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One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiti

One thing learned from: Volkswagen,airbnb,google,amazon,uber,facebook is to CHEAT. Illegal hotels, copyright infringement, skipping sales tax, fake cabs,profiting on personal data.. and now, illegal emission testing.

lumberjack 10y ago
Only works if you can raise billions really fast so that you can have the clout/means to get the legislators to bend the rules for you.
gonzo41 10y ago
This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' without the consequences of being a person. How do you send a company to jail? Its kinda of like that scene in fightclub where Edward Nortons character talks about the cost of doing a recall. The emissions scandal should have ended VW. Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Many people look at emissions testing as an annoyance and I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. And it was diesel car emissions -- a niche of the US market that's almost invisible anyway.
  - CreRecombinase 10y ago
    It isn't their job to care. The job of a citizen is to elect officials to act in his or her (the citizen's) best interest. Another way of looking at it: regulations are a noisy approximation of how much people "care".
    - baddox 10y ago
      So citizens that don't care are supposed to elect people that do. As if somehow, by adding an additional layer of separation and lack of liability, you're somehow going to get a better result. It's no surprise how often that fails.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. Do you have any basis for that? I think most people care about clean air and support laws and regulations to protect it. The laws did pass; there are regulatory agencies that are funded.
    - megablast 10y ago
      Most people care, unless it means they drive or fly less.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    You'd think the lack of popularity of diesel would have the opposite effect. If, like the EU, there had been a lot of institutional support for diesel then you can imagine them having issues dealing with evidence that it's causing a different kind of pollution. But in America you'd hope they'd not have enough political capital and the truth would be accepted.
  - antivw 10y ago
    Fair enough. 590K diesel vehicles is a niche of the US market that's almost invisible. So have VW purchase back every one of those cars at MSRP. It's an invisible amount anyway, right? The largest auto maker in the world could do it without blinking, right? Then fine them a few $billion for damage to the environment, jail a handful of employees, and we can move on.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  You can impose fines, but the trouble is that if the fine imposed is smaller than the profit gained from their misdeeds, (or than the losses actual compliance would cause) then they're still winning.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  The laws arent the issue, nor even the punishments. The issue is a lack of enforcement. We have plenty of cops handing out speeding tickets but the number dedicated to "white collar" or "technology crime" in each state might only be a handfull. And dont try suggesting more IRS, EPA or FBI agents. In this political climate those federal agencies are seen more as criminals themselves.
- redleggedfrog 10y ago
  Or, vote with you awl. How many Volkwagens would be sold if most mornings you came out and the tires were flat? You wouldn't buy one again I suspect.
- Gustomaximus 10y ago
  I'm not sure how to take "The emissions scandal should have ended VW" but assuming you mean financially, I cant agree. As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. The bigger issue is it seems there has been one executive scapegoat and no real punishment for the multitude of people involved. While a company fine is good, if we were to gaol and heavily fine at a personal level anyone involved to the point of wiping out their net worth, and heavily fine anyone (if we cant show they were involved) who should have been in a position to know/stop this I suspect we would see a better result in these matters in future. IMO the bigger issue is every time we have one of these scandals the perpetrators seem to walk away without any personal punishment or direct consequence of their actions.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    If we "end" VW, we're not going to just fire everyone, close all the factories, and throw all their assets in a river somewhere. Instead VW will be broken up into smaller more manageable companies, with tighter governmental oversight, and if it is done properly we'll have a stronger economy for it---one without the existence of a malignant massive company.
  - derefr 10y ago
    > As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. Perhaps we need to require of publicly-listed companies that they have a "registered acquirer" or the like--a company that all the employees would be moved to if the original company were forced out of existence. (Basically turning every Chapter 7 bankruptcy of a public company into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy by default.) Then we could allow civil suits to kill companies with impunity, knowing their employees would just end up "passed to" another company willing to retain them for the same salaries performing the same duties.
  - kartan 10y ago
    > As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. 1. Nationalize part of the company hurting investors. 2. Auction the shares to the market 3. Profit$ This way a "too big to fail" company can continue running its business as usual while punishing the value of the company. That doesn't means that personal responsibilities are forgiven, any one that breaks the law should be prosecuted. There are probably a lot of other solutions, the problem is that economics is not about economy but about politics.
- nchallak 10y ago
  There are a couple of hidden assumption here: 1. It is possible to punish a person for his crimes in a justifiable manner. 2. People are somehow deterred by punishment when the option of winning via cheating is available to them. It's very hard to argue that 1 is possible considering the ethical dilemmas that it exposes e.g. would capital punishment be a justifiable punishment for a murderer? If 2 were true, then there wouldn't be doping scandals in sports, would there?
  - nihonde 10y ago
