Detroit automakers laid out their worst-case business scenarios for Congress Tuesday, asking for up to $38 billion in taxpayer loans to survive the economic crisis and turn their companies around.

General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ) is seeking up to $18 billion, Chrysler wants $7 billion and Ford (nyse: F - news - people ), which says it doesn't need a loan at the moment, is asking for a $9 billion line of credit--perhaps as much as $13 billion--in case the economy worsens.

The requests, filed Tuesday on Capitol Hill, were accompanied by extensive details of how the automakers plan to reduce labor costs, streamline products and restructure their balance sheets in order to return to profitability.

Chief executives from each of the companies will answer questions about their viability plans when they appear before Senate and House committees later this week.

America's carmakers have been steadily downsizing for years in an effort to become more competitive with foreign-based rivals. But the crisis that has brought at least two of them--GM and Chrysler--to the brink of bankruptcy is an opportunity to take more drastic measures.

Indeed, GM said it would cut its current stable of brands from eight to four--dumping Saturn, Saab and Hummer, and paring back Pontiac to a few niche models. GM also expects to reduce the number of dealers from 6,450 to 4,700 by 2012.

GM also plans to close nine powertrain, stamping and assembly plants in the U.S. by 2012, and reduce its total U.S. employment to between 65,000 and 75,000, from 97,000 today.

In Pictures: Tech Toys For Business Travelers

Traveling for business is supposed to be practical, but pack a few high-tech toys as travel companions and it might actually turn out to be fun, too.

Mark Ashley, who writes the business travel blog Travel Better and reports clocking more than 70,000 miles each year in the air, says gadgets help business travelers feel at home by making their time on the road not only efficient but also enjoyable. "If you're away from friends and family, you want to make sure you're comfortable, even pampered," Ashley says.

Travel technology has to do more than keep customers comfy, though. Ashley knows that these toys need to be efficient and reliable--even when airports and hotels aren't. That's why he breaks them down into clear, useful categories: stuff to help you find your way (like portable GPS systems), stuff to help you communicate (like electronic translators), stuff to make air travel tolerable (like noise-canceling headphones), and stuff to keep your other stuff working (like universal chargers). Put them altogether, Ashley says, and it should be smooth flying.

In Pictures: 10 Gadgets Business Travelers Need

Joining in the appreciation of travel gadgets is Mika Lepisto, head of Travel Gear Blog (travelgearblog.com) and director of Portland, Ore.-based BootsnAll, a network of 60-plus travel blogs. Like Ashley, Lepisto says he doesn't just write about flying off to far-away places, he also does it, taking up to eight domestic business trips a year. Speaking from experience, Lepisto reminds travelers to take only the gadgets that they really need. "When you travel on a business trip, you have a purpose," he says, and so should the things you bring.

What pragmatic gadgets would he recommend? At the moment, he's loving his T-Mobile G1, which he says makes a great business tool. "If you use Google apps, it'll sync from Google to the phone," Lepisto says. "It's not going to be useful for Fortune 500 companies, but small businesses, a lot of them use the Google products. I also like the full keyboard." When it comes to typing e-mails, he points out, a full keyboard means fewer keystrokes and less stress on the road.

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First and foremost in the briefcase of a businessperson on the go is a laptop, preferably one that is ultra portable for traveling ease, says Lepisto, who recommends aiming for something light and small like the Eee PC. "It's easier to get it in and out of your bag at the airport, if you need to check your e-mail really quickly, or for the security inspections," he says. Though these mini laptops may only be good for browsing the Internet, writing e-mails and running a presentation or two, what travelers lose in technical prowess they gain in the ability to fit their computers on airplane tray tables.

Sure, a small laptop makes sense, but only the seasoned business travelers know the little things, like which mouse to buy. The answer: laser mice, since they're more responsive on desks without mouse pads, like those in hotel rooms.

Kenneth G. Brill's "Don't Be Fooled by Pretty Pictures" cautions about using computational fluid dynamics modeling tools, suggesting that they aren't accurate and are a very expensive way to analyze power and cooling air flow in data centers.

While pictures alone don't always tell the true story, CFD analysis is actually a cost-effective and accurate way for technology managers to visualize environmental conditions within a data center. And the color, 3-D graphical pictures that result from a CFD analysis are not only pretty--they can be worth a thousand words when coupled with the analysis, experience and insight of a data center services professional.

