Suze Orman will be a guest on Larry King Live Tuesday.

She is a well-known personal finance expert, and host of The Suze Orman Show on CNBC.

Suze’s commentary is a Larry King Live Blog exclusive.

Last week I watched the CEOs of the big three automakers testify before Congress. Testify is being kind, as what they really seemed to be doing was begging for money. All because their companies refused to invest in what they had to know was true, for more than 20 years.

Those supposedly smart CEOs that you are programmed to believe are smarter than you, didn’t follow the simple law of making choices that are based on fact, on what is known. We have known for years that oil is a limited commodity, yet Detroit did not aggressively pursue higher fuel efficiency (and don’t get me started on the fact that Congress didn’t exactly push them in that direction). They saw their competitive edge erode to foreign car manufacturers, yet they didn’t manage their business to adapt to that competition. And in the process they turned off their main client: Americans, who refused to support products that they now judge to be of inferior quality.

They saw the marketing surveys; they knew they were losing ground to the competition, yet it sure doesn’t seem like they made the massive changes necessary to reinvent themselves for an evolving auto industry.

Yet, I firmly believe that as incompetent and clueless as they were, now is not the time to let the Big Three fail. We as a nation can’t afford the impact of all the lost jobs: both those employed directly by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, and the millions more whose livelihood is linked to the industry.

Yes, we should all be mad and annoyed that we have to bail out these companies that have been run with an indifference to tackling what is known. My hope is that at the very least, any federal aid will come with serious requirements, oversight and regulations. What is needed is that these CEO’s finally get their heads out of the sand and make the known changes that have always been needed and start running these companies like this is 2008 not 1958.

In the meantime, as I was watching the Congressional hearing I was thinking about you, and how my wish is that you act far more intelligently than the auto CEOs this holiday season. I hope that you have the fortitude and foresight to make choices based on what you know is true today.

• You know you need to build an emergency savings fund that can cover six to eight months of living expenses; so you and your family will be okay if you are laid off.
• You know you need to get serious-finally-about tackling your credit card debt, because you understand how a high unpaid balance can mean big trouble in 2009.
• You know you need to invest more for retirement to have any shot at living comfortably later in life.
• You know you need to sit down with your child and discuss how much you can honestly afford to cover for college

If you honestly know all that, you will not spend money on holiday shopping that should instead be used to build financial security. If you know all that, you will take actions based on what you know so you never have to turn to anyone for a bailout (as if you could get one). Stop looking up to the CEOs of the world as if they are smarter than you. If they are so smart, why have they run their companies into the ground? I want better for you and your family. Focus on what you know you have to do to build security and you will give your family the most wonderful gift of all.

Happy Holidays.
– Suze

Under the plan, unveiled by Democratic leaders, the Treasury Department would cut checks for the car companies as soon as next week. The proposal also calls for President Bush to name a "car czar" to manage a vast restructuring of the firms and restore them to profitability.

Democrats bent to the will of the president on several key demands, most notably in agreeing that the emergency funding would be drawn from an existing loan program aimed at promoting fuel-efficient technologies.

Still, the White House objected yesterday to several elements of the Democratic proposal, congressional aides said, including requirements that the car companies notify Washington of any transaction of more than $25 million and that they pull out of lawsuits against states seeking to enforce tougher tailpipe-emissions standards.

Under the proposal, the car companies would be required to submit detailed plans for restructuring by March 31, when they would be eligible for additional government assistance. The Bush administration was pressing to strengthen those provisions to make clear that only companies that were either financially viable or taking steps to achieve viability could receive more federal cash.

In a statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the two sides had "made a lot of progress in recent days" and that discussions were continuing over how to "help automakers restructure and achieve long-term viability."

"Long-term financing must be conditioned on the principle that taxpayers should only assist automakers executing a credible plan for long-term viability," Perino said.

Appearing briefly before reporters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats, too, are determined to force changes in the domestic auto industry, which had been losing customers to more nimble foreign competitors even before a deepening recession slashed demand for new cars to the lowest level in 25 years.

"Come March 31, it is our hope that there will be a viable automotive industry in our country with transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. We think that is possible," Pelosi said, adding that auto company executives, their employees, their shareholders and their network of local dealers all will be expected to make concessions.

"We call this a barbershop," Pelosi said. "Everyone is getting haircuts."

Talks continued late yesterday in Pelosi's Capitol Hill offices. Despite the administration's last-minute objections, both sides remained optimistic that a deal could be finalized and quickly presented to lawmakers for a vote.

"It is overwhelmingly likely that a bill will be on the president's desk by the end of the week," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, whose staff was taking the lead in drafting the measure.

Timely tips for calculating the right pay package for big decision-makers.

In Pictures: How To Calculate What Key Employees Are Worth

With the economy tanking and unemployment nearing 7%, it's a buyer's market for firms lucky enough to be hiring. The challenge: landing loyal talent without going broke in the process--either by losing valuable hours rooting through piles of résumés or dangling profit-sapping salaries.