    Accountability, credibility, and a sense of duty to the greater good must be part of what defines a society. When those are intact, individuals take responsibility and accept consequences. When they are too far eroded, there is no way to force or coerce society back to integrity except perhaps through a concerted effort over many generations.
  - dreamOfDDR7 10y ago
    You forgot the premise of the 'outrage' 1) any entity, corporate or otherwise, must act without flaw or be dismantled. Big talk from one whom I doubt is running a top 5 company in arguably the most influential sector of the global market. The fallout of 'ending' VW is the forgotten factor. Try a little tenderness, who don't you? 2) the infrastructure that sustains VW is not a logo, or a brand name, it's thousands upon thousands of individuals, women and men who work hard to sustain that company so that vehicles are provided for a myriad of purposes. 'Ending' something if it has a flaw is like throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Why not change what needs changing and be less vitriolic? Are you shorting VW? Are you invested in Mitsubishi? Are you a Renault shill? Do you like speaking in hyperbole so as to clarify something without having to do the heavy lifting? Obvy responses to poster above you if that wasn't clear to someone.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  The problem is that at one point, when you reach a certain size, no matter the intentions you will end up affecting other people negatively. Googles don't be evil is a good example of the problems with good intentions. And so while I think it's fair to want the responsible people to be punished it's not as simple as it sound.
- joecool1029 10y ago
  >Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime. TBH, HN's BFF Elon Musk thinks regulators were too hard on VW: http://www.takepart.com/open-letter-to-california-air-resources-board-chairman-mary-nichols/ http://www.takepart.com/open-letter-to-california-air-resour... But yeah by this logic, Winterkorn was worse than Hitler. Went way more wholesale on the gassing.
  - bonzini 10y ago
    I think it says it was pointless, not harsh. The suggestion is not any less harsh.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- wyager 10y ago
  > This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' I like how people almost never understand what they're talking about when they complain about corporate personhood. How, exactly, do you think corporate personhood is responsible for the mentioned instances of "cheating"? Here's why corporate personhood was created; to create a legal framework under which corporations could be more effectively sued. Corporations don't actually get the same rights as individuals; they can't vote, they don't get 5th amendment rights, etc. Corporate personhood is, in most respects, quite anti-corporate (in the sense that it makes it easier to attack corporations in court). But of course, to people who never bother to read beyond the headline, it sounds like it gives corporations the same rights as people, so of course it must be some sort of evil robber baron thing!
- Shinkei 10y ago
  This is one area where you might admire Chinese government then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Contamination_and_response_in_2009.E2.80.932010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Cont... If you read the part that talks about criminal prosecutions, many top executives were put to death or received life imprisonment. It's up for debate whether this is 'good' or 'justice' because the economic causes that led to the problem are complex, but babies were literally being killed because of this.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    They found scapegoats for sure, but not many are really confident the real crooks were caught, and more importantly, faith was never restored in the Chinese milk industry.
    - Shinkei 10y ago
      Not surprised. I'm also saddened that the whistle blower died under suspicious circumstances.
- twblalock 10y ago
  Corporate personhood is not the problem here. You'll find many instances of corporate lawbreaking in countries that lack the legal concept of corporate personhood. The real problem is that breaking the law and then paying the fine makes corporations better off than obeying the law in the first place.
- developer2 10y ago
  A corporation that deserves "jail time" should equate to bankruptcy. Simple as that. The fact that these companies get fined for < 1% of their total yearly profit is a joke. If you would send the person to jail, the company should be dead. $50 Million revenue? $50 Million fine. $2 Billion revenue? $2 Billion fine. Even if nobody goes to prison, the company should receive the death sentence - not a slap on the wrist. It should be that simple.
- whyenot 10y ago
  Sometimes I think there needs to be a corporate death penalty where a company that does something truly egregious is liquidated. The problem, of course, is that would also mean putting a lot of people out of work and would also hurt many who may have not done anything wrong.
- matt4077 10y ago
  You'll be happy to know there are ongoing fraud investigations in Germany against several engineers and managers of VW and their contractors. An investigation into the CEO at the time of the cheating (Winterkorn) was launched very recently when they got testimony that he was informed of the cheating a few month before it was publicised.
- matt4077 10y ago
  You missed the most important aspect of that scene in fight club: "If the profits are larger than the costs of expected settlements and fines". That means you just need to either the chances of being caught or the fines – preferably the first because low chances of being caught just invite delusional thinking ("I'm smarter than others") and people are pretty bad with evaluating probabilities not close to 0 or 1.
  - sgift 10y ago
    To catch more wrongdoing you need more oversight, which means more people checking on companies, which means bigger agencies. This is often frowned upon, because many people want a "lean government".
- bmmayer1 10y ago
  Corporate personhood is a long standing legal principle stretching back at least 400 years to the first joint stock corporations. The creation of limited liability vehicles for investors to pool resources, govern large cooperatives of individuals, simplify complex transactions, and protect investments and intellectual property has led to unprecedented levels of wealth creation for nations and people, and is arguably the most consequential innovation of the last millennium. Your issue with VW has nothing to do with corporate personhood, it has to do with a lack of criminal penalties for certain civil regulations. There are, of course, plenty of corporate crimes that do lead to jail time (though I hope you're joking about the guillotine). Call your representatives in congress and ask them to expand the criminal statutes. But don't pass this off on corporate personhood which has likely benefitted you and all of us far more than any perceived harm.
