antivw
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.
Fines can be mitigated by raising prices so that equity-holders shift pain to consumers. Stripping equity on the other hand means that you change who profits from sales.
Because, of course, no sensible capitalist would have stood by and watched all those assests disappear. Toyota would have bought a factory here, Nissan a factory there. Robots would have been sold off, etc.
Ford and Hyundai would have ramped up production and would have needed additional employees. And somebody would have stepped in to buy what was left of GM for 10 cents on the dollar.
It would have been very disruptive, yes. But within two years or so, the market would have adjusted. And there would be some incentive to not have anyone get too big to fail. As it stands, the incentive is to not let anyone be punished too much no matter how bad they act.
Wells Fargo should have gone out of business when thousands of employees were caught stealing from customers. Every shareholder should have lost everything. Of course the shareholders didn't commit the offence, but it would teach a lesson to be more responsible in investments, and make sure that the companies you invest in play square.
It might give Boards a different set of priorities when they negotiate the contracts of CEOs.
That's a good start on fines. Now make them reimburse 590K owners. Let's see... A Jetta has an MSRP of >$20K. So, how about reimbursing $5K-$10K of every diesel vehicle that was fraudulently sold? Or, force VW to buy them all back at original MSRP. Then they could resell them for whatever they could get for them.
Would you pay $10K for a 2 year old cheater Jetta?
Edit: removed typo