A big bad news headline alone is worth -$1M to tesla.
I really wish every single death ended up splitting a fine amongst all companies even tangentially involved.
Grandma fell down the stairs and died? Well fine the architect who designed those stairs, and the builder who built them.
Sure, all those companies will pass the cost back to the consumer, but the government will pass the fine revenue back to the consumer in the form of reduced taxes.
Ends up net zero overall, but everyone now has a real incentive to look out for the health and safety of others.
No, they won't pass the cost back to the consumer. The cost structure is:
- Unsafe product is shipped
- Damage is done
- Someone pays for it (ultimately the consumer)
The difference is that if the consumer directly pays for it, companies have every incentive to make unsafe products, and those costs are very, very high.
If the companies pay for it, the free hand of capitalism steps in, and optimizes such that any safety measures where expected returns are positive are implemented (and those where expected returns are negative, not).
If a death costs $1M, and I can do a safety measure which reduces odds of death by 0.01% for $100, it's cost-neutral. If that same measure costs $50, an efficient business will implement it. If it costs $200, it won't.
That allows global optimization. By setting the price of death, you can have a set point for what safety measures will be taken, the system optimizes adequately well, and deaths go down, so fewer costs are passed back.
I really wish every single death ended up splitting a fine amongst all companies even tangentially involved.
Grandma fell down the stairs and died? Well fine the architect who designed those stairs, and the builder who built them.
Sure, all those companies will pass the cost back to the consumer, but the government will pass the fine revenue back to the consumer in the form of reduced taxes.
Ends up net zero overall, but everyone now has a real incentive to look out for the health and safety of others.