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The expected resignation of Tulsi Gabbard who never fit in with the US recommitment to the Monroe Doctrine in its Good Neighbor version of FDR and Alliance of Progress version of JFK for peace in the western hemisphere through the rule of law, democratic process and peaceful cooperation with the United States. Under DJT it also means reassessment and revisiting of the original reasons for the Monroe  Doctrine that were forgotten under the Reagan,Carter, Bush, Obama and Biden administrations for five decades. That of the US keepingout colonial powers of Europe from the western hemisphere bent on recolonization under president Monroe in 1824.  In the last 5 decades it was the involvement of Russia and China that created the conditions for Cuba, Venezuela and a bad form of governance, failures in the rule of law, through drug cartels operating in Mexico, Colombia, and other Latin American countries.

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The pandemic brings together companies in three countries U.S, Italy and France with the merger of Fiat Chrysler with PSA. Fiat Chrysler is owned by the company Exor owned by the Agnelli family in Italy. PSA is owned by the Peugeot family in France. In addition the government of France and Dongfeng Motors in China have stakes in PSA.  During the 2008-2009 crisis Chrysler merged with Fiat with the help of the Obama administration which pursued a policy of promoting small cars. Instead the merger saved jobs but led to the PR effort for small Fiat cars and the focus on the Jeep Cherokee and SUV's like the Dodge Ram. Today one hardly ever hears about small Fiats from Fiat Chrysler that was the basis for government help on the merger. 

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Fiat's Marchionne's decision to focus on the Fiat 500 and the Panda city car in the price sensitive European market. Fiat has no success in selling its Bravo larger car. In 2011 sales of the Bravo model were only 32,036 compared to VW Golf model sales of 522,370 in Europe, according to IHS Global Insight. Sales of the Fiat 500 were 119,836 units vs. sales of 83,150 for the BMW Mini in the first half of 2012. Fiat has suffered more than other automakers in the European market with sales decline of 16.7% compared to 7.2% decline for the overall market, for Jan-Sept 2012. Fiat's new plans are for five new Fiat models and three new Fiat light trucks in Europe between 2013-2016. Fiat launched the 500L minivan in Europe in Sept 2012. Fiat's European factories are running at 45% of capacity on average, and the European operations are likely to burn through 700 million euros in 2013, similiar to 2012, unlikely to breakeven before 2015 or 2016. This makes getting the product decisions right critical for Fiat. Fiat's chief in Europe, Gianluca Italia talks of the functional and emotional soul of Fiat cars for Europe in a emphasis on making Fiat's models in the price sensitive segments more distinctive and commanding a premium in the European market. Fiat's 500 has about a 25% premium over a similiar Ford Ka in its segment. The new Fiat 500 models will be exported to Asia and Latin America in an effort to increase capacity utlilization in its Italian factories....

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Fiat acquires a 35% stake in Chrysler with the option to take a 55% stake and majority ownership at later date. The way Marchionne puts it offers clues to Fiat's thinking and strategy. He said this will offer Fiat the opportunity to gain access to a relevant automotive market. Fiat exited the American market in 1983 after years of poor quality. Under new leadership Fiat has come up with bestselling small and fuel eficient cars in Europe. So it is now in a position to bring these cars to the US, where even though the market is declining there may be room for the small cars Fiat is famous for like the Fiat 500. Chrysler received a $4 billion loan from the US government, and this government assistance under an administration keen on keeping a loss of jobs to a minimum must also have helped Fiat make its investment. It may also have been seen as an opportunity with a low cost for Fiat, as Cerberus Capital which owns Chrysler is eager to get out of its failed Chrysler investment. The US government would also be keen on seeing Fiat becoming an eventual owner of Chrysler, because of its innovative, evironment friendly, fuel efficient small car development and its offerings in Europe that might find appeal in the US....

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Fiat announced that it will buy all the U.S. government's shares in Chrysler. This comes a few days after Fiat payed back $1.3 billion to buy an additional 16% of Chrysler, increasing ownership to 46%. Fiat will have a 52% ownership stake in Chrysler after the purchase. By the end of the year Fiat says it expects to own 57% of Chrysler. Under the loan agreement Fiat automatically gets 5% of Chrysler if it begins producing a car rated at 40 miles per gallon. Chrysler earned $116 million in the first quarter of 2011.

