"I'd like to see documentation on the pinto story. If its true, should be easy to come up with...."

Tom is mistaking car models, but there was also a Pinto story which is famous in book print- not in news stories or TV. The Pinto was of course Ford's response to the cheap Japanese "compact cars". The scandal was about an engineering decision and the placement of a bolt in relation to the gas tank. The result was that at fairly low speed a rear collusion of a Pinto could result in fire which killed the passengers. The claim was that executives instead of fixing the design for something that would amount which was claimed would have cost less than a dollar per vehicle decided the lawsuits cost from such a defect would cheaper in terms of overall cost.
Of course this allows one to paint these managers as an evil and uncaring monsters which a lot people find comforting. Of course the Pinto story is predated by the successful effort to get safety glass in cars- this lack of safety glass which killed very high percentage of people in car accidents. Driving cars is still dangerous, but with all the improvement in crash safety we are getting less injuries and deaths. Many people think these law suits are to cause of these improvements and take much pride in these bold "acheivements". But think the truth is a bit more complicated- but it's probably about as true as saying that Saddam Hussien leadership resulted in a peaceful Iraq.