????With Europe deep in recession, Fiat, never a strong player to begin with, is drowning, and Chrysler is in the position of extending a life preserver. Fiat now owns 58.5% of Chrysler, and Marchionne wants to buy the remaining 41.5%. Owning 100% of Chrysler would allow him, under his agreement with the government, to finally integrate the two companies on one balance sheet. Chrysler is banking cash while Fiat is burning it, so Chrysler's cash would, in effect, be used to prop up Fiat.

????To complicate matters, and to further inflame Detroit passions, the remaining 41.5% that Marchionne wants to buy is owned by a UAW voluntary employee beneficiary association trust (VEBA). The stock was given to the UAW as part of the 2009 government bailout to pay for retiree health care expenses. But there is a difference of opinion about the value of those shares. The UAW trust says they are worth $11.5 billion. Marchionne wants to pay quite a bit less: $4.68 billion.

????The dispute has stirred emotions in Motown, where labor unionists fear that a settlement tilted toward Fiat will suck money out of their health care benefits. Indeed, the whole notion of American dollars bailing out an Italian company rankles some. Wrote popular blogger Peter De Lorenzo this week: "Gifted Chrysler by the U.S. Government and funded on the backs of you and me, the U.S. taxpayer, Marchionne is now using Chrysler to sustain that miserable excuse of a car company called Fiat."

????What's been forgotten in the controversy is that it wasn't only Fiat that got a sweet deal in the Chrysler bankruptcy; the UAW did too. Here's how it went: According to one analysis, Chrysler's first-line secured creditors got only 29 cents on the dollar; its second-line secured creditors got nothing. Neither did its suppliers By law, the UAW, which figured it was owed $8.8 billion for the VEBA, should have gotten stiffed too. Its claim came after all the secured creditors. But Rattner's team didn't see it that way. Instead it awarded the VEBA 55% of the shares in the reorganized Chrysler, along with a note for $4.6 billion.

????Rattner points out that the stock was held by the VEBA and not the union, and carried no voting rights. He goes on: "Most of the equity was unspoken for. We calculated that the UAW was taking a significant cut in its health care claim, at least 40%. Yes, the UAW accepted pain and risk."

????A judge in Delaware will decide whose numbers to use: Marchionne's or the union, or something in between. Neither side should be aggrieved; they are both well ahead of where they would have been if the chips had fallen just a bit differently.

????A ruling that falls closer to the union's claim would put it out of reach of Fiat's ability to finance. Still, you have to put your money on Marchionne. Having been trained as an accountant, he knows his numbers. He has proved on numerous occasions that he is a fearsome negotiator. And he seems determined to create an automotive enterprise with the scale to compete in the 21st century.

????As he told analysts and reporters this week, "Whether we're the sixth or the largest car company in the world as a result of all this, it really does not matter. We are not running to league tables here. The only thing that does matter is that we do have within the combined entity, sufficient mass and sufficient geographic coverage to call ourselves a global car company."

????Here's betting he will.