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Fiat plans to pay Chrysler $1.27 billon to increase its stake to 46%. This will happen after Chrysler refinances $7.1 billion in U.S. and Canadian debt to pay off government loans. A debt offering is expected in coming weeks. Fiat's Sergio Marchionne sees this as critical to the next step forward for Chrysler- the speedy approval of $3.5 billion or more in low interest loans from the U.S. Department of Energy for projects that increase fuel efficiency. Marchionne would like to leverage as much as he can from DOE as they will be essential to Chrysler's investments in improving the fuel efficiency of its vehicle lineup. Chrysler paid $1.2 billion in interest on its debt in 2010. Much or all of the $1.27 billion from Fiat will be used by Chrysler to reduce government debt. Chrysler will not use any unused funds from the government. Chrysler is also planning to add a revolving line of credit for $2 billion. By the end of 2011 Fiat will add another 5% stake to bring its stake up to 51%, and make it the majority owner. Fiat and Chrysler are operating as an integrated company. Marchionne says it makes little sense to have separate legal entities for Chrysler and Fiat, as the two companies are already developing, building and selling vehicles as one company. The Chrysler financials will be consolidated with Fiat's....

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Chrysler reported second quarter 2012 income of $436 million, compared with a loss of $370 million in the prior year quarter. The prior year quarter included charges for repaying U.S. government loans. First quarter 2012 income was $473 million. Fiat reported a loss of 246 million euros for the second quarter 2012. The combined operations Fiat-Chrysler reported aloss of 103 million euros. This shows how the effort by Sergio Marchionne to takeover Chrysler and turn it around have proved to be a very successful move for Fiat. With a relatively small investment Fiat is now a majority owner of Chrysler having invested mainly its management knowhow and leadership.

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Fiat plans to expand manufacturing in Italy by making the Panda small car in Italy instead of using a plant in Poland. This would expand production by Fiat in Italy from 650,000 to 900,000 cars, with an investment of 8 billion euros in 2 years. One of 5 unions gets 40% of the vote at the Fiat plant in southern Italy that will make the Panda. Fiat had asked for new working conditions at the plant in exchange for its investment and a new social pact with the unions.

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Chrysler will fill a big gap in its product line with a high fuel efficiency compact sedan developed using Fiat technology. It will be marketed under the Dodge brand name and will be produced at a plant in Illinois. This compact will have over 40 mpg fuel efficiency.

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As auto sales decline in Spain, France, Italy and other parts of Europe auto companies are looking at improving efficiency and closing inefficient plants. Italy is tackling labor laws that prevented a revamping of the auto industry to improve productivity. New laws make it possible for companies like Fiat to hire or fire workers rather than having to place them on a state backed temporary layoff program that pays workers two thirds of their salaries while not working. Chrysler-Fiat CEO Marchionne sees sales dropping below 10 million units from the 13.1 million in 2011 if the euro were to disintegrate. With the higher efficiency of Fiat's plants in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, Marchionne is not willing to make any exceptions for the Italian system any longer. In 2009 Fiat's plant in Tychy, Poland, making the Fiat 500, made 600,000 cars with 6,100 workers, whereas the five largest Italian plants made 650,000 cars with 22,000 workers. Marchionne put forward his 5 year revamp of Italian operations in April 2010 with an investment of 16 billion euros. Unions were asked to agree to new work rules in exchange- shorter breaks, reduced absenteeism, doubling of overtime hours if needed, and pay tied to performance in addition to seniority. In the fall of 2010 Fiat shifted the production of the Fiat 500L to Serbia. Following this unions agreed to the new rules. One of the plants revamped was the Pomigliano plant which would turn out lower cost Pandas instead of the Alfa Romeos at a cost of 800 million euros to redesign the plant for efficient manufacturing. The new plant requires fewer workers and only 3000 of the 5000 workers at the plant have been hired. Priority was given to younger workers. Marchionne sees the revival of the manufacturing plants in Italy closely linked with his plan to import Italian cars to the American market because of the declining sales in Europe. The transformation of the auto industry and Chrysler was achieved by changing work rules and reducing labor costs. A similiar process is now underway in Italy....

