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McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

reuters.com

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Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#291

Post by trhway »

ihaveajob wrote: post #267

I know someone who worked for McKinsey for a few years, and some of the projects he described were straight up slimy. The one I recall right now was helping a big payday lender (read: large scale loan shark) figure out how to get their money back from people who were behind on their payments. The problem was that they can only attempt to withdraw so many times from someone's bank before they're banned, so the agreed…

>so the agreed solution was to estimate the best time of the month when the client had received their paycheck, but before they had used it to pay rent and other expenses.

The Purdue OxyContin's 12 hours higher dose and thus higher addictiveness "solution" instead of the 8 hour based lower dose cycle similarly bears all the hallmarks of being produced by MBA consultants.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#292

Post by neurotech1 »

Let's not forget, these are the same consultants that did work for Enron, work leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.[0] McKinsey is also advising various government agencies on optimizing their Covid-19 response[1], generating revenue of $100m and counting.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver...

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mckinsey-is-making-10...

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#293

Post by samstave »

Retric wrote: post #250
abduhl wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were to rank large companies based on how horrible they are to society then certainly McKinsey is indeed “far from a normal company.” They’re far lower than the normal company, in my opinion. I’d go so far as to say they’re not even in the top 75%. Social media, other big (and small) tech, pharma, and banking have caused objectively (and subjectively) orders of magnitude more harm to our society than a bunch of…

Having worked at a large management consulting company, the harm isn’t direct but it’s still there. These companies have incredible leverage, but it’s from credentials not competence. Economic harm isn’t as obvious as say water pollution, but diffuse harm is still harm. Anyway, the average company does all the stuff you don’t really think about like making pots, windows, staplers, hearing aids etc. It’s the extreme o…

EXACTLY

Look at it in tech: Some FB engineers are INCREDIBLY smart and good - but the, as you say, "diffuse harm" they do is still *harm*

FFS when I was at Lockheed and we got audited for SOX the execs were stealing stocks from the newer employees and giving those stocks to the execs

and the auditors, I think it was PWC, gave use a green passing grade and employees got fucked.

Some of the execs went on to Solyndra and we all know about how they stole 700 million from the USG...

(look at the SEC claims for Solyndra, where weeks before shutting their employees out without notice, they were giving out huge bonuses to execs and certain employees - e.g. they gave a $40,000 bonus to the IT manager that locked out all the accounts of employees)

Source: That IT guy worked for me at lockheed, the IT CIO was my boss at Lockheed - and I know their level of corruption....

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#294

Post by Frondo »

klmadfejno wrote: post #152
nus07 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me a couple of examples where McKinsey’s work was helpful to a society ? Jobs were saved, lives were saved , poverty was eradicated ? Everywhere I look it’s just strategies to increase sales ,lay-off lower level employees and boost executive and shareholder profit .

Probably not to a degree that would be satisfying to me as a random external stranger. Most work is very secret, to avoid conflicts of interest. I don't know what others work on. I know of a few high profile things lately that have had positive impact on the world, but it's all NDA'd as well. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analyti... I guess this group is a decent example of our public things, d…

I have to say it doesn't strengthen your case to say "the damaging ones are public, the good ones are private."

That's asking for a lot of trust in an organization with a public history of doing damage to societies, like with the opioid thing or the Canadian bread price fixing agreement.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#295

Post by haltingproblem »

neurotech1 wrote: post #292

Let's not forget, these are the same consultants that did work for Enron, work leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.[0] McKinsey is also advising various government agencies on optimizing their Covid-19 response[1], generating revenue of $100m and counting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Controver... [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mckinsey-is-making-10...

Worse. Most of Enron management was directly sourced from McKinsey and McKinsey was intricately involved in its strategy and accounting. One day the story will be told of how they got away with it but Andersen took the whole blame.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-fea...

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#296

Post by hindsightbias »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #280

One of my first jobs out of college was at small management consulting firm founded by an formerly very high level McKinsey guy. In a bigger firm, I wouldn't have had much contact with this person, but since we were tiny, he would often be out in the field with the junior people. One week I found myself with him in some faraway city. We were a bit lost (this was before smartphones) and late for our next appointment.…

> when the plague comes

It might have helped to have some mgmt consultants on vaccine distribution.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#297

Post by LudwigNagasena »

ves wrote: post #179
klmadfejno wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm glad you enjoyed my prose so much. All I'm trying to convey is that my day to day is listening to client problems, looking at data, talking to employees, and presenting findings. It's neither a conspiracy, nor a scheme, nor a world of wealthy indulgence. I make a healthy wage, but its likely lower than I could get in tech. Like almost every company in the world, its a normal company.

> Like almost every company in the world, its a normal company. This in a thread about McKinsey settling for over half a billion dollars over its role in causing the opioid crisis, which is just one of the many, many arrows in McKinsey’s “aiding and abetting horrible shit” quiver. This was literally a conspiracy and a scheme. On just the basis of “harm caused” alone, McKinsey is far from a normal company.

It may be unique only in the regard that the impact directly affects the US citizens, but multinational corporations that work in underdeveloped regions are known for their shady practices. You can probably write 10 articles on Nestle alone.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#298

Post by xgb84j »

haltingproblem wrote: post #284
maybelsyrup wrote: post #280

One of my first jobs out of college was at small management consulting firm founded by an formerly very high level McKinsey guy. In a bigger firm, I wouldn't have had much contact with this person, but since we were tiny, he would often be out in the field with the junior people. One week I found myself with him in some faraway city. We were a bit lost (this was before smartphones) and late for our next appointment.…

While amusing, this attempts to humanize them and somewhat whitewash their abominable actions. They are sitting at the top of the power matrix making lives miserable and dangerous for the ones with least power - paycheck to paycheck workers, those with addictions, inmates in Rikers, dissidents. The fact that they are aware of their own lack of usefulness makes the whole enterprise even more cynical and shady.

It just shows that I, you and the average person is much closer to them than we think.

If you put enough money on the table I'm sure many more people would do the same thing as those currently in power. It's just that most people don't have the opportunity to sell out.

That's the scary truth I think.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#300

Post by beaconstudios »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #287
haltingproblem wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While amusing, this attempts to humanize them and somewhat whitewash their abominable actions. They are sitting at the top of the power matrix making lives miserable and dangerous for the ones with least power - paycheck to paycheck workers, those with addictions, inmates in Rikers, dissidents. The fact that they are aware of their own lack of usefulness makes the whole enterprise even more cynical and shady.

To the extent that telling you all this story was an attempt to humanize these guys and "whitewash" their behavior (it wasn't), I have some bad news for you: they're human. It does nothing against evil to pretend that the world is composed of a small number of monsters and the rest of us good ones. I'm the first one to agree with you: consulting - hell, fundamental aspects of capitalism itself - are deeply cynical an…

The problem is a systemic one - people respond to structural incentives. We can't get a better world by insisting that people rely entirely on their moral compass to resist strong incentives - we need to change the incentives themselves. Every time we say "those people are just evil" instead of "how can we adjust our social structures so moral crime doesn't pay", we strip ourselves of the only real path forwards. "personal responsibility" is the worst possible doctrine for systemic change.
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