"A buyers' market doesn't mean that it's any easier," says John Younger, chief executive of Accolo, a Larkspur, Calif., staffing company for the software industry. "Hiring tends to consume more resources than it did before. You place an ad on Craigslist and get people bugging you for weeks."
So what are key decision-makers really worth? Unfortunately, there is no one formula that transcends industries and business cycles. Tackle the problem in logical steps, though, and you can increase your odds of earning a solid return on that important player. Potential applicants can learn a thing or two from this process, too.

Members of Congress wanted Detroit's Big Three automakers to redo their homework before they resumed begging for a government bailout today. So how'd they do?

It doesn't matter. If a Senate Banking Committee on the matter Thursday was any indication, the failure of America's automakers poses such a danger to the economy that lawmakers seem less focused at this point on whether they'll give the automakers a bailout, and more so on how they'll do it.

"We're not going to leave town without trying," committee chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said of their efforts to provide funding for General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ) and Chrysler.

That augurs well for GM's Rick Wagoner, Ford's Alan Mulally and Chrysler's Robert Nardelli as they prepare for day two of hearings before the House Financial Services Committee Friday. But by no means should the Big Three, their suppliers, dealers or the United Auto Workers union breathe a sigh of relief. If there's any group that can kick around ideas and take no action on them, it's Congress.

Still, for advocates of a bailout, the horizon is less cloudy than it was at the beginning of the week. For one thing, not a single witness at Thursday's hearing opposed the idea of a government bailout, though Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, who was also on the panel, says he believes the companies will need $75 billion to $125 billion to avoid bankruptcy--not the $34 billion they have requested.

In addition, the automakers are all open to various propositions put forth by the senators Thursday. The most popular of these is the idea of a government oversight board or trustee to manage the bailout, akin to the group that handled the government bailout of Chrysler Corp. in 1979 and 1980.

They're also agreeable to an idea put forth by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., to subject the auto companies to monthly benchmarking so the government can ensure the money is being used as it sees fit. The Big Three are fine with having the Fed regulate their financing arms and another body (probably the oversight board) regulate the manufacturing companies. And they're on board with the idea of giving taxpayers the most senior position when it comes to repayment of the loans, though Ford has a slight complication with this because the company has already mortgaged all of its assets. Nonetheless, Mulally says "there must be a way" to work around this dilemma.

The Big Three's Stalemate

The players in this high-stakes confrontation are the domestic auto companies, their creditors, their unions, their dealers and elected officials in Washington. Each party seeks advantage by pointing the equivalent of loaded guns at the other parties. But none really wants to pull the trigger, knowing nobody is likely to emerge a winner in the ensuing financial and political shootout.

The companies know that none of the parties wants to be held responsible for pushing them into a long and messy bankruptcy that could send the economy into a tailspin.

The creditors, the unions and the dealers all know that they are going to have to give up something to which they are legally entitled, but they hope that if they hang tough, the government will bail them out without having to give up too much.

And government leaders know that if they provide a bailout without wringing sufficient concessions from all of the parties, they will be publicly vilified and punished in the next election.

Meanwhile, the clock is quickly running out. General Motors and Chrysler both acknowledge that they will effectively be out of cash by the end of the month and will have to file for bankruptcy if they don't get a government loan. The fear is that if either files, the other two companies would be forced to follow suit as parts suppliers fail and consumers get even more nervous about buying a car from a company in trouble.

In truth, there's not much doubt that the government is going to step in here, just as it has done with the financial system. The consequences of doing nothing -- for the economy, for government revenue, for the political and social fabric -- are just too great. The only questions concern the size of the bailout and what form it will take.

Although each of the companies is looking for something slightly different, it was General Motors that presented the most detailed and convincing plan. After getting the first $4 billion installment to keep the wolf from the door, GM proposes, it would spend the next three months negotiating with various stakeholders the kind of deep restructuring that normally goes on as part of a "pre-packaged" bankruptcy -- only in this case without actually going to court. Additional sums -- up to $18 billion in all -- would be dependent on how successful the company is in executing its program, which it proposed to do under the watchful eye of a government oversight board much like the one created for the airline industry after the attacks of Sept. 11.

As part of its plan, GM envisions cutting a deal with creditors to reduce in half the amount of money it owes to bank lenders, bondholders and a new benefit plan set up to provide health care to retirees, in return for an unspecified ownership stake in the company. The automaker would effectively shed the Saab, Hummer, Pontiac and Saturn nameplates and reduce its network of dealers by 27 percent.

It would close an additional 9 assembly plants, shave an additional 25,000 jobs and negotiate reductions in pay and benefits to bring them in line with those at nonunionized plants. Shareholders would agree to go without dividends until the government loan is repaid and give ownership stakes to the government if things turn out as planned. Top executives would give up their bonuses and their private jets.