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Chrysler's new lineup of cars will prominently feature Fiat models. It will discontinue many older Chrysler models.

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Sass discusses the experiences with the old Fiats sold in the USA decades ago, the design flair and looks but the engineering quality that disappointed. J.D. Powers studies of customer satisfaction in Europe rank Fiat near the bottom of all carmakers.

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55% of Chrysler cars went to corporate and rental fleets in Septemeber and incentives are higher than ever, both warning signs for Chrysler. New Fiat models are not due for another 2 years.

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Fiat divided itself into 2 companies on Jan 1, 2011, to separate its car and truck businesses. Fiat SpA covers the car operations. Fiat SpA CEO Marchionne, says Fiat could lift its stake from the current 20% to over 50% if Chrysler decides to go to the stock market in an IPO in 2011.

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Eating legumes, beans, soy foods, ancient grains breads, fruits and vegetables instead of full fat whole milk is better for you,  or combining low fat milk with these healthy foods. This also applies to low fat yogurt and low fat butter.

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Fiat takes full ownership of Chrysler with an agreement reached in Jan. 2014 for the UAW trust fund's 41% stake in Chrysler. Under the terms of the $4.35 billion deal Fiat will pay the UAW retiree health fund $1.75 billion in cash, Chrysler will make a $1.9 billion contribution, and Chrysler will also pay the trust $700 million over 4 annual instalments. Under an agreement shaped by the Obama administration 58.5% stake went to Fiat and the remaining 41.5% to the UAW trust fund. Chrysler repaid government loans early with the success of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Ram and Dodge Dart models, and the first quarterly profit in 2011. The $1.7 billion Fiat pays for Chrysler under this agreement bringing the total to $3.8 billion, shows the value of the management skills brought by Sergio Marchionne and persistent effort to turn things around at Chrysler since the 2008 financial crisis led to the bankruptcy of Chrysler. In comparison Daimler Benz paid $36 billion for Chrysler in 1998, and $7.4 billion was paid by private equity firm Cerberus Capital for an 80% stake in 2007. It is also a major achievement of the team of managers put together by Fiat's Sergio Marchionne. Chrysler is now the seventh largest car company close to Honda in size, with 4.5 million in global auto sales, according to OICA. Fiat-Chrysler is now a global company with sales worldwide....

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Cherry's 50-50 joint venture with Fiat was setup in 2007, with plans to produce 175,000 Fiat and Alfa Romeo cars in China in 2009. Now both companies have decided to postpone the start of production.

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Fiat's 35% stake in Chrysler was obtained not for a cash investment, but mainly in exchange for covering the cost of retooling a Chrysler plant to produce one or more Fiat models to be sold in the US. Fiat would also provide engine and transmission technology to help Chrysler introduce new fuel efficient small cars. This purchase would see the Cerberus 80.1% stake in Chrysler diluted. It would not affect the 19.9% of Chrysler that is owned by Daimler. As part of the Fiat deal Chrysler is supposed to restructure the $9 billion in debt it has on its books. Cerberus may lose billions on the deal, but it faces an even bigger hit if it is forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or it continues running Chrysler into an even deeper slump in auto sales in 2009. The Fiat deal is the only thing that Chrysler has to show that it should keep the government loan of $4 billion and get additional funds if needed to keep the company runnning. Chrysler did not show any new models at the North American Auto Show in Detroit recently and has practically ceased product development. For Cerberus this is the exit plan and ends any prospect of making the Chrysler deal work. Cerberus acquired Chrysler by mortgaging all of Chryslers plants and assets for a $12 billion loan from a group of banks, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. ...

