises you bequeathed the country.”

Gearing up for next year’s elections, Republicans are training their sights on Geithner, an architect of the Wall Street bailout as Treasury secretary and in his previous job as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A report issued earlier this week critical of Geithner’s handling of the rescue of insurer American International Group Inc. has also prompted calls for him to quit.

Today, the Treasury chief fired back, saying that by “any measure” of consumer or investor confidence, the economy is “substantially stronger today than when the president took office” in January.

The “worst financial crisis in generations” happened after “almost a decade, certainly eight years, of basic neglect of basic public goods, in health care, in education, in public infrastructure, in how we use energy,” Geithner said.

Economic Management

Brady told Geithner that a growing number of liberal Democrats as well as conservative Republicans think that he is handling the economy poorly.

“For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?” Brady asked. “The public has lost all confidence in your ability to the do the job, and it is reflecting on your president.”

Another Republican on the panel, Representative Michael Burgess of Texas, told Geithner that he disagreed with Brady.

“I don’t think you should be fired,” Burgess told Geithner. “I thought you should have never been hired.”

Democrats on the panel defended Geithner .

“It just amazes me how there are some people here who are trying to pretend, and I think consciously and intentionally pretending, that the economic circumstances that we’re confronting, all of them, mysteriously materialized over the course of the last nine months or so, which is totally, completely false,” said Representative Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat.

White House Comment

The White House stepped in to defend the Treasury chief later in the day. “Secretary Geithner has helped steer the American economy back from the brink, and is now leading the effort on financial reform,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said in an e-mailed statement. “His focus today — and ours — is on economic recovery and addressing the challenges the American people face every day.”

Earlier this week, former Republican congressman Rob Simmons, seeking a U.S. Senate seat from Connecticut, called on Geithner to resign over his role in the AIG bailout.

Simmons, who is bidding to challenge Democratic incumbent Christopher Dodd in the 2010 election, cited the report issued Nov. 16 by the watchdog of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that faulted the New York Fed — with Geithner at its helm — for making “limited efforts” to protect taxpayer funds during last year’s rescue of AIG.

Dodd chairs the Senate Banking Committee, which is considering legislation to toughen oversight of the U.S. financial system.

In today’s hearing, Geithner also told lawmakers that the Treasury wants to end the TARP as soon as possible.

“We are working to put TARP out of its misery,” he said.

The Obama administration is moving “aggressively” to shut down “the programs that defined TARP at the beginning of the crisis,” he said.

The department has already completed its guarantee for money-market mutual funds and it has ceased making capital injections into large banks.

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Industrial conglomerate Tyco International Ltd said it expects its revenue to continue to slide until late in its 2010 fiscal year, sending its shares down 3 percent on Tuesday.

The maker of security and fire-control systems expects demand to remain soft through the first half of its current fiscal year — which began in late September — and set revenue and profit targets that allowed for the possibility of declines.

“We have assumed that the current environment continues well into the year… with some modest — and I emphasize modest — pickup in the second half of the year,” Chief Executive Ed Breen told investors on a conference call.

The company looks for sales to fall at a low-double-digit percentage rate through the first half of the fiscal year, with the rate of decline slowing in the third quarter and growth perhaps returning by the fourth quarter, Breen said. Recent cost-cutting measures could help boost Tyco’s bottom-line performance when revenue starts to pick up, he added.

Analysts noted the company tends to be cautious in its forecasts — pointing out that news came on a day that Tyco reported fourth fiscal quarter results that topped Wall Street’s expectations.

“Their outlook is conservative,” said Buckingham Research analyst Edward Wheeler. “They have been exceeding their expectations as they’ve gone along so I think it’s all in line with the history of conservative guidance that they’ve had for the last year.”

Tyco shares have risen some 64 percent so far this year, sharply outpacing the 7 percent rise of the Dow Jones U Payday Loan for Bad Credit.S. diversified industrials index .DJUSID.

