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If Congress won’t get the job done on climate change, President Obama has a way to do it himself. But is he strong-arming the legislative branch?

It certainly looks that way as a series of new environmental regulations, released over the past two weeks by the EPA, are putting legislators on notice and executives on edge.

The rules are the federal government’s broadest swipe yet at regulating greenhouse gasses. According to EPA chief Lisa Jackson, "We’ve taken the historic step of proposing the nation’s first-ever greenhouse-gas emissions standards for vehicles, and moved substantially closer to an efficient, clean energy future."

The Environmental Protection Agency, which reports to the White House, is a new player in this arena. Before 2007, greenhouse gases were considered outside the EPA’s purview because regulating them would have required cracking down on specific industrial practices that other agencies had under their charge.

But a 2007 Supreme Court decision ruled them to be an air pollutant, giving the EPA wide authority to regulate any industries that emit them under the 1970 Clean Air Act.

Test drive: auto emissions

The agency’s first target as it moves towards that future? Detroit. Under the new guidelines, by 2016 automakers must reduce their fleet’s average emissions-per-mile to 250 grams. This is in addition to the familiar fuel-mileage standards set by the National Highway Safety and Transportation Authority (NHTSA).

Since there are about 9,000 grams of CO2 produced by burning each gallon of gas, automakers will be able to hit the EPA’s requirements in 2016 simply by raising fuel economy to the 35 miles per gallon levels NHTSA has already ordered for the same time period.

So meeting that 2016 deadline won’t be too challenging. But after 2016 something interesting happens. With conventional gasoline technology, improvements in fuel economy move in lockstep with drops in emissions.

But conventional technology maxes out 35 mpg, which means getting lower CO2 emissions beyond that point will require new technologies like electrics, hydrogen fuel cells or biofuels.

With electrics and hydrogen, there are no "gallons" of fuel to measure, while biofuels producer fewer emissions than gasoline but also get fewer miles per gallon. So the EPA has come up with a solution to encourage carmakers to design for low emissions rather than miles per gallon.

Margo Oge, the EPA’s air quality and transportation director, says carmakers can apply for fuel economy credits for flex-fuel vehicles that use biofuels. That means automakers will have an incentive to focus on low-emission vehicles. It’s a small change, but it amounts to a substantial power grab by the EPA.

An activist executive

Environmentalists are celebrating the new rules, since the EPA has historically been stricter than NHTSA, which is overseen by Congress. But industry trade representatives whose jobs depend on lobbying Congress on behalf of business aren’t thrilled by the developments.

"NHTSA has 35 years of experience with our technologies, for which the environmental agency doesn’t have the knowledge. They ensure that fuel-economy increases are cost-effective and possible," says Charles Territo of the Automakers’ Alliance no fax pay day loan. "If NHTSA started to lose its role, we would resist that."

While publicly White House officials say that both agencies are working in harmony, privately, they admit that it’s the EPA that is taking the lead.

And by Spring 2010, the EPA is planning to expand its reach even further, issuing greenhouse-gas targets for all firms emitting more that 25,000 metric tons per year.

That might cover enough major emitters that a cap-and-trade scheme, where the government sells permits for emissions above a certain level that companies can trade, becomes unnecessary. Cap-and-trade legislation is currently awaiting consideration in Congress, somewhat stalled because of the focus on health-care legislation.

Not surprisingly, some legislators are calling this a classic case of executive branch overreach. Representative Peter Welch (D-Vermont), who helped draft the cap-and-trade bill, says, "I would prefer for this to be done legislatively, and my contacts in industry would prefer that, because when we write bills, we give them the opportunity to help us." Skeptics would argue that there are lucrative ties to lobbyists that Congress is loath to give up.

There are economic objections too. The Congressional bill has provisions to direct funds raised via cap-and-trade permits into green energy jobs, and takes into account the cost of emissions reductions.

Columbia Business School professor and noted energy economist Geoffrey Heal estimates that discretionary regulation will be twice as costly as cap-and-trade, up to 2% of GDP, since cap-and-trade allows reductions to be made wherever they are most efficient.

"That cost will get passed on to consumers, and it’s not small change," he says.

Power Play

The timing of the EPA’s moves also hint at political motives. Congressman Welch believes the new policies are intended to tell Congress, "that if we don’t pass legislation, the President will not wait and will just go ahead and regulate."

