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McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

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Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#121

Post by fjp »

std_throwaway wrote: post #56
glangdale wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because everything was so much better when you could, for no particularly good reason, relate money to a marginally useful-to-jewellers-and-dentists soft metal. I suppose I shouldn't expect economic literacy on Hacker News, but the twist on the standard goldbug narrative ("social credit backed by surveillance") is at least original, if nutty.

I did not say that gold backed currency is better for everybody. I'm just amazed at the time span over which the dilution is happening. And I don't think that anybody can deny that our money is slowly losing its purchasing power.

it is slowly losing purchasing power. That's called inflation and nobody denies it or is surprised by it.

In fact what people are generally surprised about is how little inflation is has occurred in the USA compared to how much money has been pumped into the system via QE.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#122

Post by throwaway2048 »

esoterica wrote: post #108
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the basic model: - McKinsey hires a bunch of "top" school grads - after a few years, some hires clearly have the potential to make partner, and most don't - McKinsey encourages clients to hire the people who aren't partner material at an attractive wage - feeling good about making a step up after capping out at McKinsey, most people gladly accept - McKinsey now has an alumni network at client's which are a goo…

Most people leave McKinsey willingly for greener pastures, not because they were not considered partner material and were forced out. People join consulting mostly for the exit opportunities, not because they strive to be lifers there

There isn't really any difference between what you said and what OP said, you don't have to be forced out to take the hint your job is a dead end.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#123

Post by ploxolo »

shantly wrote: post #61
bitcoinmoney wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2k/hr?????

It's basically therapy for corporate executives, delivered via powerpoint, with a healthy side of blame insurance. And yeah, it's expensive.

Dad worked at a bank (just below CEO). He once said that McKinsey was most useful when you wanted to kill a project diplomatically, and make sure it would stay put. Have McKinsey come in, make the recommendation that X project was no good, and kiss it goodbye with McKinsey absorbing the blame. Other way around was to give projects some extra push and credibility.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#124

Post by rightbyte »

wcoenen wrote: post #103
mywittyname wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other than printing money and risking a cataclysmic devaluation The US government would need to print an insane amount of money to have a tangible devaluation impact. Even more so when the money creation is intended to offset deflationary pressures due to a economic contraction. Considering the GDP of the US is ~$20 trillion, I bet we're probably talking about $2-4 trillion of printed money, in addition to deflatio…

Things can happen very fast. The fed printed $128B in just two days to address the repo market crisis. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/fed-repo-inj... Granted, overnight loans are not permanent injections of money. But it serves as a reminder that there is no speed limit on the virtual printing press of the fed.

At some point the banking system will crash due to lost math precision I believe.

The speed of porting everything to arbitrary precision programs limits inflation, unless the gov start cutting zeroes of the bills.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#126

Post by PopeDotNinja »

m0zg wrote: post #116
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the basic model: - McKinsey hires a bunch of "top" school grads - after a few years, some hires clearly have the potential to make partner, and most don't - McKinsey encourages clients to hire the people who aren't partner material at an attractive wage - feeling good about making a step up after capping out at McKinsey, most people gladly accept - McKinsey now has an alumni network at client's which are a goo…

Some people don't know this, but Sundar Pichai is ex-McKinsey. Could be one of those "not good enough to make partner".

Thankfully we don't have tattoos in our foreheads advertising what other people think of us :).

I'm sure some arrogant ass somewhere is telling themselves that the great ones become partners at McKinsey & the washouts become CEO of Google. Kind if like that quote "Anyone can aspire to be President of the United States, but few have any hope of becoming president of the Bohemian Club." [1]

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-26-mn-2818-s...

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#127

Post by throwaway66920 »

vraivroo wrote: post #119
throwaway66920 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, this is just some guy asserting that everyone at McKinsey thinks they invented a brand new concept, when in fact, it’s just a heuristic they teach people to communicate more effectively, because communication is hard.

I see you are unfamiliar with McKinsey.

Former employee

Edit: I cannot reply to the below, but I will say, that’s a pretty contrived justification for your view.

Communication is hard. Few things done at a corporate scale are easy to implement. People like to point at big consulting firms and say “I could have done that” or “they could have just asked me” but that’s really just a fraction of it.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#128

Post by snowwrestler »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #113
esoterica wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people leave McKinsey willingly for greener pastures, not because they were not considered partner material and were forced out. People join consulting mostly for the exit opportunities, not because they strive to be lifers there

There's a lot of setup that goes into encouraging people to leave. Management works hard to make sure that people have greener pastures to go to. The people leaving don't see that side of it. If a partner encourages a client to hire Susie, and Susie leaves for the client, Susie might not ever know that a partner helped create that opportunity. A friend of mine who used to work in management at Ernst & Young told me a…

I'm sure this happens, but the implied idea that McKinsey only keeps the best and only loses the people they intend to lose, is hilarious. Consulting sucks in many ways, even if you're consulting for McKinsey.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#129

Post by zxcmx »

ploxolo wrote: post #123
shantly wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically therapy for corporate executives, delivered via powerpoint, with a healthy side of blame insurance. And yeah, it's expensive.

Dad worked at a bank (just below CEO). He once said that McKinsey was most useful when you wanted to kill a project diplomatically, and make sure it would stay put. Have McKinsey come in, make the recommendation that X project was no good, and kiss it goodbye with McKinsey absorbing the blame. Other way around was to give projects some extra push and credibility.

Or launch a thing, to be fair.

We came up with a product internally. So our CEO hired a top-tier consulting company to sell our own idea back to us. That process cost millions.

But they do make real slick presentations and they have higher status than internal staff, and the CEO can say that a top-tier consulting firm recommended we do x, y and z... Blame insurance is right.

Once you hit a certain scale, e.g. where CEO is so stratospherically above rank-and-file in social status that it's not appropriate to speak directly anymore, consultants can act as a social buffer. Among other things they can launder recommendations from regular staff to management and put that objective shine on them.

The downside is that we know for a fact (when they accidentally published an android app to the playstore, I reversed it and it was our code) that collateral, research and demos that we paid for got sold to others.

Re: McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn

#130

Post by thinkingkong »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #86
rchaud wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that in most cases, the shady mechanic is not somebody you already know from college, or from golf or your national frat society. McKinsey gets paid ungodly sums in part because they are the archetype of the old boy's club. Their new hires usually come only from top business schools, and likely already have several years under their belt at the types of companies McKinsey gets business from. In addi…

My experience has been that the vast majority of McKinsey and BCG consultants have absolutely no real world experience. My company has been hiring these people for internal roles in droves and it's hilarious (and depressing) to watch how useless they are when they can't just leave after dropping some nice sounding but useless solution on someones desk.

Yeah. But they speak a language that more people should be familiar with. I've been part of organizations where the consultants roll in and hand-wave together a plan of action with statistics and proof. It's almost impossible to up against that unless you're prepared. More people need to know how to deal with it.
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