  - voidlogic 10y ago
    >though I hope you're joking about the guillotine I read that remark as this: If corporations are people legally, there should be certain crimes that lead to their dissolution. I assumed this was the proposal: If a corporation does something evil enough, its leaders going to prison and paying a fine isn't enough, it should face the corporate guillotine which revokes its incorporation.
    - Sacho 10y ago
      What would that gain you? Wouldnt the same capital holders pool their wealth into a newly minted corporation to continue exploiting the resources they have accrued? Are you going to seize the assets of the corporation and redistribute them? How is your proposed dissolution different from a fine big enough to bankrupt a company?
      - gonzo41 10y ago
        Just quickly on my phone before I run to grab the train. You dissolve the entity and sell the assests to pay back the costs of damage. The people left high and dry by the loss of investment get the signal that there is more risk in involving yourself in companies that can really stuff people over through negligence or greed I mean really after the damage that was done, you don't think companies like BP should still exist. How about all those resource companies walking over the people of the third world. etc etc. As for cutting peoples heads off...Who knows what this new america will bring :)
- tominous 10y ago
  It's easy to talk about a corporate death penalty, but that's not really in the interest of society. Take Arthur Andersen. After the Enron scandal, Arthur Andersen was basically split up and absorbed into the other accounting firms, especially Deloitte and EY. Are we really better off having the Big Four accounting firms instead of the Big Five? I'd say we need more competition, not less. Not to mention the many innocent parties around the world who lost out due to the actions of a few. I'd be in favour of sanctions that target those responsible and the chain upwards to the top, rather than a business as a whole. Even clawbacks of past bonuses, although that would be logistically very difficult.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- alkonaut 10y ago
  > The emissions scandal should have ended VW. The question is who such a punishment would have been directed towards. A few decisonmakers make something illegal, and the punishment is given to a hundred thousand employees, not to mention the owners of the cars without emissions cheating (most)? This is the problem with megacorporations. Punishing them proportionally to the damage they make is unfair, because you are mostly punishing employees and consumers who knew nothing about the wrongdoing. Consequences need to be strong enough to be a deterrent but weak enough to not kill a large employer. That's nearly impossible. Perhaps the most reasonable thing to do, as has been argued with banks, is to simply not allow megacorps to form, that is, no organization should be to big to fail because we want to allow the bad ones to fail.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    Which is one of those pro-free-market, yet anti-corporate ideas that don't seem as popular as they should be as the political incentives are misaligned.
- jgalt212 10y ago
  corporations don't commit crimes, people commit crimes. Obama was afraid to prosecute the rich and powerful, and now we have, well, you know.
- torrent-of-ions 10y ago
  What about all the people that work for VW, though? You can't hold all of those people accountable for what happened. It would be better to punish the individuals who encouraged it and those who knew but turned a blind a eye.
ssambros 10y ago
So setting up regulatory capture frameworks through cronies at the government to collect rents from people is not cheating since it happens to fit the definition of 'legal' and therefore fine to do?
animex 10y ago
That's not cheating, it's "growth-hacking". :O
mjfl 10y ago
Life isn't a game.
- drenvuk 10y ago
  I beg to differ. Life is most definitely a game. It has rules and winning depends on numerous factors such as information, skill, strength, luck, connections, etc. I would argue that all other games which have been created are based on a subset of the rules of the first game: Life. Every single rule can be broken, it just depends on if/when you get caught. You're still a cheater but as long as you can pay your way out of any hole you've found yourself in by the time you've gotten caught it's perfectly ok. Traditional morals notwithstanding, e.g. Lance Armstrong or any of the above.
  - sitkack 10y ago
    You will fit right in here.
overcast 10y ago
You don't become King without stepping on everyone, and everything on your way to the top.
nihonde 10y ago
Another way to look at this: people have endured enough absurd protectionist media circus shows from US auto makers to no longer believe or care. Cry wolf scenario, in other words.
stephengillie 10y ago
It's more effective to beg forgiveness than ask permission, especially when you are a rock star.
TwoBit 10y ago
How did Google, Amazon, and Facebook cheat, in your opinion?
- ransom1538 10y ago
  Google: copyright infringement. [Crawling sites, taking data at will, then slapping ads on it, not paying the authors a portion of their ads] [4]. Tax evasion. [5--look for google] Amazon: sales tax avoidance (entire reason they exist) [1] later, federal tax evasion, including the double irish. [7]. Pusher of fake goods. [8] Pusher of fake reviews. Pusher of Chinese goods causing destructive env. practices. Facebook: selling personal information [2]. tax evasion (double irish) [3]. Enabled zynga (et al) to extort from children [6] 1. http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/11/at_amazoncom_sales_tax_evasion.php#.WJATHxA7SV8 http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/11/at_amazoncom_s... 2. https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-your-web-browsing-data-to-advertisers/ https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-y... 3. https://www.ft.com/content/ca64f938-5dc0-11e3-95bd-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/ca64f938-5dc0-11e3-95bd-00144feab... 4. https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-book-settlement-site-is-up-paying-authors-60-per-scanned-book/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-book-settlement-sit... 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement 6. https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinku... 7. http://www.businessinsider.com/double-irish-other-corporate-tax-loopholes-2014-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/double-irish-other-corporate-... 8. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-problem-is-getting-worse.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-p... I probably could type all night.