An experienced consultant provides strategic planning options for customers to follow, based on a set of parallel efforts to reduce risk and errors as well as assure overall operational improvements. However, a CFD analysis is only one in a complete set of tools at the consultant's disposal.

As Brill stated, a data center consultant needs to play a role akin to an expert physician. But just as a physician wouldn't perform surgery without looking at an X-ray or other image first, a data center manager shouldn't make cooling or heating decisions without a modeling map.

Rather than a pricey, flashy, quick-fix look at how to save on power costs, quality modeling provides great value as a means to evaluate a data center's risks and strengths. CFD models can help services professionals pinpoint exactly where air flow improvements are needed or where to help technology managers adjust capacity planning and budgeting for increased energy efficiency. Usually, the fee for a CFD analysis is very affordable--in the range of $30,000 to $70,000--far less than the $200,000 Brill cited.

A quick survey of technology services providers would show that modeling tools such as a CFD analysis are generally not sold stand alone. In fact, a data center should always be evaluated without modeling first to identify existing inefficiency gaps from non-compliance of best practices before undertaking the more in-depth modeling and analysis. CFD modeling is at its best within data centers where major adherence to best practices are already largely in place.

Once best practices are implemented, CFD will point out data center zones that are out of balance regarding provisioning, information technology loads and return air flows. It will also determine the actual operational condition/capacity of data center Computer Room Air Conditioning or Computer Room Air Handler units. Assumptions about their operational capacity are not in order. For example, the industry's best services consultants would not subcontract the assessment, and they would use a variety of their own power and cooling test and measurement equipment to determine the actual state and capacity of air handlers.

As chief executive of Mercy Corps since 1994, Neal Keny-Guyer helped turn the Portland (Ore.) relief organization into a global powerhouse with 3,500 employees and a budget of nearly $300 million. But he was taken aback last year when one of his lieutenants proposed the radical step of buying a bank in Indonesia. Why would a not-for-profit disaster relief agency go the capitalist route and buy a bank?

Gradually, though, he warmed to the idea. He saw that, if Mercy Corps operated a wholesale bank that could offer capital to some 2,000 local microcredit organizations and had an ATM network, it could help turn microfinance into a powerful force in Indonesia. Keny-Guyer was in uncharted territory, however. In the last days before the acquisition closed in May, he feared the risky gambit would end in disaster. "I imagined a newspaper headline saying, `Mercy Corps' Bank in Bali Fails,' " he recalls. "I thought of the reaction of our donors to that bit of news."

Now, as the renamed Bank Andara cranks up operations, Keny-Guyer is hopeful. If the strategy works in Indonesia, he says, Mercy Corps may try it in the Philippines next.

This departure from business as usual in the nonprofit realm is part of a major shift in the way people are taking on the world's social problems. In developing nations and parts of the U.S., governments have failed to make substantial progress against poverty, disease, and illiteracy. Traditional charities and social service agencies often provide Band-Aids for problems instead of long-term solutions. Now a new breed of do-gooder—the social entrepreneur—is trying fresh approaches. While the term is used in many different ways, there's a narrow definition that gets to the heart of what makes these people stand out: Rather than depending solely on handouts from philanthropists, social entrepreneurs generate some of their own revenues and use business techniques to address social goals. "Traditional ways of doing things haven't produced the kind of progress we all hoped for, so we're trying to come up with new approaches that are truly transformational," says Keny-Guyer.

The idea of the social entrepreneur has been percolating for decades, but it has become a mass movement in the past couple of years. Thousands of people are launching ventures and trying out new business models, both for-profit and nonprofit. Now that the global financial crisis is squeezing charitable giving, socially oriented organizations are pushing even harder to reduce their dependence on donors and generate their own funds. Lehman Brothers, for instance, was a generous backer of both nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. No more. In this climate, only the most efficient and effective organizations will thrive.

Social entrepreneurs are being backed in part by a new generation of super-aggressive philanthropists and social investors, including Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates and former eBay (EBAY) executives Pierre M. Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll. These guys expect results from their social investments and grants. Says Gates in an interview with BusinessWeek: "Nonprofits are applying what we've typically thought of as business strategies for better outcomes, and businesses are beginning to apply what I call creative capitalism strategies to increase the positive social impact of their work. That's a powerful combination." He believes the most effective way to make social progress is through partnerships among nonprofits, businesses, government, and philanthropists.

