Fraud's Platonic Ideal?

I'm thinking Volkswagen's emissions trickery just might be it. Massive and amazing at so many levels--starting with the hubris. With that scope, how could they have thought they would get away with it?

A scandal that has battered Volkswagen’s image in the United States spread to the automaker’s core market in Europe on Tuesday, when the company said that 11 million of its diesel cars were equipped with software that could be used to cheat on emissions tests. That was more than 20 times the number of cars previously disclosed....

Volkswagen declined to say where the 11 million affected vehicles — more cars than Volkswagen produces in a year — were. But analysts said that as many as 10 million were probably in Europe, where Volkswagen is the dominant manufacturer, with more than double the market share of any competitor, and where diesels account for more than half of all vehicles sold.

“There really aren’t many diesel cars outside of Europe and North America,” said Philippe Houchois, head of European auto industry research at UBS in London.

Check out this graphic in the Times piece for how VW pulled it off.

And the first head has rolled. No way it will be the last. 

The big question: does Volkswagen survive this?