SETS 2010 OUTLOOK

Tyco expects first-quarter profit from continuing operations of 48 cents to 50 cents per share on a drop in organic revenue of 11 percent to 13 percent. Analysts, on average, had looked for profit of 56 cents per share excluding one-time items, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For the year, the company expects a profit of $2.30 to $2.50 per share, excluding one-time charges, on $17 billion in revenue. Wall Street had looked for profit of $2.45 per share on revenue of $17.14 billion.

Tyco shares fell 98 cents to $34.41 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange, reversing pre-market gains.

Tyco this year moved its incorporation to Switzerland from Bermuda, a move that cost it its spot in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index .SPX.

The company also reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ forecasts, boosted by lower costs.

Net income fell 53 percent to $205 million, or 43 cents per share, in the quarter, ended on September 25, from $434 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier.

Earnings from continuing operations, excluding special items, came to 61 cents per share, beating analysts’ average forecast of 54 cents. 

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U.S. Bancorp is probably the biggest bank you’ve never heard of. But there are two reasons why you might want to start paying attention to it.

It is about to get bigger and it’s also a favorite investment of some guy in Omaha whose name you probably do know: Warren Buffett.

On Friday, U.S. Bancorp agreed to buy the nine banks that were part of FBOP, a privately held multibank holding company that failed and was seized by the FDIC.

As a result of the deal, U.S. Bancorp will add $18.4 billion in FBOP’s assets and 150 branches spread throughout California, Illinois, Texas and Arizona. This acquisition is U.S. Bancorp’s fourth purchase of a failed bank or savings and loan since last November. Including FBOP, U.S. Bancorp has added nearly $35 billion in assets and about $27.7 billion in consumer deposits.

Still, U.S. Bancorp (USB, Fortune 500) doesn’t get nearly the attention that other big banks receive, despite the fact that it has $265 billion in assets and is the sixth-largest commercial bank in the country.

While its bigger rivals JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) were all singled out to receive $25 billion in "rescue" money as part of the first installment of TARP funds last fall, U.S. Bancorp had to wait and apply for TARP just like other smaller banks.

It received $6.6 billion in bailout funds last year but it also was one of the first big banks to return taxpayer money.

In June, U.S. Bancorp was one of 10 banks that took part in regulators’ stress tests earlier this year that was given a relatively clean bill of health.

That might be one reason why Warren Buffett is such a big fan of U.S. Bancorp. As of June 30, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500) owned 69 million shares in the bank, a 3.6% stake. That makes Berkshire the fourth-largest owner in U.S. Bancorp. What’s more, U.S. Bancorp is Berkshire’s tenth-biggest holding.

The bank has held up remarkably well during the credit crisis and recession. It has posted a profit in each of the past five quarters.

And the stock, like that of other Berkshire bank holdings such as Wells Fargo and Buffalo’s M&T Bank (MTB), has responded to the relatively strong results. The stock has more than doubled since the market hit its low point of the year in early March, outperforming the big gains at many of its regional bank rivals.

Investors appeared to like the news of the FBOP (not to be confused with the annoying Hanson song MMMBop from a decade ago) acquisition as well. The stock was up about 2% in midday trading Monday.

So if Warren Buffett thinks so highly of U.S. Bancorp, does it make sense for your portfolio. It might. The stock does trade at a higher valuation on both a price-to-earnings and price-to-book value basis than many other large regional banks.

But Frank Barkocy, director of research with Mendon Capital Advisors, an investment firm that focuses mainly on financial stocks and owns shares of U.S. Bancorp, said the stock is worth it.

"The stock does sell at a premium to the banking group and that might frighten some investors away but we think it’s one of the better managed financial institutions out there," Barkocy said. "You get what you pay for. U.S. Bancorp is a consistent quality performer."

Barkocy added that the purchase for FBOP will give U.S. Bancorp a small, but important, foothold in Texas. It is taking over three branches in the Lone Star State as a result of the deal.