Columbia’s Heal agrees: "The EPA announcements are designed to put pressure on the Senate and on industry representatives who are pushing senators, that if they don’t act, [the EPA] will, in ways industry won’t like."

The administration is also certainly thinking ahead to December’s international climate change conference in Copenhagen. Twelve years after President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, and with both Republican and Democratic senates having failed to ratify the agreement, the last thing Obama wants to do is show up empty handed.

If Congress doesn’t pass a bill before December, the EPA’s moves give him some cover. As Obama well knows, the credibility of America’s commitments is key to extracting similar promises from other nations like India and China.

In other words, Obama seems to be offering Congress a choice: Pass a bill, or be bypassed altogether. 

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say a Conservative Party plan to squeeze public spending and contain inflation risks putting the British economy through a decade of austerity.

Brown will reiterate to a panel of economists in London tomorrow the government’s commitment to halve the budget deficit within four years, with tax increases of about 14 billion pounds ($22 billion), asset sales of 3 billion pounds and cuts in spending that will begin to bite as soon as next year, according to remarks released by his office.

The comments mark an attempt by Brown to regain credibility with voters ahead of an election that must be held before June. Brown will say Conservative leader David Cameron is out of step with an international consensus on how to deal with the crisis and say his policies risk prolonging the slump, Britain’s worst since World War II. Cameron wants to go further and faster in tackling the shortfall.

“We need a deficit reduction plan that supports jobs and growth not one that snuffs out recovery before it has started,” Brown will say. “Restoring public finance sustainability must be done in a way that that supports growth not destroys it. The failure to do so is the real risk of a decade of austerity.”

Brown has trailed Cameron in every poll for the last two years. The latest, an ICM Ltd. poll in the News of the World showed the Conservatives up 5 percentage points on 45 percent, and Labour unchanged on 26 percent. Meanwhile a BPIX poll in the Mail on Sunday put The Conservatives on 43 percent and Labour on 29 percent.

Monetary Policy

Brown’s comments also extend to monetary policy where he will say that he will reject an early end to the Bank of England’s money printing program a month before the central bank decides on whether it needs to be extended payday loan company. Cameron last week said the central bank’s plan, know as quantitative easing, will have to stop “sometime soon” to prevent inflation spiraling.

The Treasury has authorized the central bank to buy 175 billion pounds ($278 billion) of securities with newly created money, aiming to rebuild bank balance sheets and stimulate the economy.

Bank governor Mervyn King will use new forecasts next month to appraise the plan, which prompted a split on the committee in August when King favored spending even more. Former Deputy Governor John Gieve said in an Oct. 6 interview that officials may consider an expansion in November because they will be wary of a “false dawn” for the economy.

Budget Deficit

Brown will reaffirm the U.K.’s plan to helve the budget deficit, which at 175 billion pounds next year will top 12 percent of national income, the most in the Group of 20 nations. He will point to studies by the International Monetary Fund that say that extra growth of 1 percent each year for a decade can reduce national debt almost by a third.

Aside from higher taxes and cuts in spending, Brown will say the government will sell off assets to reduce debt, confirming an announcement in the annual budget in March that the government will consider disposals of about 16 billion pounds.

Brown will say tomorrow that Tote, the student loan book, the Dartford Crossing over the river Thames, the government’s stake in the Channel Tunnel and in Urenco Group, the uranium enricher, will raise about 3 billion pounds.

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Computer maker Dell announced on Wednesday that it will close a plant in Winston-Salem, N.C., and will cut 905 jobs as a result.

Dell said that 600 plant workers will be laid off in November, and the remaining 305 employees will be cut by January 2010, when the plant is scheduled to close. The cuts represent about 1% of the company’s 78,900 employees.

"This is a difficult decision, especially for our North Carolina colleagues, but a necessary one for Dell customers and our company," said Frank Miller, vice president of Dell, in a statement. "The efforts of our team members there have been significant and we’re committed to helping them through their transition."

The Winston-Salem plant was used to make desktop computers. The company said the plant closing is part of a larger effort to simplify Dell’s operations and improve its efficiency. Dell began cutting back staff and closing plants in January, but a company spokeswoman wouldn’t comment on the total number of job cuts the company has made so far cheap pay day loans.

