VW and the automakers it owns should be shut down.

The (dreaded) government(s) involved with the manufacture of these autos should have in place a program by which
displaced auto workers are found jobs with other automakers or, better yet (for the trivial sake of our planet). have them retrained to work in renewable energy industries.

The current issue of The Nation has a story detailing VW's "Kinderhaim" program, which considerately was ostensibly to provide child care for its workers during WWII. VW's character goes way back: Many of its workers during WWII were literally slaves.

You wouldn't wish VW's child care on your worst enemy. Read the article, if you have the stomach.

Das Fascist.

Let them build clean cars and pay the fines.

The Nation article glosses over one point: The Volkswagen we know today didn't actually exist during WW2. The original "VolkswagenWerks" was built by the Nazi's as a propaganda tool prior to WW2 and only produced a few hundred cars for exhibition and show. It was built and run by the KDF, which was the labor wing of the Nazi party. The article oddly tries to draw a line between the Nazi's and the "company executives", which simply didn't exist. The Volkswagen factory was a state owned operation wholly controlled by the Nazi government. It wasn't an independent company or a corporation.

After WW2 ended, the British took over the bombed out factory and a British Major scrounged up enough local workers to clean the place up and get it somewhat operational again. He tried to give it away to major French, British and American car companies, all of whom were uninterested (Edsel Ford famously said that it wasn't worth a dime). While the factory could have been demolished under the Potsdam agreement (Nazi government property was subject to destruction, and the site was ruled to be "government" and not "a company&quot , the British Army instead decided to create a new car company, that was handed over to the Allied-controlled German government in 1948. It became an independent private company in 1960.

While the VW factory site was the site of horrendous crimes during WW2, the company itself didn't exist at the time, didn't profit from them, and didn't order them. None of the people overseeing the VW site during WW2 had anything to do with the post-war company that carried the same name. Holding modern VW responsible for WW2 crimes would require a clear line of responsibility and benefit from the original government factory to the modern company, and that line of responsibility simply doesn't exist.

and the information.

Reassuring that there's always a reason to let a corporation off the hook.

The DOJ seeking billions will settle for much, much less - and VW's insurer will pay the majority of the fine(s).
(That's the way that aspect of it works for all corporations.)

Business as usual will prevail, year in and decade out - nothing will shift or improve.. The next Groundhog Year arrives.

You can't insure against criminal liability.

If you can confirm otherwise, please post.

VW and its subsidiaries can be sued for civil liability, though.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-usa-idUSKBN0UI1QP20160104

Filing the civil lawsuit is a procedural gambit to ensure that VW can't rely on laches (which is like a statute of limitations for civil issues). Criminal charges are also in the works, though. VW has already admitted liability so the question is really about the scope rather than the possibility of criminal prosecution. It is highly unlikely that VW will get its insurers to pick up any of the tab, which is why their stock price has taken such a beating - the fines are going to have to come out of investors' pockets.

Insurers are in business to make a profit, not to subsidize fraud. They're not going to help VW out from some sort of corporate fellow-feeling.

Do you honestly think that VW is the only one screwing around with emissions? The ADAC has known this problem for years. Jeep, Chrysler, and Opel (GM company) diesel emissions are worse than VW.

They should all be nationalized if they are going to knowingly, willingly hasten the demise of the human race, merely because it's too cost-ineffective for them to do otherwise.

We are alive at a time when it's human welfare vs. corporate welfare.
Like the old song says, "Something's Gotta Give."

should be sentenced to a long jail term and considering the sheer size of the fraud I think 200 to 300 years for most of them sounds about right.

It's possible that those in the company who'd take over the roles of those imprisoned would do something similarly anti-social.

If it's shut down (or nationalized), that'd help.

To willfully cheat the emission standards is as bad as ExxonMobil sitting (for decades) on the knowledge that fossil fuel burning does create climate change.

The famous car was developed under a German Government Program called Kraft durch Freude and was called the KdFWagon. The people nicknamed it the VolksWagen (people's car) and that was the name the company founded by the British Government used after the war. The modern corporation was created by the West German state in 1961. Prior to that it was a state owned entity.

on VW in the current issue.

I've come to my conclusion.

The car company we know today did not exist in WWII. Back then, it was a Nazi state organization. And yes, the Nazis were very bad.

Will look for your correction letter to The Nation.

In my view, we must do far more than administer wrist slaps to corporations which engage in behavior as outlined in the artlcle and, more recently, willfully cheat emission standards.

VW's amorality in both stories speaks eloquently for itself.

Anybody want to guess which party has "written" and is sponsoring this bill?

the bill is against class action lawsuits in general and was actually proposed before the VW scandal came to light. It's just gestural, it's unlikely to pass the house and would certainly die int he Senate. Terrible legislation, but not VW specific.

if (more likely when) the Trans-Pacific Partnership is adopted, class action lawsuits will be a quaint vestige of democracy.

To the great relief of corporations (human inventions) everywhere.

DOJ is doing wonderful job

doing something!