I hope the "smarter solution" at Volkswagen is not the German taxpayer.

After reports of up to 120,000 job cuts, Volkswagen Group's management is now talking about finding a "smarter solution" to the restructuring.

I sincerely hope there is one.

But I also hope it does not mean asking taxpayers to finance structures that have simply become too expensive.

Germany should support workers.

Germany should help people retrain and move into future industrial jobs.

But that is very different from preserving a business model that has run out of road.

For years, Volkswagen Group benefited enormously from China. Those profits were real-but they also masked structural problems that are now impossible to ignore.

Today's challenge is not primarily energy prices.

It is productivity, software, product complexity and global competition.

If the answer is simply to preserve yesterday's cost structure with public money, the bill is passed to the next generation.

Volkswagen still has outstanding engineers, a great brand and enormous industrial know-how.

Those deserve investment.

The old business model does not.

The real question is simple: should Germany invest in Volkswagen's future-or subsidise its past?