In late September, Dell bought tech services provider Perot Systems (PER) for $3.9 billion as part of an effort to seek an additional source of revenue. Until the Perot deal, Dell has strictly been a hardware company, selling PCs and servers to its customers.

But businesses have relied less on hardware recently, buying fewer computers and outsourcing their servers during the recent economic recession.

Consumers also made fewer desktop and laptop purchases during the downturn. That cut into Dell’s sales and profit in recent quarters and sent the stock down to an 11-year low in March before rebounding in recent months.

Shares of Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) fell more than 1% Wednesday. 

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U.S. auto parts maker Delphi ended four years in bankruptcy Tuesday, emerging from Chapter 11 as a private company and removing a major uncertainty for former parent General Motors Co.

Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy Oct. 8, 2005, fired thousands of workers, divested several businesses and agreed to sell its steering systems operations and four plants back to GM for the reorganization.

The parts maker completed the sale of most of its operations to a group that acquired its bankruptcy financing during the four-years of court protection.

Rodney O’Neal will remain chief executive of the company and the current leadership will remain in place, Delphi said in a statement low fee pay day loans.

The group acquiring the now much-smaller Delphi is led by Elliott Management Corp and Silver Point Capital LP. It has agreed to forgive nearly $3.5 billion of bankruptcy loans and invest $750 million in capital in the new company.

Other parts of the company will be sold back to GM and the rest will be liquidated under the plan approved by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in July. 

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Gold received a lukewarm reception a day after racing to a record high, with consumers in Asia more likely to be cashing in than panic buying.

Profit taking — read selling — replaced gold purchases that in New York and across Europe on Tuesday had swept spot bullion through the March 2008 record to hit $1,043.45 an ounce.

“It is simple, buy low and sell high — I am making a 10 percent profit already so I am selling,” said Nguyen Duc Hung while waiting to sell five taels of gold at a shop on Hanoi’s Ha Trung street. Hung said he bought the gold in early July.

To date, there have been no reports of gold hoarders burying stashes in secret spots as was the case in 1980, when gold zoomed above $800 an ounce for the first time, or about double today’s level when adjusted for inflation.

Gold was last quoted at $1,042.20 an ounce, just shy of Tuesday’s peak.

“Today’s been like any other day,” said David Carr, of KJC Coins Australia in Sydney. “No one’s coming in to sell gold because the price jumped overnight, it’s more wait and see, business as usual.”

The Australian outback gold mining town of Kalgoorlie, home to a nearly Times Square-sized electronic ticker tape broadcasting up-to-the-minute bullion prices, also was quiet.

“There’s nothing going on that’s out of the ordinary,” said John Horner, editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper.

In Tokyo, gold’s ascent barely caused a flutter.

“Both buyers and sellers are coming to the shop today, they are more or less evenly balanced,” said Osamu Ikeda, general manager at Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo, Japan’s biggest bullion retailer.

With Chinese markets closed for a week-long holiday, Japanese investment sentiment was center stage in Asia.

“Importantly, gold does not appear to be finding support from Tokyo, the key region in our time zone,” said Nigel Moffatt, head of treasury for Australia’s Perth Mint.

In India, where consumer demand typically peaks next week for the Dhanteras and Diwali festivals, the strong rupee kept the local price of gold under the psychological level of 16,000 rupees ($342) per 10 grams.

“Buying was very strong in the last couple of weeks, but it has been affected now even though the rupee has given a good cap to local prices,” said Pinakin Vyas, assistant vice president treasury at IndusInd Bank, a private bank in Mumbai that imports gold to sell to local traders and jewelers.

“Investors will not buy at these levels though need-based buying from jewelers will continue. People will wait for some time and then come back to the market.” 

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The end of the government’s popular Cash for Clunkers program and low inventories of vehicles led to a 40% plunge in U.S. auto sales in September compared with August, although year-over-year declines were more modest and generally in line with forecasts.

"The month never felt strong," said Mark LaNeve, vice president of U.S. sales for GM, in a call with analysts. "I think we’re feeling the effects of a post-Clunkers hangover."

Overall industry sales came in at 745,997 vehicles in September according to sales tracker Autodata, down 23% from a year ago. That makes it the worst month since February in what has been a terrible year for auto sales, even with the four-week lift the industry received from the Clunkers program.