That obviously isn’t a whole lot right now but it could allow U.S. Bancorp to expand more in Texas, which is a key banking market that has not been hit as hard as the rest of the country during the wave of bank failures over the past two years.

Of course, the bank is not perfect. It’s a bank after all. U.S. Bancorp reported last month that its non-performing loans and net charge-offs tied to bad loans rose in the third quarter.

But the pace of loans going sour is starting to slow. That’s a good sign. And U.S. Bancorp’s credit quality has been much higher throughout the credit crisis than most of its peers.

As of the end of September, non-performing assets made up 2.4% of total loans. By way of comparison, the non-performing asset to loan ratio for Bank of America was 3.7% in the third quarter.

"Part of the dilemma with banks is there a degree of the numbers being a black box. But U.S. Bancorp didn’t wind up with as much junk in their portfolio. That intrigued us," said Don Yacktman, manager of the Yacktman fund and Yacktman Focused fund. U.S. Bancorp is a holding in both funds.

Add all that up and it shows that not all banks mucked it up royally during the housing boom and resulting bust. Some banks have somehow managed to continue growing without taking on ridiculous levels of risk.

So it looks like there’s a good chance U.S. Bancorp will continue to impress Buffett and the rest of its shareholders.

Talkback: Do you think it makes sense to follow the investing advice of Warren Buffett? Share your comments below. 

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Singapore’s largest sovereign wealth fund GIC said on Tuesday it had halved its stake in Citigroup to below 5%, making a profit of $1.6 billion as global equity markets rebound.

The stake sale came after Singapore’s smaller fund Temasek Holdings lost an estimated over $4 billion in Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and Barclays in hasty exits around the start of 2009.

Analysts said GIC, also known as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., took advantage of a rally in world stocks to take some money off the table and the sale suggested the fund may have some concerns about the outlook for global banks.

"Perhaps timings-wise, GIC benefited from the rally," said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB.

"The sale also reflects underlying concerns that although global institutions may have seen their darkest days, there could still be uncertainty ahead as OECD countries in particular could see patchy growth as a result of the recession," he said.

From late 2007, GIC ploughed billions of dollars into Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and UBS (UBS) and like other sovereign funds, had suffered initial losses in battered global banks as the financial crisis hit companies.

Ng Kok Song, group chief investment officer of GIC, which manages an estimated $200 billion-plus in assets, said the fund realized a profit of $1.6 billion from the sale of Citigroup shares.

The Singapore investor had a profit including unrealized gains of about $3.2 billion based on Citigroup’s closing price of $4.43 on Sept. 21, he said.

On Sept. 11, GIC exchanged its $6.88 billion holding of Citigroup convertible preferred stock into ordinary shares at $3.25 a share as part of a rescue package, gaining in the process a more than 9% stake in the U.S. bank.

"A stake below 5% reflects GIC’s goals and desire to be a portfolio investor," it said in a statement. "GIC will continue its investment in Citigroup as we are confident of its long-term prospects." 

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Capping a week that highlighted the one-year anniversary of the financial collapse, a panel aimed at getting to the bottom of its cause is just now getting on its feet.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s members want to "shed light" on why the collapse happened and make recommendations to avoid future crises. Their final report is 15 months away, but congressional leaders are already pushing ahead on bills to revamp financial rules to avoid the next crisis.

The congressionally appointed group, funded with $8 million, met for the first time publicly on Thursday and pledged that its work will serve as more than window dressing for politicians worried about the appearance that they allowed the financial crisis to happen.

"There’s no question that this commission had a political birth," said the committee’s second-in-command, Bill Thomas, a retired Republican congressman from California who ran the powerful Ways and Means Committee. "You can sulk about your birth or get on with your life. And frankly, this commission’s life is very, very important."

The commission plans to release interim reports as it gathers information, said the group’s chairman, Phil Angelides, a former California state treasurer who warned about financial sector abuses back in 2002 and lost a 2006 gubernatorial bid. It also plans to stay in close contact with Capitol Hill committees leading the reform of the financial system.

