I'd just to point out two things.
First, Ford received a punitive court damages of 128 million for the pinto fiascal which in the end ended up being a sum considerably less then the actual amount they were ordered to pay. Ford itself had also estimated the total cost to fix every vehicle to be 125 million. So because Ford's decision took only quantitative analysis into measure they failed to recognize the qualitative damage that would occur from the Pinto Fiascal. Here we are even 20 years later talking about the incident. This is a clear scar on the corporate and brand name in quality that inevitably echoed in the back of every ford consumer aware of the case. That kind of damage easily exceeds the 120 million they saved by deciding not to reveal the fault and call back cars. The punitive damage in this case also was given because the NHTSA (national highway transportation safety administration) protestsed Ford's decision and in the end forced them to recall their cars anyhow, resulting in the ultimate in murphys law for Ford. ~$125 million for recall, ~5 million punitive damage, massive brand name scaring.
Another thing to note is this, this case is THE precedent for cost/ benefit based statistical risk analysis. As stated above, Ford obviously forgot that in researching an opportunity cost two different measurements must be taken into consideration. Quantitative and Qualitative value. Due to Ford's clearly unethical decision and eventually modified by law afterwards to be illegal action (thats what punitive damage is folks!), Ford ended up paying through the nose for the whole ordeal. Therefore, it is in fact the rare occasion when being unethical is most beneficial to the business as often in those situations qualitative variables are dismissed without recognizing their quantitative impacts on the bottomline!
GM didn't learn from Ford's mistake and as a consequence was ordered to pay 4.9 billion in punitive damages for the same error in 1999. Just further evidence that being unethical in a corporation doesn't pay off. Clearly as stated previously by buffalotoys it is often a juggling or balancing behavior between profits and ethics for companies, yet often times the balance is distorted by huge and misplaced importance placed on profits mearly. As such, GM was punished a huge amount of money because they were aware of a precedent and even then choose to go through with their action and violate the law.
The ultimate fact is that an ethical standard must be followed by both cosumers and corporations in order for an efficient and advanced economy to function smoothly without disruption and economic downfall. This is an excellent time to show that this is especially true. Corporations (read Enron, Worldcom, Tyco etc.) cooking their books with maverick accounting, results in investors and creditors making decisions based upon not so accurate information. When the sh^t hits the fan like it did recently, investors and creditors become skiddish of investing due to misinformation and the large losses they suffered because of it. What this also means is that when these companies choose to be unethical about their products, quality and safety suffer while often production costs and inefficiency rises.
So what this all means is, there is no such thing as a free lunch and nothing good ever comes out of being unethical.
-M.T.O