The Moral Question of Costs vs Lives for GM

New CEO Mary Barra faced Congress to answer why GM put cost before consumers when it dragged its feet in recalling millions of defective vehicles.

The numbers on GM's recall failures are staggering and tragic.  

It grates against our fundamental humanity, like fingernails scratched against the chalkboard, to put costs over lives.  But the algorithms that automobile companies deploy - that is, to decide whether to recall or not - must be shockingly simple:  If the costs of a recall are greater than the maximum potential costs of not doing a recall, then it's a no-go.