The group has subpoena power over records and can demand interviews with key decision-makers to figure out what caused the crisis.

One model for the panel is the Pecora Commission, which examined the 1929 Wall Street crash and other events that caused the Great Depression. That group came up with recommendations that helped redefine the financial system.

The group is most often compared with the Sept allied insurance. 11 commission, which found that the government had ignored warning signs of terrorist threats.

But unlike the 9-11 commission, which was made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, the financial crisis commission has six Democrats and four Republicans.

Such differences in opinion came out in opening statements, as panel members highlighted the issues they want to focus on.

Several Republican appointees, including former White House official Keith Hennessey, talked about the need to examine the housing crisis and "politically popular laws passed by Congress that exacerbated" the problems.

Hennessey, an economic adviser under President George W. Bush, wants to delve into the "relaxation of lending standards" and people buying homes they could not afford. Republican lawmakers often talk about such homeownership policies as a major cause of the financial crisis.

By contrast, former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, said the commission needs to explore how consumer protections went awry because that’s high on the congressional agenda.

Brooksley Born, former chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, called for stronger regulation of complex financial products like derivatives, which she warned about in the 1990s.

"The erroneous belief in the effectiveness of self-regulation has played a major role in bringing our economy to its knees and has cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars," Born said.

The crisis commission aims to hire top staff in October and start gathering information before the end of November. 

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France’s Publicis Groupe, the world’s No. 3 advertising group by revenue, is looking to China to underpin long-term growth as the global advertising market slows, an executive said on Saturday.

China now makes up less than five percent of Publicis’ global revenue, but in as little as five years the fast-growing market could be its second or third largest market, Chief Executive Maurice Levy told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

“Without China we will have a limited future,” said Levy, who plans to double the current 3,000 staff in China within the next two or three years.

“China is crucial,” Levy said.

Publicis and bigger rivals such as Britain’s WPP are racing to establish themselves in China, a relatively new battleground where market share is still fluid and expanding, compared to mature markets in Europe or the United States.

“To win a new client in Europe is very painful,” he said.

The comments come after Publicis reported a first half like-for-like drop in sales of 6.6 percent, beating the 8.3 percent decline posted by WPP and the U.S. group Omnicom’s 8.8 percent fall.

While most analysts say global ad spending could be down 8 percent to 10 percent this year, China’s market is still growing, though down from the more than 20 percent growth in 2008.

Publicis recently maintained its 2009 financial goals, while Levy said he expected a “slow and gradual recovery” in 2010.

The French company is racing with competitors to sign up Chinese clients who are building brands domestically, but also increasingly need help in penetrating the larger, but more competitive markets in the United States and Europe.

Publicis and other foreign advertising specialists first came to China on the heels of their multinational clients, but the focus is now turning toward Chinese companies who are growing in clout and advertising budgets.

“If I am relying only on international companies, it will mean (the China strategy) will have failed,” said Levy.

Chinese companies now contribute only about one third of Publicis’s total revenue in the mainland market, a slice Levy hopes to double in five years, or longer.

“It has to be two thirds,” he said.

China has been Publicis’s fastest growing market, but this year other markets in Latin America and the Middle East could overtake the mainland, he said. 

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc holds a weekly meeting of its research analysts where they offer trading ideas that are given to top clients, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Sunday.

But the paper cited Steven Strongin, Goldman’s stock research chief, as saying these meetings did not give anyone an unfair advantage and the tips did not contradict research notes that carry predictions over a longer term.

Goldman’s analysts talk about short-term developments around specific stocks during the meeting, called a “trading huddle,” which is also attended by some of the firm’s own traders, the Journal reported.

The practice started some two years ago, and since then the Wall Street firm has given ideas on hundreds of stocks, the Journal reported, citing internal Goldman documents.

Goldman could not be reached immediately for comment on Sunday night.

The company told the Journal that its own traders were not allowed to use the information until it had been given to clients.