  - refurb 10y ago
    Tax avoidance is cheating? I guess I better not max out my 401k this year for the tax advantage! That would be cheating!
    - ransom1538 10y ago
      No but if you take your 401k money - withdraw it, create Irish shell companies, then have your employer pay the Irish shells , then tell the government you are Irish not a us citizen, liquidate all us holdings -- all to avoid IRS withholdings. Wtf? Please try it let me know how HRBlock goes. Edit: under "do you have foreign accounts" check "no" as well. (Actually don't do any of this you will end up in federal prison)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
shard972 10y ago
Asking for forgiveness instead of permission is something I tell work colleagues.
frik 10y ago
If you own a VW/Seat/Skoda/Audi diesel car in US, you can give your car back and get your money. In EU, VW promises to fix the car by adding a 5cent placebo plastic pipe and a software update which lowers the performance and increases the diesel consumption (physics after all). In US VW has to pay billions, in EU VW has to pay nothing to speak of. Of course the German government is involved in this company as shareholder and probably knew about the cheating and probably the EU laws for diesel were altered some years ago because of this company. One would assume a more strict law enforcement that split that company into separate smaller VW, Sear, Skoda and Audi companies and disallow them to use that old Audi Diesel engine from the 1980s that causes the troubles. And one would assume VW has to be fine and pay to each state were the poisoned the inhabitants with their diesel fume. And oe would assume that TUV or whoever certified and tested the cars get fined as well.
- lyschoening 10y ago
  You ignore that emission standards in Europe were less strict when it came to diesel pollution, so that 5cent placebo plastic pipe makes the cars compliant there. Emissions standards in Europe focused on C02 emissions and not so much on the toxic byproducts of diesel combustion. That's why the scandal is not such a big issue for Volkswagen in Europe.
  - sib 10y ago
    I don't think that GP was ignoring it: "Of course the German government is involved in this company as shareholder and probably knew about the cheating and probably the EU laws for diesel were altered some years ago because of this company" - the point is that the EU car companies big into diesel specifically worked to have this pollution be made less critical in emissions testing...
    - lyschoening 10y ago
      The thing is diesel was pushed because of its low CO2 emissions and lower cost at the pump. Of course the German government wants to protect German auto companies now, but EU laws are comparatively lax on NOx emissions in part because the focus used to be entirely on CO2 emissions.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
You're cherrypicking examples. Plenty of companies went under for cheating, e.g. Enron. Also if you think that these companies offer no consumer benefits but profit only through cheating then you're a fool.
koonsolo 10y ago
That is how the world works. If you want to win, you have to be willing to do everything to get there. Not only for companies, but also in sport. Do you think the winners play fair? You should really read the autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then you get an idea of what it takes to be able to win.
- simonbarker87 10y ago
  I've not read Arnold's autobiography but out of interest what are you referring to? If you are talking about his use of steroids etc (which I'm assuming is covered in the book?) then that isn't really cheating since in the case of professional bodybuilding since the sport is untested. There are federations that test and in that case using PEDs is cheating but in an untested federation, it's considered fair game. Obviously, there are legal implications around the use of PEDs since many substances are illegal however I'm separating that out for this purpose.
  - koonsolo 10y ago
    I'm not referring to that, because at that time it was even legal. For example what he did was looked at what parties the jury members went, and then go there and socialize with them. So they already knew him personally before going on stage. Or mess mentally with competitors, lie to them etc. Or when he was on stage with another bodybuilder for the final poses, acted as if he was about to leave the stage, the other one left, and then Arnold actually stayed and did a few more poses. Maybe not all really illegal, but his book has lots of cases where he describes how he mentally messes or lies to people to get an advantage over them. That's how you win. Very good book if you have time to read it. He even went to a ballet teacher to improve his poses. This guy did everything to get to the top, very inspiring.
    - simonbarker87 10y ago
      It's been on my list to read for while now, I'll take a look.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
UweSchmidt 10y ago
Volkswagens cheating was a minor infraction, notable only for the $18B fine that was handed out by the US to throw some weight around, appease the domestic car industry and satisfy protectionist instincts. Certainly it would be easy to fine Facebook, Google in Europe for privacy/monopoly violations (i.e. things that actually matter) with huge fines?
PunchTornado 10y ago
don't forget the biggest cheater of them all: apple
edwinjm 10y ago
Volkswagen was the first who got caught and fined. There are more car brands with emissions that are too high. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/19/many-car-brands-emit-more-pollution-than-volkswagen-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/19/many-car-... And still, people only think about Volkswagen when we talk about high emissions. It's not even the worst offender.
vlan0 10y ago
It reminds me of how trucking companies would knowingly run their trailers heavier than the legal limit. The added profits outweighed the risk of a fine. However, I do not know is this is still in practice.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

