Barack Obama has finally lost patience with the US car industry. In effect he's sacked General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner and told Chrysler that it had better rescue itself by completing its long-mooted deal with Italian manufacturer Fiat. Otherwise there's no more public money. GM is probably too big to be allowed to fail, it's still the world's biggest volume manufacturer just ahead of Toyota. Chrysler has been a failure ever since the brief halcyon reign of super-salesman Lee Iacocca in the 1970s, and that didn't last long. It's now mainly owned by private equity firm Cerberus which foolishly bought out partner Mercedes just as the credit crunch was starting to slaughter car sales. Fiat too has been a financial basket case for years, although you would never have known it from the lifestyle of owners the Agnelli family. But it still makes some decent cars, most recently the Fiat Nuova 500 and accounts for a huge chunk of the Italian economy with brands including Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari, Maserati and Iveco trucks. It also owns the highly profitably agricultural equipment-maker CNH Global. So what's the attraction of Chrysler apart from maybe Jeep? The only one Mr Blatherskite can detect is access, via a partnership, to some US government money.