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VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

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Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#131

Post by wiz21 »

jessaustin wrote: post #101
aresant wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also, didn't VW do this in Europe, too? Are we to believe this guy in the U.S. is responsible for the emissions cheating in Europe, too?" Yes, this is the guy responsible for Europe too. Check out the justice.gov story I linked in parent for richer summary: - He was an employee in Germany from 1983 - 2008 - He led the effort when he realized they couldn't engineer an engine to meet US standards in 2006 - He moved to…

When your boss asks you to move to another nation in order to break that nation's laws, just say "no".

It requires quite some will power, because it means you're fired. So depending on your situation, that may a really tough decision to make; even though you absolutely understand that you're doing something wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#132

Post by johncolanduoni »

edanm wrote: post #130
wallace_f wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2008 financial crisis destroyed millions of hard workings people's retirement savings, jobs, and recent college graduates hopes of finding a job. No one went to jail over that. This is clearly a case of someone not having the right lawyers and political connections as engineers are people who actually create value as is often the case they can be successful without those two.

Who exactly should've gone to jail over the 2008 financial crisis? Something bad having happened does not automatically mean that someone did something wrong.

And "something wrong" and "something illegal" are not always the same.

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#133

Post by johncolanduoni »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #129
josho wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious? Are you!? please tell me that you have a source.

Are YOU serious? Have you been paying attention? If an individual is found guilty of money laundering for a drug cartel they go to jail forever. When a bank does it they get fined (HSBC).

I think his incredulity was that anyone openly holds this opinion (I was surprised myself), not that this is how things work in practice.

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#134

Post by jjeaff »

edanm wrote: post #130
wallace_f wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2008 financial crisis destroyed millions of hard workings people's retirement savings, jobs, and recent college graduates hopes of finding a job. No one went to jail over that. This is clearly a case of someone not having the right lawyers and political connections as engineers are people who actually create value as is often the case they can be successful without those two.

Who exactly should've gone to jail over the 2008 financial crisis? Something bad having happened does not automatically mean that someone did something wrong.

People don't like to hear it, but some of the biggest perpetrators were lower level employees at mortgage mills that were lying on mortgage applications and putting false information on them to get them approved. While in some cases it may be that the executives were specifically instructing employees to lie on this way, most likely they were just being far too overzealous and putting too much pressure on the employees.

Additionally, people who lied on their mortgage applications were also to blame.

Then of course at the top on the securities side, there were those that knew about these shady practices but went ahead anyway. So ya, some execs should be on jail probably, but even more low level sales guys and sub prime borrowers should as well.

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#135

Post by kuschku »

jessaustin wrote: post #106
kuschku wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Engineer" at VW doesn’t mean he wasn’t in a managing position – VW almost exclusively promotes their engineers to managers, and rarely ever hires external talent.

ISTM this policy could ensure that no experienced engineer or manager whose time at other firms taught her to scrupulously follow the law and expect the same of colleagues, could join the team and expose their ongoing schemes. It's kind of like how the mafia works. One doesn't get "made" without a half a dozen murders to one's name, to discourage defection. When a young engineer starts at VW, she wouldn't be shown th…

On the other hand, it ensures the managers, up to the CEO, actually understand what they're talking about.

No more dealing with managers not understanding anything about what they manage.

Doing this — only promoting your oen engineers to managers — improves efficiency by many times.

And the story of VW in the US started with the EPA violating the law and discriminating against VW for a few years, after which most likely even experienced talent would say "if they break the law to keep us out and protect their local industry, let's break the same law to get us in". (Read more about this in the SPIEGEL).

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#137

Post by DonHopkins »

SilasX wrote: post #67
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Leader of diesel competence" -- that sounds like one of those generated Silicon Valley job titles you get off of: http://siliconvalleyjobtitlegenerator.tumblr.com/ It turns out "VW almost exclusively promotes their engineers to managers."

"NO2 hacker"

How long until he got promoted to "N2O hacker"?

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#138

Post by crdb »

aresant wrote: post #46

This guy isn't the "fall guy" or just a poor engineer hung out to try instead of an exec, he deserves to go to prison based on the material facts of his plea: 1) He was the central figure in engineering the device. 2) He understood exactly what he was doing and made repeated efforts to perpetuate the lie to the government and EPA. 3) He led efforts to damage control and roll out an update to consumers under the guise…

If you are going to do something risky and you are smart, you will usually, from the start, hedge your bets and plan for failure. It's just good practice. And it's not done by giving instructions to the person, but by selecting the right person with the right values, skill set and intentions for the job, so there is no paper trail and plausible deniability.

In this case just as with Jerome Kerviel, the fall guy story has to be believable when you dig, so that he can take the heat and the people responsible for setting up the system within which he operated, the people who took the decision to promote him and give him the resources to create the problem, walk away scots-free.

For example, newspapers receive thousands of pieces from hundreds of writers, the way the editorial line is kept is not with the editor telling the writers "we want you to stick to these positions and PR this line", but by the editor picking the writers who happen to really believe in the positions they want to promote on that day. Then he can say "conspiracy theories! of course we don't tell our writers what to write! this is totally independent journalism!". The editor is absolutely responsible for the editorial line and positions of the paper and by judicious selection can absolutely act in the interests of his backers/shareholders/directors, without asking his journalists to corrupt their standards.

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#139

Post by throwaway729 »

DugFin wrote: post #99
talmand wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would also have to do something about piling on stupid charges in an effort to force a plea deal as well.

There should probably be a restriction on offering plea bargains, basically eliminating "plead to a lesser charge". The DA should be allowed to prosecute no more than the charges they want you to plead to. Piling on charges is coercion, threatening a good chance of ruining your entire life vs. a guarantee of only ruining a little of it.

In that case there's no incentive to take the deal, especially for serious crimes.

Re: VW engineer pleads guilty to diesel emissions scandal

#140

Post by [deleted] »

DugFin wrote: post #99
talmand wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would also have to do something about piling on stupid charges in an effort to force a plea deal as well.

There should probably be a restriction on offering plea bargains, basically eliminating "plead to a lesser charge". The DA should be allowed to prosecute no more than the charges they want you to plead to. Piling on charges is coercion, threatening a good chance of ruining your entire life vs. a guarantee of only ruining a little of it.

[deleted]
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