Cash for Clunkers, which paid buyers up to $4,500 for their used cars when they purchased more fuel efficient models, spurred strong sales from late July through the end of the program on Aug. 24.

But it likely pulled ahead sales that might have taken place in September and left dealers with limited supplies of vehicles to sell coming into the fall. With low inventories, automakers also scaled back on incentive offers to buyers.

"There were a lot of things working against sales in September, and very little wind at their back," said Jeff Schuster, director of global forecasting for auto consultant J.D. Power & Associates.

Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) reported the best results of Detroit’s Big Three Thursday. Its sales slipped only 5% from a year earlier, although they were off 37% from the rush it got from Cash for Clunkers program in August.

Still Ford’s results were better than the 10% year-over-year drop forecast by sales tracker Edmunds.com.

Rival General Motors reported a 45% drop in sales compared to a year ago, and a 37% drop from August. Edmunds.com had forecast a 46% decline for the nation’s largest automaker.

Mike DiGiovanni, GM’s head of sales analysis, said that the negative impact from Clunkers on future sales would diminish in the next few months though. He estimated that only about 30,000 vehicle sales would be lost industrywide in the fourth quarter due to the impact of Clunkers.

DiGiovanni added that, despite a growing belief among economists that the recession has ended, it will take a much bigger rebound in the economy before auto sales truly bounce back.

"We’re not going to be completely out of the woods until the job market improves," he said.

Toyota Motor (TM), which had the largest number of Clunkers-related sales, posted a 13% drop in sales compared to a year ago, but that was a 44% plunge from August. Toyota’s sales were a bit worse than Edmunds.com’s forecast of a 10% drop, but Toyota said that it believes sales should be stronger in the fourth quarter.

It did better than Japanese rival Honda Motor (HMC), which reported a 20% drop from a year earlier and a 52% plunge compared to August, more than twice as bad as the 8% drop in year-over-year sales forecast by Edmunds.com.

Nissan (NSANY) reported only a 7% slide in sales compared to a year earlier, but that was worse than Edmunds.com’s prediction of a 1% drop. Nissan’s September sales were also off 47% from August.

The one major automaker to post improved sales in September was Korea’s Hyundai, which reported a 27% gain from a year ago. Still, Hyundai’s sales were 48% lower than August’s levels.

Chrysler’s sales plunged 42% from a year ago, and 33% from August. Chrysler, with a heavier reliance on trucks than other automakers, did not get as much of a sales lift from the Clunkers program. But Edmunds.com had expected an even worse year-over-year drop of 48%.

"We believe the remainder of 2009 will continue to be a challenge for the U.S. automotive market," said Peter Fong, the lead sales executive for the Chrysler Group in a statement. "Credit markets have thawed slightly, but still remain tight, and consumer confidence, as we saw in September, is tenuous."

Ford and other automakers have ramped up production to try to replenish supplies, but inventories remained low throughout September.

George Pipas, director of sales analysis for Ford, said the company had an inventory of about 300,000 vehicles at the end of the month, up about 60,000 from the end of August. But he added that was an historic low and that some of those vehicles are still in transit to dealerships.  

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In the 1980s, when stocks mostly surged, a few mutual fund managers became the equivalent of rock stars.

Tops among them: Peter Lynch, who racked up average annual returns of a remarkable 29 percent over a 13-year run.

Lynch did it at Fidelity Magellan, which continued to grow after he left in 1990. What once was the world’s largest fund swelled from $13 billion to nearly $110 billion a decade later. Assets peaked three years after the fund shut its doors to new investors because it became so big it was hard to manage effectively.

So where is Magellan now? It’s at $24 billion, and struggling to draw investors who fled in droves after years of mediocre performance. Magellan is still big by any standard, but it’s merely Fidelity’s fourth-largest stock fund.
"I don’t worry about too many assets now," says current manager Harry Lange, who took over in late 2005.

Magellan reopened to new investors early last year, but those who gave it a try were disappointed. The fund’s 2008 plunge? Forty-nine percent — steeper than the market’s nearly 39 percent decline. Blame bad bets on dogs like AIG and Wachovia — financial companies that Lange held on to for too long.

