A German court has sentenced two former Volkswagen executives to prison and handed suspended sentences to two others for their roles in the company’s diesel emissions scandal.
You can be both. Schmidt was general manager of VW’s U.S. Environment and Engineering Office.
As much as I like to see consequences, I would rather have just seen a very large fine put toward environmental purposes than prison time. Save prison for people who pose a direct danger to the public.
I would agree, but with one significant condition:
the fine would have to be large enough to be an effective punishment, and serve as a deterrent. A company as valuable as VW would have to pay an enormous fine.
But their scam did pose a direct health danger to society. If there are never consequences for executives, they won’t care if the company loses some money (or go bankrupt), they land another job elsewhere and live on.
You can be both. Schmidt was general manager of VW’s U.S. Environment and Engineering Office.
As much as I like to see consequences, I would rather have just seen a very large fine put toward environmental purposes than prison time. Save prison for people who pose a direct danger to the public.
I would agree, but with one significant condition:
the fine would have to be large enough to be an effective punishment, and serve as a deterrent. A company as valuable as VW would have to pay an enormous fine.
For funsies the justice department fined Meta fifty million dollars. Meta made that back by the time your eyes got to the end of this sentence.
But their scam did pose a direct health danger to society. If there are never consequences for executives, they won’t care if the company loses some money (or go bankrupt), they land another job elsewhere and live on.
<coughs out a bunch of diesel emissions> “hear hear!”