Richard D. Wolff

Basically, VW is in deep difficulty because it gambled on a deceptive program, made a fortune, relaxed into the normalization of the deception and then got caught, dealing a major blow to its global reputation and to Germany's global reputation. It is now taking all sorts of steps to try and cope with all that. Needless to say, as a capitalist corporation, it seeks to push off its costs of adjustment to its deception onto governments, workers, and public. These cutbacks are part of thatr.