The comparison is fair, Europe signed a blank cheque to an industry they rely on so heavily.
Though, I diverge from what is a rather alarming picture : VW will never be allowed to go down, at any cost for the German government.
The real issue may be that other car manufacturers are part of this scheme — among them the Daimler Group, which would add up quite a bit to the bill as it is another major German champion.
Second, led by Volkswagen, Europe’s car manufacturers lobbied hard for governments to promote the adoption of diesel engines as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Whereas diesel engines power fewer than 5 per cent of passenger cars in the US, where regulators uncovered the fraud, they constitute more than 50 per cent of the market in Europe thanks in large part to generous government incentives.
It was bad enough that Enron’s chief executive urged employees to buy the company’s stock. This, however, is the equivalent of the US government offering tax breaks at Enron’s behest to get half of US households to buy stock propped up by fraudulent accounting.
Abnormal Capitalist 