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German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

politico.eu

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

#271

Post by microtherion »

speff wrote: post #184
ljf wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their point was that this was all that was recovered, from the approx $20b stolen each year through wage theft. I believe wage theft is one of the largest value crime by $ amount in the US - but is very rarely prosecuted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft Actually it turns out fraud and white collar crime takes more out of the American economy.

I skimmed the article - any significant concrete numbers were all sourced to the EPI site linked by the GP. There's an unsourced FBI chart that says >19B in 2012, but I couldn't find the actual numbers when I looked. Frankly - I don't trust this claim if the only one actually putting big numbers on it is one publication. EDIT: I'm going to cast more suspicion on the FBI graph. According to a 2022 report[0], the numbe…

1691 * $2k is about $3M, not $3B.

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #210
tyre wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine: “I find all of this so weird because of how it elevates finance. [Various cases] imply that we are not entitled to be protected from pollution as citizens, or as humans. [Another] implies that we are not entitled to be told the truth as citizens. (Which: is true!) Rather, in each case, we are only entitled to be protected from lies as shareholders. The great harm of pollution, or of political dishonesty,…

Similarly Elizabeth Holmes (In jail, but not for providing bad medical services.)

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by bolognafairy »

jajko wrote: post #207
bluGill wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is should the CEO have know. A CEO that trys to set a culture of doing the right thing, with training on what the right thing is, and other such things can still be deceived by someone low level who cheats. It is possible for one person to cover their tracks for a long time if they are trying to cheat. It can be years to track down who is doing the immoral thing even after you catch something is wrong. T…

Those golden parachutes and lavish lifestyle comes with a cost. That cost is responsibility and risks it brings. Whether he knew or nit is a matter for courst, but in any case he is responsible too. Punish crooks harsh and visibly, reward honesty and good engineering massively and also visibly and company as a whole will act accordingly. We dont talk about a single guy hacking some firmware build, but a well known co…

[dead]

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

#275

Post by lurk2 »

const_cast wrote: post #248
lurk2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money This isn’t how it works.

This is exactly how it works. Liability spread out over even just 10 people is so much less risky than one person. A corporation can do pretty much anything. Steal, lie, poison communities, give people HIV. Anything.

> This is exactly how it works.

No, it isn’t. Limited liability does not shield executives from criminal prosecution. If an LLC defrauds another party, the perpetrators are both criminally and civilly liable; this is true in every common law country you can think of. Limited liability corporations enjoy a limitation of civil liability (i.e. the shareholders cannot be held liable for more than the company is worth). This limitation is not exhaustive in the case of fraud or criminal negligence. In practice it is of course possible that people “get away with” both, but that is a failing of law enforcement, not limited liability itself.

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

#276

Post by speff »

microtherion wrote: post #271
speff wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed the article - any significant concrete numbers were all sourced to the EPI site linked by the GP. There's an unsourced FBI chart that says >19B in 2012, but I couldn't find the actual numbers when I looked. Frankly - I don't trust this claim if the only one actually putting big numbers on it is one publication. EDIT: I'm going to cast more suspicion on the FBI graph. According to a 2022 report[0], the numbe…

1691 * $2k is about $3M, not $3B.

Caveman math indeed. Thanks for the correction - that's a pretty big error. Though then I'm not sure what to make of the discrepancy between the numbers. They still don't square up w/ the Wikipedia article any way you look at it

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

#277

Post by ferguess_k »

OJFord wrote: post #134
ferguess_k wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

窃(Steal)钩(hook)者(people)诛(gets a death sentence) 窃(Steal)国(country)者(people)侯(gets to be the king)

Is this missing a sentence like 'there is a saying in mandarin:'?

Yeah it was a Chinese saying.

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

#278

Post by Drunk_Engineer »

constantcrying wrote: post #247
Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #116

The headline says "execs" but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms. Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether.

>but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms. The head of development, a board member, got a suspended sentence. >Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether. How so?

Suspended sentence…not prison.

Winterkorn has spent the past decade getting various postponements in his trial. Now that he is approaching 80 it is unlikely he will suffer any serious punishment.

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

#279

Post by pezezin »

anthk wrote: post #182
docsaintly wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they meant: 窃钩者诛，窃国者侯 qiègōuzhě zhū, qièguózhě hóu He who steals a belt buckle pays with his life; he who steals a state gets to be a feudal lord. Yes, it is a Chinese idiom.

The same in Spanish. Steal a hen, get a harsh sentence. Steal millions, you are now a respectable 'businessman'.

I am Spanish and I have never heard this proverb...

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

#280

Post by itsdrewmiller »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #185
rurban wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VW? Everyone who used the Bosch ECU cheated. VW was just the biggest who got caught and had to go to jail therefore. All the others, which were more guilty than the VW execs are still free. And the politicians which sanctioned these special diesel tests were not even named. Nor all the other countries who also choose the European Standard (not testing diesel engines) over the US Standard.

Not just Bosch ECUs, not just European car companies, and this shit has been going on for decades. All the car companies do it and have since at least the 90's. The proof is in the ROM dumps of all the various cars - the tuners can point to two sets of tables of fuel mixture/timing maps, one for when the ECU thinks it's being emissions tested and one for regular use. As early as the late 90's tuners offered features…

Do you have any sources for this claim?
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