Volkswagon "sorry" about gaming the emissions data of its diesels.

In today's example of how things that have been known for a long time are finally turning into skeletons tumbling out of closets, the CEO of Volkswagon has been forced to make a public apology for delivering software that knowingly falsified the emissions data of its diesel fleet in order to meet US emissions standards.

Generally in these cases, the offender is offered to pay a fine in exchange for no admission of guilt.  This essentially bribes the US government into turning a blind eye on illegal behavior and corporations simply treat it as the cost of doing business; a tax if you will.

But this model is ending rapidly and "deep apologies" coming from the CEO, regardless of whether he is actually sorry or not, are proof of this.  Why?  Because if you make an honest mistake you just fix it but if you get caught stealing then you better show some contrition before the herd comes and tracks you down.  The VW CEO will be very lucky if he gets off with just an apology.  More likely it will lead to some negative personal affects on him such as having to repay bonuses that were driven by sales that would not have been possible without the falsified data or just being fired outright.

Note the emphasis that the CEO put on his apology for violating trust.  This shows that he completely understands what is at issue here.  The global debt Ponzi is, at its heart, a trust mania.  Weak minded people have been lulled into trusting these oligarchs simply based on taking their word for it.  The street name for this is a con man playing a confidence game.  When the trust in the con man is gone, that is, when the unwarranted confidence evaporates, the con collapses.  This is why WV is going out of its way to say that external investigations will be done blah blah blah.  In years past, this would have been enough to assuage the herd's pain of being deceived. 

Not no more folks. 

Like I have written many times, when the liberals who believe all this crap find that they have been played they will be far more upset and vocal than the conservatives who have been skeptical all along.  And it won't have a thing to do with the violation of air quality standards.  It will have everything to do with arrogant liberals having to concede that they personally got played.  It will be their anger at having fallen for the deception and the attendant hit to their pride that will, above all other factors, drive their loud cries for justice.

This is a vastly different environment than just 12-24 months ago where blatant wrongdoing would just result in a fine without admission of guilt.  Expect this trend to not only continue but to grow as the pain for the population moves up from just being hardship on the lower class and lower middle classes (who have little voice in society and where lip service is routinely payed to the topic of social injustice) to the upper middle and upper classes who pay the majority of taxes and who can afford to hire lawyers to go after these con men.

When the stock market begins to collapse in earnest, those who used to not care because they thought they were making bank will suddenly care, and they will become very vocal (to say the least) about how upset they are.  In other words, just like Madoff victims.  Madoff was a microcosm of the global economy.