More on the People's Car

Belle Waring agrees with me that a lot of VW employees must have known about the rigged emissions tests. The commenters, most of whom as far as I can tell don't have any particular expertise, are of varying opinions about that, with some claiming a small group of software engineers could have done it. I don't buy that, because the engineers who designed the engine would have known perfectly well what it was capable of. And executives, regardless of whether they came out of engineering or marketing or manufacturing, would have to know enough about the technology to have a pretty good clue, even if they maintained plausible deniability.

So CEO Martin Winterkorn, who either knew or didn't know, whichever you think is worse, walks away with at least $32 million and maybe twice that much. The poor man, he's out of a job. On the same day we learn that VW rigged the emissions test on 2.8 million vehicles in Germany.

"The manipulation of diesel emissions by Volkswagen is forbidden and illegal, there's no doubt about that," Alexander Dobrindt, the government's top transport official told lawmakers.

So guess who is going to pay for this world historical psychopathy. Employees who will be out of work as the company's sales collapse, shareholders who obviously knew nothing about it, and the thousands of people who are sick or dead from breathing UFP and NOx. Also the owners of the vehicles, whose property is now worthless and who may not even be able to get their registrations renewed.

Meanwhile, a woman is doing ten years for taking a single valium.