5 ms·

If that's true, then there's no way government officials weren't bribed and need to be prosecuted.

kuschku 11y ago
Which is kinda expected, considering the government is the second largest shareholder in VW.
ekianjo 11y ago
Which calls for decentralized inspection, instead of relying again and again on governments to do the right thing. The only thing they are good at is accepting bribes.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no? I was in and out of publicly-run hospitals as a child, I wouldn't be alive today if not for socialized medicine.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    That's incorrect. You wouldn't be alive today without medicine; the fact that it was provided by a socialized system is almost certainly irrelevant. There exist other, better and fairer mechanisms to provide healthcare, especially to those in genuine need. Edited: to put it another way, imagine if you lived in a country with socialized car mechanics. You could easily make the claim that the only thing keeping you on the road was your good comrades at State Autoworks ...
    - kefka 11y ago
      That's right, the capitalist-libertarian answer is always "Fuck you, pay me", or in this case, "fuck you, die". We have insurance. Its a great way to leverage the group so that all get a low rate. That given, "socialized" medicine is a group policy population wide: which should give the lowest rates split equally between all. Certainly makes the most sense.
      - duncan_bayne 11y ago
        I'm tempted not to reply to such an obvious straw man argument, but: take a look at the way mutual societies worked prior to socialised medicine. That's the sort of approach people opposed to socialized medicine would prefer. It provides cheap health care and looks after those incapable of doing so themselves, all without coercion.
        kefka 11y ago
        I know a good deal about the Middle Ages, being part of the SCA. And indeed, it did work pretty well. The problem is now is that it's not just 1 or 2 people involved with health of the area. It's the doctor, the 2 nurses, the 2 receptionists, the x-ray techs, the lab techs, the pharmacist, the pharmacist techs; all for a call to the doctor. In hospitals, it's so crazy how billing works, that most hospitals do not actually know how much X costs. instead, they just bill exorbitantly to anyone without insurance, and insurance gives them the agreed upon price. Drug companies are also really messed up: the US ends up subsidizing the rest of the world's drugs, all the while biasing on maintenance based drugs over cures. The FDA also has its fair share to blame. They control which universities are accredited, and directly control the flow of doctors purely on the say-so from the AMA, a doctor union. Considering the complicated nature, insurance covering the nation, aka socialized care, makes the most sense. Tearing down systems like I said above really isn't sustainable.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
        It's not insurance if you're compelled to buy into it. I believe those are more commonly known as 'protection rackets' ;) But yeah. Lots of problems: opaque billing, medical cartels (AMA), scale, crony capitalism on the part of drug companies and politicians, ... it's quite a list. The thing is, many of those problems are a consequence of the existing system of socialised medicine, and would be fixed by the de-nationalisation of the industry. I happen to strongly agree with you that part of the problem is a shortage of medical staff caused, in part, by a cartel (the AMA). Note their position on the matter of genuinely capitalistic medicine. It's not a coincidence.
      - 11y ago
- molmalo 11y ago
  And who should do it? Universities and NGOs are commonly bribed as well..
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  You mean like private companies inspecting individual cars on a periodic basis as a requirement for that car being street-legal?
rtpg 11y ago
never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence... I work at the French auto Inspection facility. I'm not keeping up with research done by some people in Brussels because I'm busy living my life. A car rolls in, I check for defeat devices of the kind previously found. Because the organization is reactive, not proactive, I don't find any newer kind of defeat device (also, I'm not Sherlock Holmes). Car gets approved.
- jeromeflipo 11y ago
  The lack of time and/or resources to enforce these limits: a bug or a feature? Certainly a sin of omission.
matt4077 11y ago
This is frequently not bribery. There are a few other mechanisms. One of them is regulatory capture. The other is what I'd call the 'boiling frog'-effect, where, if everyone is doing it and it has been going on since before you got into the business, your moral compass readjusts and you tolerate more wrongdoing than you should.

Which is kinda expected, considering the government is the second largest shareholder in VW.

Which calls for decentralized inspection, instead of relying again and again on governments to do the right thing. The only thing they are good at is accepting bribes.

anigbrowl 11y ago
Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no? I was in and out of publicly-run hospitals as a child, I wouldn't be alive today if not for socialized medicine.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  That's incorrect. You wouldn't be alive today without medicine; the fact that it was provided by a socialized system is almost certainly irrelevant. There exist other, better and fairer mechanisms to provide healthcare, especially to those in genuine need. Edited: to put it another way, imagine if you lived in a country with socialized car mechanics. You could easily make the claim that the only thing keeping you on the road was your good comrades at State Autoworks ...
  - kefka 11y ago
    That's right, the capitalist-libertarian answer is always "Fuck you, pay me", or in this case, "fuck you, die". We have insurance. Its a great way to leverage the group so that all get a low rate. That given, "socialized" medicine is a group policy population wide: which should give the lowest rates split equally between all. Certainly makes the most sense.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      I'm tempted not to reply to such an obvious straw man argument, but: take a look at the way mutual societies worked prior to socialised medicine. That's the sort of approach people opposed to socialized medicine would prefer. It provides cheap health care and looks after those incapable of doing so themselves, all without coercion.
      - kefka 11y ago
        I know a good deal about the Middle Ages, being part of the SCA. And indeed, it did work pretty well. The problem is now is that it's not just 1 or 2 people involved with health of the area. It's the doctor, the 2 nurses, the 2 receptionists, the x-ray techs, the lab techs, the pharmacist, the pharmacist techs; all for a call to the doctor. In hospitals, it's so crazy how billing works, that most hospitals do not actually know how much X costs. instead, they just bill exorbitantly to anyone without insurance, and insurance gives them the agreed upon price. Drug companies are also really messed up: the US ends up subsidizing the rest of the world's drugs, all the while biasing on maintenance based drugs over cures. The FDA also has its fair share to blame. They control which universities are accredited, and directly control the flow of doctors purely on the say-so from the AMA, a doctor union. Considering the complicated nature, insurance covering the nation, aka socialized care, makes the most sense. Tearing down systems like I said above really isn't sustainable.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
        It's not insurance if you're compelled to buy into it. I believe those are more commonly known as 'protection rackets' ;) But yeah. Lots of problems: opaque billing, medical cartels (AMA), scale, crony capitalism on the part of drug companies and politicians, ... it's quite a list. The thing is, many of those problems are a consequence of the existing system of socialised medicine, and would be fixed by the de-nationalisation of the industry. I happen to strongly agree with you that part of the problem is a shortage of medical staff caused, in part, by a cartel (the AMA). Note their position on the matter of genuinely capitalistic medicine. It's not a coincidence.
    - 11y ago
molmalo 11y ago
And who should do it? Universities and NGOs are commonly bribed as well..
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
You mean like private companies inspecting individual cars on a periodic basis as a requirement for that car being street-legal?

rtpg 11y ago

never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence... I work at the French auto Inspection facility. I'm not keeping up with research done by some people in Brussels because I'm busy living my life. A car rolls in, I check for defeat devices of the kind previously found. Because the organization is reactive, not proactive, I don't find any newer kind of defeat device (also, I'm not Sherlock Holmes). Car gets approved.

jeromeflipo 11y ago
The lack of time and/or resources to enforce these limits: a bug or a feature? Certainly a sin of omission.

matt4077 11y ago

This is frequently not bribery. There are a few other mechanisms. One of them is regulatory capture. The other is what I'd call the 'boiling frog'-effect, where, if everyone is doing it and it has been going on since before you got into the business, your moral compass readjusts and you tolerate more wrongdoing than you should.