lumberjack 10y ago

Only works if you can raise billions really fast so that you can have the clout/means to get the legislators to bend the rules for you.

gonzo41 10y ago

This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' without the consequences of being a person. How do you send a company to jail? Its kinda of like that scene in fightclub where Edward Nortons character talks about the cost of doing a recall. The emissions scandal should have ended VW. Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime.

ams6110 10y ago
Many people look at emissions testing as an annoyance and I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. And it was diesel car emissions -- a niche of the US market that's almost invisible anyway.
- CreRecombinase 10y ago
  It isn't their job to care. The job of a citizen is to elect officials to act in his or her (the citizen's) best interest. Another way of looking at it: regulations are a noisy approximation of how much people "care".
  - baddox 10y ago
    So citizens that don't care are supposed to elect people that do. As if somehow, by adding an additional layer of separation and lack of liability, you're somehow going to get a better result. It's no surprise how often that fails.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > I doubt that outside of environmental circles that very many people cared. Do you have any basis for that? I think most people care about clean air and support laws and regulations to protect it. The laws did pass; there are regulatory agencies that are funded.
  - megablast 10y ago
    Most people care, unless it means they drive or fly less.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  You'd think the lack of popularity of diesel would have the opposite effect. If, like the EU, there had been a lot of institutional support for diesel then you can imagine them having issues dealing with evidence that it's causing a different kind of pollution. But in America you'd hope they'd not have enough political capital and the truth would be accepted.
- antivw 10y ago
  Fair enough. 590K diesel vehicles is a niche of the US market that's almost invisible. So have VW purchase back every one of those cars at MSRP. It's an invisible amount anyway, right? The largest auto maker in the world could do it without blinking, right? Then fine them a few $billion for damage to the environment, jail a handful of employees, and we can move on.
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
You can impose fines, but the trouble is that if the fine imposed is smaller than the profit gained from their misdeeds, (or than the losses actual compliance would cause) then they're still winning.
sandworm101 10y ago
The laws arent the issue, nor even the punishments. The issue is a lack of enforcement. We have plenty of cops handing out speeding tickets but the number dedicated to "white collar" or "technology crime" in each state might only be a handfull. And dont try suggesting more IRS, EPA or FBI agents. In this political climate those federal agencies are seen more as criminals themselves.
redleggedfrog 10y ago
Or, vote with you awl. How many Volkwagens would be sold if most mornings you came out and the tires were flat? You wouldn't buy one again I suspect.
Gustomaximus 10y ago
I'm not sure how to take "The emissions scandal should have ended VW" but assuming you mean financially, I cant agree. As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. The bigger issue is it seems there has been one executive scapegoat and no real punishment for the multitude of people involved. While a company fine is good, if we were to gaol and heavily fine at a personal level anyone involved to the point of wiping out their net worth, and heavily fine anyone (if we cant show they were involved) who should have been in a position to know/stop this I suspect we would see a better result in these matters in future. IMO the bigger issue is every time we have one of these scandals the perpetrators seem to walk away without any personal punishment or direct consequence of their actions.
- true_religion 10y ago
  If we "end" VW, we're not going to just fire everyone, close all the factories, and throw all their assets in a river somewhere. Instead VW will be broken up into smaller more manageable companies, with tighter governmental oversight, and if it is done properly we'll have a stronger economy for it---one without the existence of a malignant massive company.
- derefr 10y ago
  > As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. Perhaps we need to require of publicly-listed companies that they have a "registered acquirer" or the like--a company that all the employees would be moved to if the original company were forced out of existence. (Basically turning every Chapter 7 bankruptcy of a public company into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy by default.) Then we could allow civil suits to kill companies with impunity, knowing their employees would just end up "passed to" another company willing to retain them for the same salaries performing the same duties.
- kartan 10y ago
  > As a listed company you would be taking away many peoples jobs and savings who are innocent parties in this. 1. Nationalize part of the company hurting investors. 2. Auction the shares to the market 3. Profit$ This way a "too big to fail" company can continue running its business as usual while punishing the value of the company. That doesn't means that personal responsibilities are forgiven, any one that breaks the law should be prosecuted. There are probably a lot of other solutions, the problem is that economics is not about economy but about politics.
nchallak 10y ago
There are a couple of hidden assumption here: 1. It is possible to punish a person for his crimes in a justifiable manner. 2. People are somehow deterred by punishment when the option of winning via cheating is available to them. It's very hard to argue that 1 is possible considering the ethical dilemmas that it exposes e.g. would capital punishment be a justifiable punishment for a murderer? If 2 were true, then there wouldn't be doping scandals in sports, would there?
- nihonde 10y ago
  Accountability, credibility, and a sense of duty to the greater good must be part of what defines a society. When those are intact, individuals take responsibility and accept consequences. When they are too far eroded, there is no way to force or coerce society back to integrity except perhaps through a concerted effort over many generations.
- dreamOfDDR7 10y ago
  You forgot the premise of the 'outrage' 1) any entity, corporate or otherwise, must act without flaw or be dismantled. Big talk from one whom I doubt is running a top 5 company in arguably the most influential sector of the global market. The fallout of 'ending' VW is the forgotten factor. Try a little tenderness, who don't you? 2) the infrastructure that sustains VW is not a logo, or a brand name, it's thousands upon thousands of individuals, women and men who work hard to sustain that company so that vehicles are provided for a myriad of purposes. 'Ending' something if it has a flaw is like throwing away the baby with the bathwater. Why not change what needs changing and be less vitriolic? Are you shorting VW? Are you invested in Mitsubishi? Are you a Renault shill? Do you like speaking in hyperbole so as to clarify something without having to do the heavy lifting? Obvy responses to poster above you if that wasn't clear to someone.
ThomPete 10y ago
The problem is that at one point, when you reach a certain size, no matter the intentions you will end up affecting other people negatively. Googles don't be evil is a good example of the problems with good intentions. And so while I think it's fair to want the responsible people to be punished it's not as simple as it sound.
joecool1029 10y ago
>Solution: Guillotine for corporate crime. TBH, HN's BFF Elon Musk thinks regulators were too hard on VW: http://www.takepart.com/open-letter-to-california-air-resources-board-chairman-mary-nichols/ http://www.takepart.com/open-letter-to-california-air-resour... But yeah by this logic, Winterkorn was worse than Hitler. Went way more wholesale on the gassing.
- bonzini 10y ago
  I think it says it was pointless, not harsh. The suggestion is not any less harsh.
- deleted 10y ago
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wyager 10y ago
