(from the movie Fight Club) A formula used by a major auto manufacturer (which the main charachter works for) to evaluate wheter or not to perform a recall when a defect is discovered in one of its vehicles.
A × B × C < X
Where A is the number of vehicles on the road, B is the chance that a particular failure will occur, C is the average out-of-court settlement, and X is the cost of performing a recall. If the inequality is true, a recall is not done.
Remarkably similar to a form of reckoning described in Arsenic and Old Bush whereby a value (around $8 million) was assigned to the average human life. When an environmental regulation was in question, the cost to American buisnesses of implementing the regulation was weighed against that average value times the probable number of lives lost should the regulation not be enacted.
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