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> What economic interest does Ford have to disclose the problem if the deaths are cheaper than fixing it? If people read the news, some nonzero amount equal to
by mmirate 8y ago
> What economic interest does Ford have to disclose the problem if the deaths are cheaper than fixing it?
If people read the news, some nonzero amount equal to the amount of lost Pinto sales. If the competition has been crash-tested and the Pinto isn't, then Ford was already continually losing money by losing the "non-cheapskate" market segment.
> Under your scheme, how do consumers who wish to avoid death by fire learn of these defects?
Read the news, be mechanical engineers, prefer products that have been given favorable ratings by independent crash-test firms, or start an independent crash-test firm.
(No, I have no idea whether crash-testing was already a thing when the Pinto came out. Regardless, such things are, generally-speaking, how one solves these information problems.)
- facetube 8y agoThey didn't need a nonzero amount of loss to motivate correction of their product's problem, they needed more than $123 million. The market did not provide that. I think we can end this here. The idea that average Americans should "be mechanical engineers" just to not die in a preventable fire is insane and really not worthy of further discussion.