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After nearly four years as a management consultant at such firms as Deloitte Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton, Ari Perlman was itching to try his hand at investment banking. So this summer the 26-year-old MBA student at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business signed on with Lehman Brothers for an internship. Then all hell broke loose. With the economy unraveling and much of Wall Street seemingly on the brink of collapse, Lehman slashed bonuses for interns. And by the time Perlman returned to campus, the company had filed for bankruptcy. Lehman's last check for Perlman's travel expenses? Bounced. An e-mail explained that a new check would be in the mail. Eventually. "I haven't heard anything from them since," says Perlman, who's now looking for a consulting job. "And frankly, I am not too hopeful."

On the nation's B-school campuses, hope used to spring eternal. No more. Students like Perlman are downsizing their expectations, rejiggering career plans, and settling for less as the cascading effects of the global financial crisis start to be felt at MBA programs around the country. With companies pulling back on second-year recruiting and competition for the few remaining finance jobs becoming fierce, students are entering what surely is the toughest MBA job market since the dot-com bust. "I think next fall is going to be very, very difficult," says George G. Daly, dean of Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "This is terra incognita."

Despite the gloomy outlook for current students, applications to B-schools are on the upswing, driven largely by applicants who have been laid off or are otherwise hoping to ride out the recession. With more applicants to choose from, admissions officers can be pickier, making 2009 a difficult year to land a slot at a top B-school. Meanwhile, professors and deans are attempting to make sense of the financial crisis in the classroom, offering new electives and town-hall-style meetings on the meltdown, altering syllabi, and writing new case studies based on recent market-churning events. Risk management, until recently an unpopular elective, is expected to become a more important part of many B-schools' curriculums in three to five years, a trend that Robert Meyer, co-director of the Risk Management & Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, calls "potentially transformational."

For current students, though, the only concern is finding a job—and nowhere is that dream receding faster than on Wall Street. Brian Mirochnik, 26, an MBA student at the University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business, is facing that reality head-on as he looks for jobs in the investment banking field. He didn't receive a job offer from UBS (UBS) after his summer internship and now is scrambling to find a position, a search he fears could easily stretch into the spring. "Banks are telling me they are going through their own layoffs and don't know when they are going to start hiring again," says Mirochnik, who has given up on the big Wall Street firms and is looking exclusively at boutique investment firms and mid-market banks. "A lot of the factors affecting my future employment are just out of my hands."

Second-year students such as Mirochnik without job offers appear to be in the most precarious position. According to a survey by the umbrella group MBA Career Services Council, about 70% of the 77 schools surveyed said they saw a downturn in full-time recruiting opportunities in financial services in October. Meanwhile, about half of the schools said overall full-time job postings and on-campus recruiting this fall was either flat or down 5% during the same period, with some indicating it has fallen as much as 10%.

In the coming year, the job market for MBAs may begin to bear a striking similarity to the period following the dot-com bust when some banks and consulting firms rescinded or renegotiated job offers they had extended to second-year students. That hasn't happened this time around—yet.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

Business leaders gathered in Dubai on Saturday warned the world to brace for even more painful economic times ahead, but said the victory of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama offers hope for fresh leadership at a crucial time for the global economy.

The financial crisis that began with bad U.S. home loans is now moving from the banking sector into wide swaths of the global economy -- costing millions of jobs, forcing working families to cut back and driving once-mighty companies into bankruptcy.

The U.S. government said Friday the country's unemployment rate shot to 6.5 percent, its highest level in 14 years. Jobless rates are rising elsewhere too: The U.N. labor agency said last month that world unemployment will hit 210 million people by the end of next year, its highest rate in the past decade.

How deeply the global downturn will cut remains uncertain, participants at a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum in Dubai said Saturday. While they called for calm, they also acknowledged there is cause for concern.

"We will be telling our children and our grandchildren about this crisis," said Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief executive of Pacific Investment Management Co., the Newport Beach, Calif.-based investment firm better known as PIMCO. "You cannot turn off the fuel of this crisis easily."