But Lange is turning things around, thanks to a sharp departure from his predecessor’s style. Where Robert Stansky was criticized for too closely mirroring broader markets, Lange has tilted the fund heavily in favor of growth stocks — companies whose comparatively steep share prices are backed by expectations that earnings will keep growing rapidly. He’s eased out of cheaper value stocks with steadier earnings, and takes a go-anywhere approach in keeping with the fund’s namesake 16th century explorer. Nearly one-quarter of Magellan’s holdings are international stocks.

Many of the same bets on riskier stocks that weighed Magellan down last year are lifting it in 2009. It’s up 35.6 percent, easily topping the nearly 17 percent gain for its benchmark, the Standard & Poor’s 500, and beating nearly nine of 10 of its peer funds.

So is it time to climb back aboard Magellan? Only if you’re willing to commit to a fund whose penchant for racy stocks makes it unusually volatile.

This year, the fund expanded its already substantial stake in recently hot technology stocks — its second- and third-largest holdings are specialty glass maker Corning Inc. (up 62 percent this year) and semiconductor maker Applied Material (up 34 percent). It’s also favored hard-hit fare like home builder Toll Brothers (down 8 cash advance.8 percent) and big banks — Magellan’s most recent list of top 10 holdings included Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs.

Lange has turned Magellan into "a fund for optimists," according to Morningstar’s lead Fidelity analyst, Christopher Davis.

"If you look at its portfolio, it’s positioned for an economy that’s improving," Davis says, noting an absence of such defensive favorites as Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble.

Lange says this year he’s slightly eased off his leaning toward growth stocks but still heavily favors the category. Though value stocks outperformed growth for an eight-year run after the dot-com bubble deflated early this decade, the pendulum swung back to growth last year — financial stocks that were hit so hard last year are mostly in the value category. Growth’s ranks include plenty of tech names that have recently fared well.

Lange still likes tech because of its big stake in emerging markets, where consumers in countries like China and India continue to drive growing demand for gadgets including mobile phones from makers like Nokia, Magellan’s top holding. He figures that trend will continue giving growth an edge over value. "I’m pretty confident that growth will be as strong in the next six to 12 months," Lange says. "There are a lot of people out there who think after that, it will be a sluggish recovery. I’m more bullish than that."

As for his fund’s choppiness, Lange acknowledges that with his growth-oriented style, "it’s pretty tough not to have volatility in these unusual times."

Even with this year’s strong results, winning back investors who fled Magellan has proved tough. Lange is still trying to shake the cumulative record of the last 10 years, a period when Magellan posted an average annual loss of 1.2 percent, slightly worse than most of its peers.

"This is not your grandfather’s Magellan fund," says Jim Lowell, a former Fidelity employee who runs an independent newsletter, FidelityInvestor.com, that evaluates the company’s funds.

Lowell currently recommends Magellan but says it’s no longer appropriate as a core retirement holding for investors who are looking for the broad exposure it once offered. Instead, Magellan is geared toward those seeking more growth exposure in an otherwise diversified portfolio.

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The demise of Saturn is a good thing for the new General Motors.

It was a living, breathing reminder of the arrogance that permeated this company for years, in the belief that GM brains, combined with an endless supply of money, could solve any problem.

It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. GM needs to learn its lesson from Saturn and say goodbye.

Saturn was the creation of Roger Smith, who, in his tenure as chairman and CEO from 1981 to 1990, caused much of the damage that current CEO Fritz Henderson is trying to undo.

Smith called his big ideas "lulus," and Saturn was a lollapalooza. Frustrated and impatient with trying to cure GM’s manufacturing, engineering, and marketing woes, Smith decided to start over again with a clean sheet of paper. So he created Saturn as a way to reinvent GM by doing everything differently.

Smith tried to do it all at once. He tried to bypass GM’s balkanized manufacturing system by combining all of Saturn’s factory operations in one place. He tried to whitewash GM’s sorry union relations by giving workers a piece of the action in exchange for more cooperation.

He tried to solve GM’s perennial small-car problem by creating a new division that would do nothing but make small cars. And he tried to create a cohesive and responsive dealer network by awarding dealers exclusive territories so they wouldn’t be forced to compete against each other.

