You can always rely on news.com.au to come out with a scare story. This time it’s all about the VW scandal and how it will be a ‘crisis worse than Greece’. Here’s the grab from the site’s main page – which typically doesn’t quite match the substance of the story:
Before we all go running for the hills, how about we complete the story with a few simple numbers. In 2014, VW had:
- Annual revenue of 202 billion Euros;
- Annual profit of about 11 billion Euros;
- Assets of about 351 billion Euros; and;
- Liabilities of about 134 billion Euros.
Roughly speaking, VW employs about 270,000 of the world’s 3,000,000,000 (3 billion) employees.
This may come as a shock to ‘Victoria Craw and wires’, but it appears that the world’s economy is not run by VW. It also appears that VW has enough in the petty cash tin to handle this one (never mind the German government, with its 3.9 trillion euro GDP economy, if it ever came to that). Will this hurt VW? Absolutely. Are we all doomed? Maybe not.
PS: I don’t think that VW drivers could care less if their vehicles emitted farts, but that’s a topic for another time.
The Marcus Review 
I have a sneaking suspicion that VW planned to get caught all along. No one can tell me firstly that VW executives are stupid enough to think they could get away with something like this, would condone this action and did not consider the consequences. No one can tell me secondly that VW are the only ones. And here I think lies the plot. VW would know which other manufacturers are equally cheating. VW will now push for the highest fine possible for themselves. They will plead guilty, sorry, you name it. They will pay, full of remorse (out of the petty cash tin). It is to be expected that other manufacturers will have to be fined on a similar level. With the possible exception of Toyota they will go broke. Easy takeover targets for VW, who will add new brands to their already formidable portfolio for peanuts.
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