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Milton Friedman justifies not recalling the ford pinto

RepublicansSuckDlCK · 112.4K views · 2012-12-10 · 6:57

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Overview

A clip of Milton Friedman answering an audience member about Ford's decision not to recall the Pinto, in which he defends weighing safety costs against benefits. The uploader's framing is strongly hostile to Friedman.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as an example of cost-benefit reasoning about product safety in threads on recalls, security spending and Boeing.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2015–2019

Topics

Microeconomics & behavioral economicsCars, EVs & motorcyclesPhilosophy & ethics
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milton friedmanford pintorecallsbusiness ethicssafety tradeoffs

What people said

baddox · 2015-04 · Recommendation

There is an entertaining video of Milton Friedman discussing the same issues with an audience member: [VIDEO]

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75dvtwin · 2019-03 · Criticism

>consumer shopping for a car can decide how much safety they want to pay for I have seen this argument before, by a Nobel Memorial prize in economics, Milton Friedman. [1] [VIDEO] Overall he said, that it is not possible, as a principle, to put 'infinite' economic value into individual life. -- Perhaps the argument can be made, that in a different situation the 'other data' pilots were to use, would increase safety. -- Either way, I think there is something wrong with Friedman's argument. 'Optionality' -- when related to safety features, should be treated very different, than optionality in, say, comfort features. Passengers themselves should not be expected to make choices which optional safety features, on a car, a bus, or plane should be purchased by the drivers/operators. Drivers, should not be expected to make these choices, either. My thinking here, is that An optionality in safety device, should change the whole major (not minor) vehicle model number designation, for example. This would drive different visible profiles: different training, cost, marketing and so on.

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randyrand · 2017-08 · Reference

Reminds me of this video from the 70s/80s about Ford knowingly distributing an unsafe car - "Milton Friedman on Ford not recalling the ford pinto" [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by RepublicansSuckDlCK, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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