> This is the logical conclusion when you allow corporations to be 'people' I like how people almost never understand what they're talking about when they complain about corporate personhood. How, exactly, do you think corporate personhood is responsible for the mentioned instances of "cheating"? Here's why corporate personhood was created; to create a legal framework under which corporations could be more effectively sued. Corporations don't actually get the same rights as individuals; they can't vote, they don't get 5th amendment rights, etc. Corporate personhood is, in most respects, quite anti-corporate (in the sense that it makes it easier to attack corporations in court). But of course, to people who never bother to read beyond the headline, it sounds like it gives corporations the same rights as people, so of course it must be some sort of evil robber baron thing!
Shinkei 10y ago
This is one area where you might admire Chinese government then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Contamination_and_response_in_2009.E2.80.932010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Cont... If you read the part that talks about criminal prosecutions, many top executives were put to death or received life imprisonment. It's up for debate whether this is 'good' or 'justice' because the economic causes that led to the problem are complex, but babies were literally being killed because of this.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  They found scapegoats for sure, but not many are really confident the real crooks were caught, and more importantly, faith was never restored in the Chinese milk industry.
  - Shinkei 10y ago
    Not surprised. I'm also saddened that the whistle blower died under suspicious circumstances.
twblalock 10y ago
Corporate personhood is not the problem here. You'll find many instances of corporate lawbreaking in countries that lack the legal concept of corporate personhood. The real problem is that breaking the law and then paying the fine makes corporations better off than obeying the law in the first place.
developer2 10y ago
A corporation that deserves "jail time" should equate to bankruptcy. Simple as that. The fact that these companies get fined for < 1% of their total yearly profit is a joke. If you would send the person to jail, the company should be dead. $50 Million revenue? $50 Million fine. $2 Billion revenue? $2 Billion fine. Even if nobody goes to prison, the company should receive the death sentence - not a slap on the wrist. It should be that simple.
whyenot 10y ago
Sometimes I think there needs to be a corporate death penalty where a company that does something truly egregious is liquidated. The problem, of course, is that would also mean putting a lot of people out of work and would also hurt many who may have not done anything wrong.
matt4077 10y ago
You'll be happy to know there are ongoing fraud investigations in Germany against several engineers and managers of VW and their contractors. An investigation into the CEO at the time of the cheating (Winterkorn) was launched very recently when they got testimony that he was informed of the cheating a few month before it was publicised.
matt4077 10y ago
You missed the most important aspect of that scene in fight club: "If the profits are larger than the costs of expected settlements and fines". That means you just need to either the chances of being caught or the fines – preferably the first because low chances of being caught just invite delusional thinking ("I'm smarter than others") and people are pretty bad with evaluating probabilities not close to 0 or 1.
- sgift 10y ago
  To catch more wrongdoing you need more oversight, which means more people checking on companies, which means bigger agencies. This is often frowned upon, because many people want a "lean government".
bmmayer1 10y ago
Corporate personhood is a long standing legal principle stretching back at least 400 years to the first joint stock corporations. The creation of limited liability vehicles for investors to pool resources, govern large cooperatives of individuals, simplify complex transactions, and protect investments and intellectual property has led to unprecedented levels of wealth creation for nations and people, and is arguably the most consequential innovation of the last millennium. Your issue with VW has nothing to do with corporate personhood, it has to do with a lack of criminal penalties for certain civil regulations. There are, of course, plenty of corporate crimes that do lead to jail time (though I hope you're joking about the guillotine). Call your representatives in congress and ask them to expand the criminal statutes. But don't pass this off on corporate personhood which has likely benefitted you and all of us far more than any perceived harm.
- voidlogic 10y ago
  >though I hope you're joking about the guillotine I read that remark as this: If corporations are people legally, there should be certain crimes that lead to their dissolution. I assumed this was the proposal: If a corporation does something evil enough, its leaders going to prison and paying a fine isn't enough, it should face the corporate guillotine which revokes its incorporation.
  - Sacho 10y ago
    What would that gain you? Wouldnt the same capital holders pool their wealth into a newly minted corporation to continue exploiting the resources they have accrued? Are you going to seize the assets of the corporation and redistribute them? How is your proposed dissolution different from a fine big enough to bankrupt a company?
    - gonzo41 10y ago
      Just quickly on my phone before I run to grab the train. You dissolve the entity and sell the assests to pay back the costs of damage. The people left high and dry by the loss of investment get the signal that there is more risk in involving yourself in companies that can really stuff people over through negligence or greed I mean really after the damage that was done, you don't think companies like BP should still exist. How about all those resource companies walking over the people of the third world. etc etc. As for cutting peoples heads off...Who knows what this new america will bring :)
tominous 10y ago
It's easy to talk about a corporate death penalty, but that's not really in the interest of society. Take Arthur Andersen. After the Enron scandal, Arthur Andersen was basically split up and absorbed into the other accounting firms, especially Deloitte and EY. Are we really better off having the Big Four accounting firms instead of the Big Five? I'd say we need more competition, not less. Not to mention the many innocent parties around the world who lost out due to the actions of a few. I'd be in favour of sanctions that target those responsible and the chain upwards to the top, rather than a business as a whole. Even clawbacks of past bonuses, although that would be logistically very difficult.
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alkonaut 10y ago
> The emissions scandal should have ended VW. The question is who such a punishment would have been directed towards. A few decisonmakers make something illegal, and the punishment is given to a hundred thousand employees, not to mention the owners of the cars without emissions cheating (most)? This is the problem with megacorporations. Punishing them proportionally to the damage they make is unfair, because you are mostly punishing employees and consumers who knew nothing about the wrongdoing. Consequences need to be strong enough to be a deterrent but weak enough to not kill a large employer. That's nearly impossible. Perhaps the most reasonable thing to do, as has been argued with banks, is to simply not allow megacorps to form, that is, no organization should be to big to fail because we want to allow the bad ones to fail.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  Which is one of those pro-free-market, yet anti-corporate ideas that don't seem as popular as they should be as the political incentives are misaligned.
jgalt212 10y ago
corporations don't commit crimes, people commit crimes. Obama was afraid to prosecute the rich and powerful, and now we have, well, you know.
torrent-of-ions 10y ago
What about all the people that work for VW, though? You can't hold all of those people accountable for what happened. It would be better to punish the individuals who encouraged it and those who knew but turned a blind a eye.