As the famous ads would proclaim in the early 1990s, Saturn would be a different kind of car company. It really was a noble idea that had tremendous appeal. As GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said much later, the Saturn experiment was an attempt to answer the question "Why can’t we have it both ways? Let’s have wonderful dealers and consumers who are enthusiastic about the product."

And parts of the original concept proved durable. Saturn did go on to set new standards for satisfied buyers and to form remarkably strong bonds with its customers payday loan online. "The Saturn experience," which started with the dealer sale and ran through the life of the car, became the talk of the industry.

But even with a clean sheet and a blank check, Smith couldn’t produce a winner. In its two decades of operation, Saturn built a gigantic new factory, introduced several all-new models, conducted massive ad campaigns, and consumed billions of dollars of GM’s money. But it was all in vain.

The notion of a tiny "independent" American company like Saturn making low-margin small cars and trying to sell them profitably proved totally unworkable. The Saturn cars just weren’t good enough, and GM couldn’t charge enough for them.

Meanwhile, competition from Japan, and later Korea, proved much tougher than anyone expected.

Exactly 20 years after it opened for business, GM put Saturn up for sale to the highest bidder as part of its bankruptcy proceedings. By then, Roger Smith’s concept of a new way of making and marketing cars was already dead.

Wednesday’s collapse of the Penske deal, which was always a chancy proposition, kills the Saturn brand. Will it kill GM’s historic arrogance? Critics see the same mentality that led to Saturn in GM’s zealous promotion of the Chevy Volt.

As one observer pointed out recently, after the Volt’s batteries have been discharged from 40 miles of driving, its performance will be reduced by half. In other words, the acceleration time of this $40,000 car under its gasoline engine will double, making maneuvers like merging onto a highway and passing pretty risky.

That’s hardly likely to be a strong selling point for a car that GM is promoting — as it did with Saturn — as a revolutionary game changer. 

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that a strong dollar was very important to the United States and the rest of the world needs to be convinced Americans will be more thrifty in future.

“A strong dollar is very important to this country, I mean that, and it’s very important that people recognize it,” he told a news forum at the Newseum in downtown Washington.

Speaking just before departing for Istanbul, Turkey, for a Group of Seven finance ministers’ meeting, Geithner said the dollar’s “exceptional” role in the global financial system invests the United States with extra responsibility.

Questions have been raised about whether the world will be willing to keep financing huge American debts forever or whether they might seek an alternate reserve currency.

Geithner made clear, in response to questions, that he was aware of the debate and of the importance of persuading others that the United States was willing to take measures to preserve the currency’s value.

“It does bring special responsibilities and burdens on the United States and it’s very important that we make not just Americans but make the world understand that we are going to go back to living within our means,” he said.

Geithner added, “And we are going to make sure that our independent Federal Reserve keeps inflation low and stable over time…and we are going to run fiscal policy in this country consistent with that basic objective of going back to living within our means.”

The U.S. is headed for a record deficit of around $1.8 trillion this year and, according to the Congressional Budget office, an estimated $1.4 trillion deficit in fiscal 2010.

Geithner said there were signs of global economic recovery, which would produce more revenues, but he stressed they were only tentative signs at this point.

He said the financial crisis the world continues to work through stemmed partly from the fact that central banks kept interest rates too low for too long and created conditions for an asset bubble that eventually burst.

“There was a long period where monetary policy around the world was very, very loose and accommodative,” Geithner said, adding that allowed risk-taking to become excessive.

“You had a huge boom in wealth outside the United States and that money was looking for a home and it created huge demand progressively for what proved to be very risk types of financial assets,” Geithner said, adding that government “failed the test” of preventing the buildup in risk.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Andre Ricci)

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CIT Group Inc is planning to offer its unsecured debt holders two options: either to exchange their debt voluntarily, or agree to a prepackaged bankruptcy, people close to the matter said on Wednesday.

The debt exchange would allow bondholders to swap their securities for new debt, or equity. CIT has about $32 billion of unsecured debt on its balance sheet, and is hoping to reduce its indebtedness and to put off repaying maturing obligations.

Few financial companies have survived bankruptcy, but CIT believes its customers will continue to borrow from it even if it is reorganizing in bankruptcy court, the sources said. The sources declined to be identified because the plans are not yet public.

(Reporting by Dan Wilchins and Paritosh Bansal, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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