This is your friendly reminder that the only person who went to jail for the diesel gate is the software developer who implemented the test-cheating practice. Not the managers, the directors who asked for it or anybody else
If there’s one thing being a decade in Finance, including through the 2008 Crash, plus the pondering all about what happenned before, during and after 2008, and looking at all those situations with a much more informed eye since, is that in the present day most Regulators aren’t there for the good of citizens, they’re there for the good for A/The System, which is invariably dominated by and useful for but a tiny subset of people.
For example, the UK’s Financial Regulator is tasked with “Maintaining the stability of the markets” and the way they interpret their mandate is such that their reaction to Market abuses by any large player is to cover it up at any cost: a thoroughly rigged Market were there most market players are not in the know is more stable than a genuinelly Free Market properly watched over to remain so and were large market players are punished if they try to rig the market.
Whilst Finance is maybe the worst in this regard, anywhere there are large wealthy companies (often having a veritable revolving door of heads between them and the Regulator) with politically influence and deemed Economically Important (in Finance they’re called “Too Big To Fail”) the Regulator will protect them and their leaders, often by finding scapegoats, and do so even against the best interests of citizens in general.
This is your friendly reminder that the only person who went to jail for the diesel gate is the software developer who implemented the test-cheating practice. Not the managers, the directors who asked for it or anybody else
If there’s one thing being a decade in Finance, including through the 2008 Crash, plus the pondering all about what happenned before, during and after 2008, and looking at all those situations with a much more informed eye since, is that in the present day most Regulators aren’t there for the good of citizens, they’re there for the good for A/The System, which is invariably dominated by and useful for but a tiny subset of people.
For example, the UK’s Financial Regulator is tasked with “Maintaining the stability of the markets” and the way they interpret their mandate is such that their reaction to Market abuses by any large player is to cover it up at any cost: a thoroughly rigged Market were there most market players are not in the know is more stable than a genuinelly Free Market properly watched over to remain so and were large market players are punished if they try to rig the market.
Whilst Finance is maybe the worst in this regard, anywhere there are large wealthy companies (often having a veritable revolving door of heads between them and the Regulator) with politically influence and deemed Economically Important (in Finance they’re called “Too Big To Fail”) the Regulator will protect them and their leaders, often by finding scapegoats, and do so even against the best interests of citizens in general.