Firstly, when talking about corporations taking moral stands we should never forget the dirty  past of these multinational giants. Volkswagen for example, was a creation of the Nazis that went on to “fight” on the side of a Democratic West Germany as a symbol of how great capitalism is. Now they are more than happy to show themselves as an SJW/LGBT organization. Why is this so? Because businesses serve any master who comes to them with money and if the current status quo in Germany is rainbow gay then VW will orient its sexuality to said status quo. If there was to be a Nationalism/Nazi takeover of Germany in the upcoming years VW would somehow “find the courage” to remember their “heritage”. This is not to demonize Volkswagen as all big multinationals do exactly the same thing. This logic, of course, applies to Goldman Sachs as well.

In fact, for the foreseeable future this new diversity policy only applies to the Western World. Ikea catalogues in the West are full of gay couples, in Russia they have only nuclear families and in Saudi Arabia they feature only men. When push comes to shove and money is at play morality in business becomes flexible. Goldman Sachs even admitted that “it intends to eventually expand its board-diversity mandate beyond the U.S. and Europe”. By eventually they mean, at the point in time when being diverse becomes cool/trendy in those countries, which could be the day after never. Goldman Sachs with this move is just trying go play ball in the West where their financial world currently sits.

Secondly, it is always best to be skeptical of any sort of corporate philanthropy and morality not just because they will lick any boot presented to them but because their hypocrisy is rampant. If we remember back to the Greek Debt Crisis of just a few years ago, our TV screens were filled with images of young people fighting with police in Athens as employment for those in their 20s was approaching zero. Furthermore, the elderly and many state employees were seeing a lot of their social securities/guarantees dry up right in front of their eyes and it is very possible that Goldman Sachs is directly to blame for all this.

As The Nation writer Robert B. Reich put it “The investment bank (Goldman Sachs) made millions by helping to hide the true extent of the debt, and in the process almost doubled it.“ Additionally, and also relatively recently, the US Department of Justice found Goldman Sachs liable for their role in the 2008 (subprime) financial crisis in the United States, which had a lot of international blowback as well affecting economies globally. According to Business Insider up to 10,000,000 homes were lost between 2006-2014 as a result of the crisis that Goldman Sachs bears partial responsibility for.

Meaning that when it comes to the real life suffering of millions of Americans and Greeks (and beyond) who lost their jobs, homes, or social safety net, Goldman Sachs doesn’t give a damn. Forcing a handful of diversity hires (even if these were demonstrably proven to be a boon for society) would be one drop of generous blessing in a canyon of financial sins.

Large companies and media organizations are quick to throw relatively tiny amounts of money at charity, but completely unwilling to do anything to actually help society. This attempt at mandating diversity (only in the West) is a 21^st century means of playing ball and playing up to certain people’s current moral absolutes of the month. If they really and truly wanted to put a human face to a massive financial giant they could at least pull some sorts of stunts or projects that would get thousands of Greek youth into the workforce, better the lives of an untold number of Greek elderly or try to find a viable way to get millions of Americans into homes they can afford thus partially undoing the 2008 crisis.

But that will never happen. Diversity is a word used for virtue signaling, which costs nothing and impresses the exact type of people who don’t care about the millions of diverse Americans who lost their homes. Diversity is our strength because it gets results while requiring zero actual action.

During the tests, it became clear that the real-world emissions of the Jetta model were 15-35 times higher than stated, while the emissions of the Passat were 5-20 times higher. Spokesmen for the group did not deny the findings and admitted that software allowing test results to be manipulated had not only been installed in the Jetta and Passat models, but also the Beetle, Golf and Audi A3 models fitted with 1.2, 1.6, and 2.0 litre EA 189 diesel engines. There is a good reason why I have drawn the reader’s attention to this detail.

As a result of the revelations, Volkswagen is recalling nearly half a million cars sold in America, while Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who is now being investigated for fraud, submitted his resignation, with the same fate befalling a number of other executives at the German auto giant. The group immediately set aside €6.5 billion to cover the costs of the scandal and this figure has already increased (€6.7 billion). Volkswagen’s profits turned to losses, turnover slumped and shares nose-dived.

The most important thing is not even the financial losses, however, but the blow to the reputation not just of Volkswagen itself, but also to Germany as the world’s third largest exporter. In 2013, motor vehicles and vehicle parts accounted for more than 17 per cent of German exports and were the country’s biggest export revenue earner; after automobile manufacturing was machine building, which made up 15 per cent of total exports (at the beginning of the 1980s, conversely, machine building outstripped automobile manufacturing in terms of export volumes). 

So one could say that the US Environmental Protection Agency has not just given German car manufacturers a black eye. And not content with that achievement, the agency struck another blow at the beginning of November that the Germans were certainly not expecting: it announced that engines larger than 3 litres were also fitted with similar software designed to understate test results. Thus the Americans expanded their claims to include the VW Touareg, as well as models from VW’s subsidiary company Audi – the A6 Quattro, the A7 Quattro, the A8, the A8L, the Q5 sports car and the Porsche Cayenne. 

Volkswagen is denying the charges this time, but the US agency is holding firm. 

What is the result? So far the Japanese company Toyota has received a net gain, having regained its global leadership in sales. And there is another strange detail. The US agency launched its investigation against the Germany company a year and a half ago, back in May 2014. In December 2014, the group recalled half a million cars from the US market and carried out software fixes on them. It seemed that the issue had been closed. The scandal raised its head again in September 2015, however, and was inflated further at the beginning of November. 

The most jaw-dropping statement on the subject was made by the German Chancellor. Speaking at the Publishers’ Summit in Berlin on 2 November (an annual event organised by the Union of German Newspaper Publishers), Angela Merkel used the charges against the Germany company… to campaign in favour of signing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). «We have seen that emissions standards in the US are anything but poor», announced the German Chancellor. 

I will explain: among other things, opponents of the Transatlantic Partnership agreement are concerned that the environmental regulations adopted by the European Union will be weakened. EU officials are not worried about such trivial matters, however, just as they are not worried about the quite serious threat emerging for European manufacturers who will be unable to compete with the Americans if the TTIP is signed. 

As far as the Volkswagen story is concerned, Angela Merkel’s logic is unique. Instead of trying to protect one of the largest German employers and a national car loved by the Germans, the German Chancellor expressed… admiration for her American partners. In other words, she resorted to the time-tested method used by every federal chancellor that has been in power for a long time. In any case, it is safer than talking about the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions and visiting Moscow, as Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has done. Incidentally, I should point out that the scandal surrounding Volkswagen initially broke out immediately after this statement made by Gabriel (following which he was soon forced to retract his words), while the new twist in the scandal began to unfold following Gabriel’s most recent trip to Moscow. Does anyone still believe in the randomness of coincidences like these?