There is real pain in the GM plan, and the prospect of real gain. But there is no guarantee that the various parties will agree to it. GM's gamble is that the benefits afforded by a government bailout, and the threat of a bankruptcy filing, will finally bring folks around.

Ford, on the other hand, basically takes the position that it has already done the necessary restructuring over the past year and raised sufficient private capital that it probably won't need a government loan unless the economy falls even deeper into recession. That's why its request is for a standby $9 billion loan facility that it hopes to never use. Other than a vague reference to seeking further concessions from the United Auto Workers and a promise that its chief executive would forgo his $21 million annual salary and bonus, Ford presented no plan for how it would repay that $9 billion should it turn out that its optimism proves unfounded.

Another problem for Ford is that the company pledged as collateral all the remaining unsecured assets on its balance sheet when it borrowed $18.5 billion from private lenders two years ago. That means that should it be forced to use any of the $9 billion, Ford cannot honor Congress's demand that the government be first in line for repayment. Ford's position, effectively, is that the government will have to learn to live with its "junior" position in the company's capital structure. One would hope that congressional leaders would call that bluff and tell Ford that if it wants a government credit line, it will have to renegotiate the deal with its other lenders.

Finally, there is the proposal from Chrysler, which winds up being an unsatisfying blend of the GM and Ford approaches. On the one hand, Chrysler says that the economy is now so bad that it is running out of cash and needs $7 billion by the end of the month. On the other hand, it claims that it has already done most of the necessary restructuring to put it on a sound long-term footing, with only a vague and passing reference to "concessions from the company's constituencies."

As I read its proposal, Chrysler is basically looking for the government to tide it over until it can merge with GM or be sold off to a foreign automaker. Chrysler is now controlled by the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital, and its not-so-subtle message to Congress is that $7 billion is a lot less than the government would have to put up in a full-fledged bankruptcy restructuring and a whole lot more attractive than a forced liquidation.

Steven Pearlstein will host a Web discussion today at 2 p.m. at washingtonpost.com. He can be reached at pearlsteins@washpost.com.

John McCain is running in one of the worst environments ever for a Republican presidential nominee. The senator from Arizona has not been in front in any of the 159 national polls conducted over the past six weeks. His slender hopes for winning the White House now depend on picking up a major Democratic stronghold or fighting off Obama's raids on most of the five states President Bush won four years ago that now lean toward the Democrat. He also must hold onto six other states that Bush won in 2004 but are considered too close to call.

Two factors cloud the final weekend projections. The first is how voters ultimately respond to the prospect of the first African American president in U.S. history, a force that could make the contest closer than it appears. The other, which pushes in the opposite direction, is whether Obama can expand the electorate to give him an additional cushion in battleground states.

Obama leads in every state that Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry won four years ago, which gives him a base of 252 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win. He also has leads of varying sizes in five states Bush won: Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Were he to win all of those on Tuesday, he would claim the presidency with 291 electoral votes.

The tossup states include traditional battlegrounds such as Ohio, Florida and Missouri, as well as North Carolina, Indiana and Montana, which have been firmly in the Republican column in the past. They account for 87 electoral votes, and if Obama were to win several of them, his electoral vote total could push well into the 300s.

In Senate races, Democrats, who control 51 votes, are closing in on a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority. Three GOP-held seats whose Republicans are retiring -- in Colorado, New Mexico and Virginia -- appear almost certain to go to Democrats. In five other states -- Alaska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon -- incumbent Republicans are seriously threatened. To get to 60, Democrats would have to win all those seats, plus one of three other competitive races: in Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi.

In the House, Democrats look to repeat their gains of two years ago, when they picked up 31 seats and took control of the chamber. On Tuesday, they could add 25 to 30 seats to that majority, which would bring them to their highest number since 1990, when they had 267 seats. Ten Republican-held seats lean toward Democrats, and two dozen are viewed as tossups. Five Democratic-held seats are considered up for grabs.

Of the 11 gubernatorial races, only three are competitive. Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon has the advantage over Rep. Kenny Hulshof in Missouri, where Republican Gov. Matt Blunt is not running for reelection. Two other races in states held by Democrats are considered tossups.

In Washington, Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, who won a controversial victory four years ago, faces a tough rematch against businessman Dino Rossi. In North Carolina, where Democratic Gov. Mike Easley is term-limited, Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, are in a race that is too close to call.

These projections are based on interviews by a team of Washington Post reporters with strategists in both parties, the presidential campaigns, state and local officials, and other analysts. The projections also include an analysis of a wealth of polling data on individual races and states.

In the Washington Post-ABC News daily tracking poll, Obama currently holds a nine-point national advantage, topping McCain 53 to 44 percent. The poll started after the last of the three presidential debates, and Obama's margin has held between seven and 11 points throughout.

More than half of all voters in the Post-ABC poll say the economy is their central voting issue, and Obama has been the main beneficiary of that focus. He has a double-digit edge on the question of which candidate is better able to handle the economy, and he has had even wider leads as the one who is more in touch with the financial problems people face.