It is pretty remarkable that top management at VW convinced themselves that it was okay to deceive electronically a US Government agency. They must have thought that they could get away with it.

Perhaps they thought that they were in good company since everyone was doing it. Or they they had been led to believe that it is okay to lie to governments and the public if your intentions are pure. How did they start to believe this? Well there are lots of cases of companies colluding with the government to lie to the public.

Here are a few examples:

• Those expensive energy saving light bulbs don’t last 2000 hours no matter what the EPA lets them say.
• Have you ever had a car that actually got the MPG the EPA tests say?
• Does State Lottery money actually go to schools?
• Why do I have to take shorter showers because of the water crisis but farmers who use 85% of the water can still get it almost free?
• Portion size in nutrition labeling is fiction.