How much is the Detroit Institute of the Arts worth? That’s one of the battles brewing in the Detroit bankruptcy litigation as a creditor tries to challenge the grand bargain reached that will wipe out $7 billion in debt for the city.

The key question is whether the grand bargain — $815 million pledged by foundations, state government and the DIA to bolster city pensions and shield the art from sale by transferring ownership of the museum to an independent nonprofit — represents a reasonable proxy for the value of the collection in the overall context of the city’s plan.

The other side is claiming the art can be worth up to $8 billion if sold off. The drama here is pretty interesting and the case could have interesting implications for the rights of creditors in bankruptcy.

General Motors had a very successful IPO last week, and the Obama administration is taking justified credit for bailing out GM instead of letting it die in a forced liquidation in bankruptcy.

It’s hard to argue here with success. The administration took a huge amount of grief for this decision, and it clearly hurt the President and the Democrats in the midterms, but this was the right decision. The auto industry is thriving, and we avoided a death spiral in the auto industry and the supplier base that would have occurred under a forced liquidation.