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Fiat chief Marchionne on a visit to Detroit to do due diligence on its deal with Chrysler, said that no one was lining up to take the deal away from Fiat. He made it clear that the deal, in which for providing its technology in small cars to Chrysler it would get a 35% stake in Chrysler, has to stand on its own two legs. For another $25 million Fiat could raise its stake to 55%. Its only other investment would be in the plant costs for building theses small cars in the USA. Fiat will not use USA government money for Fiat's operations, and only take money from Chrysler after the government is repaid, he said. For the deal to go through everyone has to make concessions, says Marchionne. The logic of the deal may rest on US government help and labor and other stakeholders concessions. In a year Fiat could be importing cars into the USA and in 30 months Fiat could be making cars in the USA.

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Fiat's third auto manufacturing hub in Eastern Europe, after Poland and Turkey, is in Serbia. Fiat is investing 700 million euros together with the Serbian government in the old automobile plant at Zastava. In Tito's Yugoslavia under the socialist system this plant manufactured the Yugo automobile. About 220,000 cars were manufactured here with 16,000 factory workers in the 1980's. The Yugo was based on the Fiat 127 model in 1980, and the relationship with Fiat goes back to 1954. After the war following the breakup of Yugoslavia the plant was partly destroyed and it recently turned out 15,000 Punto hatchbacks a year under Fiat license. Fiat Automobili Srbija, is a new joint venture formed in Dec. 2009, with 67% ownership by Fiat and 33% by the Serbian government. About 1000 employees of the 2600 at the plant were brought back and another 1433 will be hired to start production. Wages in Serbia are about 300 euros a month, and the Serbian government plans to make the country a manufacturing hub with special incentives. Plans are for 200,000 cars in 2 models to be made at the Zastava plant in 2011-2012, with 100,000 more planned in subsequent years....

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Daniel Howes of the Detroit News thinks there are cultural clashes inherent in a threeway Fiat-Opel-Chrysler combination. His view is that Fiat may be biting into more than it can handle, considering the failure of the GM-Fiat alliance, and the Daimler- Chrysler combination. And the Germans at Opel are not happy with the way they see GM has treated them, so how would it help for Fiat to come into the picture? The Germans love the Italians, says one German Howe talked to, but don't respect them. And the Italians he says, respect the Germans but don't love them. Howe refers to the Renault-Nissan combination as successful, but one that took years to build to deliver commonly engineered cars. But the car industry has been poorly run, without vision and with complacent management, unwilling to try new things and recreate and renew. In other industries efforts are made to build transnational combinations with differing degrees of success. Take the work of the French, Germans and the Spanish in Airbus, in overcoming different cultural factors and pulling together to learn from each other, when given good leaders, on the Airbus 380 project. See the link to this. On Fiat's Marchionne's behalf it could be said that this is a new Fiat, run by a younger generation of Italians, who have a lot of youthful energies and freedom to innovate and improvise. Marchionne himself is more Canadian and European, places where he has spent most of his life, than Italian. And he has take a decidedly different view of things from what the old view holds as being Italian, in building the new Fiat he has done things very differently. In fact there may be less of a country view here, than a management culture view. All nationalities aspire to a good management culture of innovation, and freedom to improvise and respect for one's ideas and thinking, good places to work in. People of all nationalities, Italian, German and American, for the first time, especially the younger people, may see that the one thing they value most and share is the desire to start fresh and take initiative, improvise and work together to do the impossible. The common enemy of Germans, Italians, Americans,French, and other nationalities, may be simply the artheroschelorisis of complacent management, that freezes initiative, does not delegate more responsibility to the young and give the freedom to try new things, bureacratizes the corporation into rigid hierarchies that lack speed, and take no risks to achieve the impossible. See the link to Marchionne and Fiat's transformation. Which is why old prejudices like the one Howe states from one German he talks to, that the Italians "will steal the milk out of the coffee," may be just that - prejudice from another period, that is best left behind to build something new that has no nationality to it. ...

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Chrysler plans to set up separate showrooms and separate employees for the Fiat 500 at about 210 sales outlets.

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The despair and desperation of Hong Kong young people also has an economic side with fewer young people able to afford a small flat with sky high prices, and having difficulty maintaining a decent standard of living.