[wrench]

“Consumers tend to shy away from unsafe goods, however.”

Consumers vote with their wallets. Safety is important untill there is an increased price to pay. The reason seatbelts, airbags, and all the other nanny options are mandatory on new cars is because consumers wouldn’t pay for them when they were add on options that cost extra money.

[1rudeboy]

You are confusing two issues. Let's keep governmental intervention out of this. A consumer is willing to pay more for an assurance that his dogfood contains no melamine, meaning that safety has economic "value." A consumer who doesn't care whether his dogfood contains melamine has valued the assurance at zero.

The facts demonstrate that few people value that assurance at zero (and even those that do ride on dogfood manufacturers valuing the safety aspect as >0).