example i have just one more this has to do with the the ford pinto i'm not sure if you're aware of the recent revelations that have come out about the production of that car ford produced it knowing full well that in any rear end collision the gas tank would blow up because they had failed to install a 13 dollar plastic block in front of the gas tank and ford estimated in an internal memo that that would cost about 200 lives a year they estimated further that the cost of each life would be 200 000 they multiplied and they found that the cost of installing those blocks in each of the cars would be more than the cost of saving those 200 lives and over the past seven years the car has been produced and over a thousand lives have been lost seems to me that ford did what would be the right thing according to your policy and yet that seems to me to be very wrong well let me ask you let's suppose it would have cost a billion dollars per person should ford have put them in nonetheless you know that you're really only arguing about price the print you're not arguing about principle you're no no no because you cannot nobody can take the principle nobody can accept the principle that that an infinite value should be put on an individual life because in order to get the money involved in order to get the resources involved it's not money in order to get the research they have to come from somewhere and you want the policy which is maximizes the situation overall you cannot accept a situation that a million people should starve in order to provide one person with a car that is completely safe that's absolutely right right and therefore you're not arguing anything about principle you're just asking you're just arguing whether ford used 200 thousand dollars was the right number or not no i'm not are you suppose it was 200 million no no no suppose it were 200 million what should ford have done 200 million dollars for what suppose it would have cost 200 million dollars per life saved should ford still have spent that 200 million dollars you mean that's not the question that's not really the question yes it is a question yes that's the principle of the question that's the only principle involved i don't know whether ford did the right came to the right answer or not that's a question of whether these numbers are valid numbers for the relative costs of different things you're not arguing about a principle if you once agree with me that if it had been 200 million dollars the cost per lifesaver had been 200 million dollars you would not argue look let me go back for a moment can i say something in response to that if ford had not been able to market those cars in the same kind of economic bracket because of the price of installing this one plastic block that would be a different question maybe ford could have considered redesigning the whole car so as to make it cheaper but what we're talking about is balancing advantages and balances and that's why you're just a minute i'm a supporter of abortion therefore i don't believe that every single human life is sacred i believe that principles have to be balanced and yet i don't see ford spending 13 less on each car at the cost of 200 lives a year as being a principled position to take and so that the thirteen dollars per car so that that one life instead of being 200 times what's 200 times uh 200 000 it's uh 40 million suppose it had been one life a year so that it cost 40 million would have then been okay for ford not you can't predict that one life is going to be cost because of a physical defect in the car this was a clear i know i know i know but this is you're evading the question of principle no i'm not i'm saying that they knew before they put the car out that there was a mechanical defect you know when you buy a car you know that your chance of being killed in a pindo is greater than your chance of being killed in a mack trump no i didn't i didn't know that the gas tank would rupture of course it is a question every one of us separately in this room could at a cost reduce his risk of dying tomorrow you don't have to walk across the street of course the question is is he willing to pay for it and the question here he should be raising if he wants to raise a question of principle he should raise is whether ford wasn't required to attach to this car the statement we have made this car thirteen dollars cheaper and therefore it is one whatever the percent is it is one percent more risky for you to buy it but while that then he would be arguing a real question of principle why should they do that doesn't that interfere with the free enterprise system that you're touting why not the consumer should be free to decide what risk he wants to bear if you want to pay 13 extra for that you should be free to do it if you don't want to pay 13 wait excuse me we have to keep it to the audio over here so then the government does have the right to require information of corporations is that right no no the government has a right to provide courts of law in which corporations that deliberately conceal material that is relevant can be sued for fraud and made to pay very heavy expenses and that is a desirable part of the market of course what i'm trying to say to you is that these things are really a little bit more subtle and sophisticated than you are at first glad to believe there are no you can't get easy answers along this line because your way of putting it really only doesn't really get at the fundamental principles involved the real fundamental principle is that people individually should be free to decide how much they're willing to pay for reducing the chances of their death now people mostly aren't willing to pay very much i personally regard this as very very illogical i see people on all sides of me smoking no there's no doubt nobody denies that that increases their chance of death i'm not saying they shouldn't be free to smoke don't misunderstand me i just think they're fools to do it and uh and i know they're fools because i quit on the basis of the evidence 18 years ago but that's the real issue and if you want to be rate form you ought to be rated on those terms not on the ground that you don't think they use the right numbers now look i don't think we can keep on going very i'm afraid we're going to run out of tape and i'm afraid i'm going to run out of voice so i think i'll call again you