I can't improve upon the original, so I've copied and pasted (link provided)
Overview
On April 28, 2005, at a London banking conference to which they had accidentally been invited because of their satirical website, "Dow representative" "Erastus Hamm" unveiled "Acceptable Risk," a Dow industry standard for determining how many deaths are acceptable when achieving large profits. The bankers enthusiastically applauded the lecture, which described several industrial crimes, including IBM's sale of technology to the Nazis for use in identifying Jews, as "golden skeletons" - i.e. skeletons in the closet, but lucrative and therefore acceptable ones.
Several of the bankers in attendance then signed up for licenses for the "Acceptable Risk Calculator" and even posed with Acceptable Risk mascot "Gilda, the golden skeleton in the closet," for photos.
If "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) and other market forces were all that set limits on corporate behavior, what would constitute "acceptable risk"?
Full lecture and photos
Video of Gilda unveiling
Articles about the event
Try out the Acceptable Risk Calculator
May 2 announcement
May 12 press release
The Ford Pinto was a famously bad automobile, but worse still might be Ford's handling of the safety concerns surrounding the '70s-era subcompact. Before the car ever reached the market, concerns emerged that a rear-end collision might cause the Pinto to blow up — the positioning of the fuel tank sparked fears it could be punctured in a crash and cause a fire or an explosion. But instead of fixing the Pinto's design, Ford, in a bit of morbid calculus, determined it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits resulting from the Pinto's flaws. After several lawsuits and criminal charges (Ford was eventually found not guilty), the automaker recalled 1.5 million Pintos in 1978, retrofitting the fuel-tank assembly with additional protections to prevent the Pinto from going up in flames. Too bad the same couldn't be done for the car's reputation. In 1981 the Pinto was retired for good.
See the 50 worst cars of all time.
View the full list for "Top 10 Product Recalls"
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