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German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#211

Post by alanl »

hermitcrab wrote: post #5

Good for Germany, but it is all too rare to see bad corporate behaviour punished like this. Steal £10k from a company, and you will probably go to prison for a long time. Start a company and steal billions from your customers and/or the tax payer, and you will probably get away with it. I believe Iceland was the only country to jail bankers after the 2008 banking disaster. We are still waiting for the British governm…

Ireland jailed a 3 or 4 bankers after the crash.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Drumm

It took 10 yrs to convict them mind you, and as I understand it they’re all out now.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#212

Post by nickff »

exe34 wrote: post #115
nickff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Working too hard is rewarded with more work.

I agree, but this point seems to be orthogonal to the matters being discussed here. Your point is roughly analogous to 'providing too much consumer surplus is rewarded with more customers'.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#213

Post by spookie »

throwpoaster wrote: post #121
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing from employees is just normal business in the US. $1.5 billion in stolen wages were recovered for US workers between 2021 and 2023. Imagine how much wasn't recovered. It is often the least able to take action/most in need of every dollar of their income that are stolen from. You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats those with the least power versus those with power. https://www.epi.org/publication…

Let's be conservative by taking GDP for only the middle year. In 2022 American GDP was 26 trillion (rounded down). Let's also gross up the stolen wages from your comment to 2.6 billion. That's 0.01% -- one percent of one percent. That's a background noise level, or simple error rate level, or rounding error level. And because of our conservative assumptions, over those three years GDP is actually maybe 3x higher and…

We all know employees generate more revenue than what they're paid. Otherwise you wouldn't have a successful business.

Comparing wages with GDP in this context doesn't prove anything.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#214

Post by amalcon »

Gud wrote: post #177
paganel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t wage modern war without diesel engines, those trucks won’t drive themselves close to the front-lines (and, no, electric-powered trucks in times of war are a terrible idea, and the ones powered by gasoline are a lot less efficient and don’t provide the same torque numbers).

Why would electric trucks be a terrible idea in war time?

Short version is that you can't rely on the power grid or other centralized generation. Centralized infrastructure may not even be available, but if it is then the enemy can target it.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#215

Post by fsflover »

fsflover wrote: post #36
ogogmad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did Zuckerberg do? Maybe he did do something, but hearing "Boo Fuckerberg!" over and over again doesn't imply he's guilty of anything. It's similar to hearing "it's the Jooos" a bajillion effing times and then believing it without asking for any substance.

Have a look at my favorite submissions and search for Facebook.

And more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33105804

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#216

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #206
echelon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a remarkably good idiom that rings true. Similar to Paul Getty's quote, "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." But in this case, it cuts much deeper and darker.

I think that's a pretty different concept being expressed by that one. The others are about getting away with something by just making the crime big enough that it's evaluated and handled in a totally different arena. The bank can still destroy the rest of your life, so you didn't get away with anything (setting aside bankrupcy and how you can actually usually start over, and that may or may not be all that terrible…

that's really not what it means, it means that if you owe the bank enough money (which is probably more than 100 million nowadays for any significant bank) then it is you in the position of power in relation to the bank, when the bank comes and says hey we need the money sure you have the "problem" that you need to pay it, but let's say you can pay it no sweat, but you'd rather not because reasons so you say hmm, I think I would like to renegotiate the interest and wait a year before paying, and unless things are very extreme the bank will probably have to acquiesce, if they don't they are basically letting the world know hey, we have a 100 million dollar problem, but until they make that announcement that 100 million is just another asset the bank has.

If you owe the bank enough money, you have the power in the relationship in most cases.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#217

Post by teddyh »

bilekas wrote: post #130
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it happens only if you steal from investors. Stealing from consumers is fine.

This comment is so on point, reminds me of the old one about if you owe the bank 500k they own you, but if you owe then 2Billion you own them. Something along those lines, maybe I'm only noticing it more recently but it seems to me that there's also a higher prevalence of "Non class actions" clauses in terms and conditions these days too. It's amazing how badly customers are willing to be treated but at the same time…

Previously discussed here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41798027>

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#218

Post by diego_sandoval »

crop_rotation wrote: post #80
sambeau wrote: post #40

Can we so CrowdStrike next?

While CrowdStrike was incompetent, this is remotely not the same thing as what VW did. What CrowdStrike did should be best punished by the market and in court by companies who were their customers.

Crowdstrike stock price seems to be close to an all time high.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#219

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

throwpoaster wrote: post #145
squigz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand your point? Does it being a small % of the GDP matter to those stolen from? Does it mean we shouldn't attempt to remedy it?

We should care about it 0.002% as much as we care about other economic problems.

Not quite- from a strictly financial perspective, it means we should care 0.002% as much as we care about an intervention that doubles the GDP or eliminates 100% it. Neither exists, so we're better off comparing to other theft- this is about 15% of numbers for retail shrink, 50% of reported personal theft, so this suggests we should care proportionally.

But I don't know about the strict financial analysis. I'm pretty sure it would tell us to have negative care about a serial killer that targets the homeless.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#220

Post by fuddy »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #53
SoftTalker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SBF is in prison, so it happens sometimes.

SBF stole from rich people. Strategic error on his part.

His larger problem was doing everything a lawyer would tell you not to do. The world and a sufficient portion of any 12 person subsample could have accepted that these were suckers far more readily than Madoff's victims. But he broke every rule about talking, letting people know he was making up required departments, mixing conflicts of interest, etc.
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