ssambros 10y ago

So setting up regulatory capture frameworks through cronies at the government to collect rents from people is not cheating since it happens to fit the definition of 'legal' and therefore fine to do?

animex 10y ago

That's not cheating, it's "growth-hacking". :O

mjfl 10y ago

Life isn't a game.

drenvuk 10y ago
I beg to differ. Life is most definitely a game. It has rules and winning depends on numerous factors such as information, skill, strength, luck, connections, etc. I would argue that all other games which have been created are based on a subset of the rules of the first game: Life. Every single rule can be broken, it just depends on if/when you get caught. You're still a cheater but as long as you can pay your way out of any hole you've found yourself in by the time you've gotten caught it's perfectly ok. Traditional morals notwithstanding, e.g. Lance Armstrong or any of the above.
- sitkack 10y ago
  You will fit right in here.

overcast 10y ago

You don't become King without stepping on everyone, and everything on your way to the top.

nihonde 10y ago

Another way to look at this: people have endured enough absurd protectionist media circus shows from US auto makers to no longer believe or care. Cry wolf scenario, in other words.

stephengillie 10y ago

It's more effective to beg forgiveness than ask permission, especially when you are a rock star.

TwoBit 10y ago

How did Google, Amazon, and Facebook cheat, in your opinion?

ransom1538 10y ago
Google: copyright infringement. [Crawling sites, taking data at will, then slapping ads on it, not paying the authors a portion of their ads] [4]. Tax evasion. [5--look for google] Amazon: sales tax avoidance (entire reason they exist) [1] later, federal tax evasion, including the double irish. [7]. Pusher of fake goods. [8] Pusher of fake reviews. Pusher of Chinese goods causing destructive env. practices. Facebook: selling personal information [2]. tax evasion (double irish) [3]. Enabled zynga (et al) to extort from children [6] 1. http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/11/at_amazoncom_sales_tax_evasion.php#.WJATHxA7SV8 http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2016/11/at_amazoncom_s... 2. https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-your-web-browsing-data-to-advertisers/ https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-y... 3. https://www.ft.com/content/ca64f938-5dc0-11e3-95bd-00144feabdc0 https://www.ft.com/content/ca64f938-5dc0-11e3-95bd-00144feab... 4. https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-book-settlement-site-is-up-paying-authors-60-per-scanned-book/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-book-settlement-sit... 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement 6. https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus-faceboo/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinku... 7. http://www.businessinsider.com/double-irish-other-corporate-tax-loopholes-2014-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/double-irish-other-corporate-... 8. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-problem-is-getting-worse.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-p... I probably could type all night.
- refurb 10y ago
  Tax avoidance is cheating? I guess I better not max out my 401k this year for the tax advantage! That would be cheating!
  - ransom1538 10y ago
    No but if you take your 401k money - withdraw it, create Irish shell companies, then have your employer pay the Irish shells , then tell the government you are Irish not a us citizen, liquidate all us holdings -- all to avoid IRS withholdings. Wtf? Please try it let me know how HRBlock goes. Edit: under "do you have foreign accounts" check "no" as well. (Actually don't do any of this you will end up in federal prison)

