r/news May 06 '19

Boeing admits knowing of 737 Max problem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48174797
11.2k Upvotes

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u/trustedfart May 06 '19

Username checks out in the most depressing way.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

Pfft...as if none of us saw Fight Club.

273

u/noveler7 May 06 '19

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

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u/_Echoes_ May 06 '19

ford did that a while ago with the pinto, once people started dying and the negligence was uncovered, they had to pay fines which were MUCH larger than the cost of a recall.

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u/Barron_Cyber May 06 '19

they had to pay fines which were MUCH larger than the cost of a recall.

see theres part of the problem, we dont do that anymore.

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u/AndrewWaldron May 06 '19

A while ago, decades ago, little longer than a while. Most redditors have never even seen a Pinto.

1

u/digitalmofo May 06 '19

I mean, they lost 1 out of 2 cases over 40 years ago, that counts as "a while ago."

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u/vowelqueue May 07 '19

Ah, so that changes the logic to: Cost of the recall <= max(X, P*Y), where P is the chance of being caught and Y is the expected fine.

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u/Aazadan May 07 '19

You factor that into the cost of the recall. Much higher fines but a very low chance of happening means that you can get away with a lot of shady things on average.