Consumers in the U.S., for example, are facing the triple whammy of tougher access to credit, rising joblessness and falling home and investment values, El-Erian said.

Cleaning up the fallout will take both time and sacrifice, participants here said.

"It's going to be really tough," El-Erian said. "You now have to save even more for retirement. This is a tough time, and it's important that expectations be formulated accordingly."

The need to recalibrate spending and expectations was a theme sounded by others as well.

Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, said residents of countries like the U.S. and the UK have no alternative but to increase savings and reduce household debt.

And, he said, homeowners and individual investors need to accept that a big chunk of the nest eggs they had amassed on paper is likely gone forever.

"People are going to have to recognize the wealth hit and be prepared to move on from that," he said.

The economic slump is not just affecting Western countries.

Soud Ba'alawy, executive chairman of investment firm Dubai Group, said "each and every business is going to be challenged." He predicted annual growth in the booming Gulf could slow to as low as 2 to 3 percent, from 6 to 8 percent previously.

Business leaders were hopeful, though, that the future Obama administration will bring a renewed willingness by the world's largest single-nation economy to work with other countries to fix the global economy.

"You now have a golden opportunity for leadership at a time when leadership is needed both domestically and internationally," El-Erian said.

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The enormous victory won by Senator Barack Obama in the Presidential race came from the backing of voters desperately unhappy with the state of the economy and eager for new direction from the top.

Many in business, though, still view the President-elect with a wary eye. (Perhaps the markets do as well: The Dow dropped more than 400 points the day after Obama's election.) Indeed, if a recent survey by Chief Executive magazine is any indication, Obama has his work cut out for him in wooing America's executives. In a survey of 751 CEOs published in October, the magazine found that 74% feared the consequences of an Obama Presidency, vs. just 19% who worried about John McCain assuming the Oval Office. The surveyed executives feared that Obama's emphasis on big government and his plans to hike capital-gains taxes on big earners would stifle growth and job creation. They also worried he doesn't understand the links between trade and growth well and that he will not be aggressive enough in solving America's immediate energy crisis.

Obama's backers counter that he has garnered far more support from nationally known business leaders than any previous Democratic Presidential contender—not least of whom is Warren Buffett, the most respected executive in the country, along with Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt. Penny Pritzker, the Hyatt heiress who was the national finance chair of Obama's campaign, has used her own extensive contacts in the business world to secure C-suite support for Obama. Aides say the strategy, put together with the same meticulous planning as the rest of the campaign, has yielded a network of several hundred business leaders that Obama has increasingly tapped for advice in addition to fund-raising. The CEOs he meets are impressed. "Obama fully understands the importance of investing in people and the ideas and technology they create," says Google's Schmidt.

Business executives and lobbying groups around Washington say that whatever questions or disagreements they might have over the policies Obama is likely to pursue, they are gearing up to work closely with his Administration. Even the staunchly conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which threw its weight heavily behind numerous Republican congressional candidates in the hopes they could help keep the Democratic majorities in check, is sounding a conciliatory note these days. "We're always concerned when a new President comes in, but the business community is a uniquely practical constituency," says R. Bruce Josten, the Chamber's top lobbyist. "We may lose some more battles than we would have gotten in recent years," he adds. "But they're in charge now."

In charge for sure. But now the country—indeed, the world—turns to a new set of questions. Obama takes office facing the most difficult economic challenges since Franklin D. Roosevelt stepped into the White House in the midst of the Great Depression. The Illinois senator campaigned on an ambitious agenda of middle-class tax cuts and a wave of public investment in everything from America's aging infrastructure to the cutting-edge alternative energy research that could someday lessen dependence on foreign oil. At the same time, he has pledged to spend billions fixing the health-care system and making better education available to all.

Yet even as the economy tanked and the financial sector bailout sent the deficit hurtling toward $1 trillion, Obama has offered little insight into how he will accomplish all of those ambitious goals. What are Obama's top economic priorities, and what will he tackle first? How might they change in light of the ever-worsening budget? Will there really be money available to plow into education, health care, and infrastructure—and if so, when will it come?

Bad Economic News Sends Stocks Plummeting

U.S. stocks plunged today as investors locked in profits from yesterday's rally and digested more bad economic news.