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shard972 10y ago

Asking for forgiveness instead of permission is something I tell work colleagues.

frik 10y ago

If you own a VW/Seat/Skoda/Audi diesel car in US, you can give your car back and get your money. In EU, VW promises to fix the car by adding a 5cent placebo plastic pipe and a software update which lowers the performance and increases the diesel consumption (physics after all). In US VW has to pay billions, in EU VW has to pay nothing to speak of. Of course the German government is involved in this company as shareholder and probably knew about the cheating and probably the EU laws for diesel were altered some years ago because of this company. One would assume a more strict law enforcement that split that company into separate smaller VW, Sear, Skoda and Audi companies and disallow them to use that old Audi Diesel engine from the 1980s that causes the troubles. And one would assume VW has to be fine and pay to each state were the poisoned the inhabitants with their diesel fume. And oe would assume that TUV or whoever certified and tested the cars get fined as well.

lyschoening 10y ago
You ignore that emission standards in Europe were less strict when it came to diesel pollution, so that 5cent placebo plastic pipe makes the cars compliant there. Emissions standards in Europe focused on C02 emissions and not so much on the toxic byproducts of diesel combustion. That's why the scandal is not such a big issue for Volkswagen in Europe.
- sib 10y ago
  I don't think that GP was ignoring it: "Of course the German government is involved in this company as shareholder and probably knew about the cheating and probably the EU laws for diesel were altered some years ago because of this company" - the point is that the EU car companies big into diesel specifically worked to have this pollution be made less critical in emissions testing...
  - lyschoening 10y ago
    The thing is diesel was pushed because of its low CO2 emissions and lower cost at the pump. Of course the German government wants to protect German auto companies now, but EU laws are comparatively lax on NOx emissions in part because the focus used to be entirely on CO2 emissions.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

You're cherrypicking examples. Plenty of companies went under for cheating, e.g. Enron. Also if you think that these companies offer no consumer benefits but profit only through cheating then you're a fool.

koonsolo 10y ago

That is how the world works. If you want to win, you have to be willing to do everything to get there. Not only for companies, but also in sport. Do you think the winners play fair? You should really read the autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then you get an idea of what it takes to be able to win.

simonbarker87 10y ago
I've not read Arnold's autobiography but out of interest what are you referring to? If you are talking about his use of steroids etc (which I'm assuming is covered in the book?) then that isn't really cheating since in the case of professional bodybuilding since the sport is untested. There are federations that test and in that case using PEDs is cheating but in an untested federation, it's considered fair game. Obviously, there are legal implications around the use of PEDs since many substances are illegal however I'm separating that out for this purpose.
- koonsolo 10y ago
  I'm not referring to that, because at that time it was even legal. For example what he did was looked at what parties the jury members went, and then go there and socialize with them. So they already knew him personally before going on stage. Or mess mentally with competitors, lie to them etc. Or when he was on stage with another bodybuilder for the final poses, acted as if he was about to leave the stage, the other one left, and then Arnold actually stayed and did a few more poses. Maybe not all really illegal, but his book has lots of cases where he describes how he mentally messes or lies to people to get an advantage over them. That's how you win. Very good book if you have time to read it. He even went to a ballet teacher to improve his poses. This guy did everything to get to the top, very inspiring.
  - simonbarker87 10y ago
    It's been on my list to read for while now, I'll take a look.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago

UweSchmidt 10y ago

Volkswagens cheating was a minor infraction, notable only for the $18B fine that was handed out by the US to throw some weight around, appease the domestic car industry and satisfy protectionist instincts. Certainly it would be easy to fine Facebook, Google in Europe for privacy/monopoly violations (i.e. things that actually matter) with huge fines?

PunchTornado 10y ago

don't forget the biggest cheater of them all: apple

edwinjm 10y ago

Volkswagen was the first who got caught and fined. There are more car brands with emissions that are too high. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/19/many-car-brands-emit-more-pollution-than-volkswagen-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/19/many-car-... And still, people only think about Volkswagen when we talk about high emissions. It's not even the worst offender.

vlan0 10y ago

It reminds me of how trucking companies would knowingly run their trailers heavier than the legal limit. The added profits outweighed the risk of a fine. However, I do not know is this is still in practice.

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