The Journal also cited Goldman spokesman Edward Canaday as saying that a comment that could lead to changes such as those in earnings estimate, ratings or price target must be sent out to all clients. But Canaday told the Journal that it was rare for comments to reach such levels.

(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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or tried to turn in — to get their Cash for Clunkers deal.

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Obama: 200 days in office

When he became the 44th president on Jan. 20, Barack Obama inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. After 200 days, here’s a look at the progress he’s made toward a recovery.

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Cash for Clunkers cars list: Top 10

These are the most popular cars purchased under the Cash for Clunkers program.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Obama ended his first 100 days in office amid hopes that both General Motors and Chrysler Group might both still avoid bankruptcy. In his second 100 days, he created a new U.S. auto industry.

The reshaping of GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy is essentially complete, and the Treasury Department holds large stakes in both companies.

There is arguably no segment of the economy where the administration has had greater impact than in the auto sector. And there’s also no accomplishment that surprised experts more.

"It was a remarkable feat, and it surprised a lot of people," said Dave Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan think tank.

Some critics aren’t convinced that a speedy bankruptcy was the right thing to do. Chrysler filed for bankruptcy April 30 and was out of bankruptcy on June 10. GM filed for bankruptcy on June 1. It emerged from Chapter 11 protection on July 10.

During the government-directed reorganizations, both companies shed tens of billions of debt and made deep cuts in their bloated dealership network, despite efforts by some members of Congress to protect the dealers.

But Jeffrey Manning, managing director at investment bank Trenwith Securities LLP, argues the companies would have been better off if the bankruptcy process took as much as nine months or a year credit reports free. That way, the companies may have been forced to make even bigger changes to their operations.

Manning said the government’s ability to convince bankruptcy judges in the two cases to accept that its plan was the only alternative, despite objections from some creditors, was a shock and could cause problems for the two automakers and other companies down the road.

Manning said lenders are going to be more wary about lending money to companies that are viewed as politically powerful, such as automakers, airlines and aerospace and defense manufacturers, for fear that they won’t have the same protections in bankruptcy that they once did.

"Borrowing is going to be more expensive," Manning predicted.

Too soon to say if bankruptcies worked

Regardless of whether the reorganizations fail or succeed, one thing is certain: the Obama administration will either get all the credit or all the blame.

By paying for the rescue with funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program originally set up to fix the nation’s banking system last fall, the White House was able to reshape the auto industry without any action by Congress.

The rescue came at a significant cost to taxpayers. The Treasury Department poured $19.4 billion into GM and $4 billion into Chrysler before their bankruptcy filings and is unlikely to get much, if any, of that money back.

Still, Treasury agreed to give another $30 billion to GM and $8 billion to Chrysler to fund their operations during and immediately after the bankruptcy process, loans that it hopes will be mostly be repaid through the sale of stock in both firms at some point in the future.

But at the very least, experts said that the fact that two of Detroit’s Big Three are now beholden to the government for their survival allowed the White House to push for greater changes in the auto industry.

Automakers went along with tough new fuel economy standards the administration laid out in May. But Obama’s push for a greener auto industry included a major carrot as well. The government-financed Cash for Clunkers program helped jump start U.S. auto sales in July.

One thing both the critics and the supporters of the two reorganizations agree upon is that it is much too soon to declare either effort a success.

"The story is not over yet. We don’t know how it ends," said Tom Libby, president of the Society of Automotive Analysts, who said the administration deserves a log of credit for the changes put in place and the pace at which it achieved the change.

"I think it’s a major feather in the cap for the administration," he said. "It’s something the management should have done over the last 20 years."

Manning is not as confident that enough was done to solve the industry’s problems.

"Chrysler and GM took a lot of baggage with them out of bankruptcy, and they both have a lot of operational challenges," he said. "Until I can see evidence of strong consumer demand, I’m not optimistic."

Talkback: Do you think Obama’s forcing of GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy will help save the U.S. auto industry? Share your comments below. 

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