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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

#361

Post by klmadfejno »

mola wrote: post #81
klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

No one wants to believe they have a bullshit job. So we usually tell our selves nice little fairy tales to overcome this cognitive dissonance. Truth is, McK and the like, are there just to give mediocre leaders an extremely expensive psychological crutch needed when human beings face uncertainties. Now that these consulting agencies are the behemoth they are, it's mainly corrupt leaders that are being "pursuaded" to…

I don't think I have a bullshit job. Pay's good. Trajectory is good. People listen to me. Most of it's just fairly arbitrary business decisions. One had a client confirm months later that they believe the work directly contributed to saving lives. If a CEO point blank asks me for my opinion, I think that's more or less the definition of not being another cog in the wheel. The archetypal bullshit job is the finance/accountant who shifts a couple excel cells on a standard template that could have been automated in VBA ages ago. I know this, because that was my first job.

Contrary to popular belief, a good deal of McK work is not just regurgitating a pre-ordained solution. Most of my work involves creating original solutions tbh. But sure, you probably know my job better than me.

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

#362

Post by dillondoyle »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #181
iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #93

The war on drugs is responsible for the opioid crisis. Companies psychopathically seek out profits, and need to be kept in check, but that does not diminish the fact that US (and Canadian) drug policy bears direct responsibility for opioid deaths. This kind of news story, while maybe satisfying, is a red herring. As long as addiction is criminalized, and legal drug supplies dont exist, it doesn't matter how many Purd…

The opioid crisis would have happened without the war on drugs. The fundamental driver of it is Oxycontin's dosing schedule, which was optimized for causing addiction. Marketing for Oxycontin is all about how it "lasts twelve hours", when it often doesn't . Doctors were trained and pressured to increase the prescribed dose when patients complained of pain in the hours before their next scheduled dose, rather than swi…

That undersells their liability and (i think) evil behavior.

The original Dr. Sackler invented modern marketing of drugs directly to consumers, starting with getting millions addicted to Valium - which BTW was totally gross sexism. the very Mad Men 60s style marketing /r/oldschool ridiculous keeping women in the house and dealing with their 'emotions and feelings' with downers etc.

The Netflix doc the Pharmacist is really good I highly recommend. Purdue gave direct $ bonus' to their sales people, using prescriber data to knowingly target Drs. prescribing insane amounts of opiates. On purpose because they identified it as the most profitable.

They also basically bribed doctors to attend conferences and put their name on BS 'research.' they spent millions to induce an earth shaking change in pain management - opiates weren't widely used long term before their 'investment.'

Plus the first baseline research they use to justify this was total overstated from one Drs opinion.

It's also the pharmacies, Walmart optimized profits and kept pharmacists from questioning scripts.

And now last I checked the Sacklers still have their billions and are using the same playbook with a new company in the developing world/India.

I'm also totally against the war on drugs and believe we need to fundamentally change attitudes and pretty much remove possession laws.

Personally I would go so far as to provide free prescriptions/handouts for addicts of opiates/stims that are pure, clear doses, and safer to inject or use. Make it mandatory to interact with mental health professionals to get the drugs and offer free treatment (medication focused) when the user is ready themselves to attempt to get clean.

It's also gross that it's a good amount harder for a doctor to prescribe suboxone than it is opiates.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/27/india-opioids-...

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

#363

Post by underwater »

majani wrote: post #344
cmmeur01 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asserting your debt as more important than someone's housing does seem like a pretty shitbag thing to me.

Not paying back debts as agreed is tantamount to stealing, which is even shittier IMO

In the first scenario the borrower can't pay their rent, is evicted and possibly becomes homeless.

In the second scenario the worst case is that the payday lender becomes insolvent, the company collapses, and the workers go and find other jobs because they're not the ones suffering financial stress.

How is that worse.

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

#364

Post by omosubi »

minikites wrote: post #360
crumbshot wrote: post #326

This is far too low. A fine large enough to destroy the company (as was effectively done to Purdue) would have been the only palatable outcome. And even more importantly, legal repercussions for all their employees who were personally responsible for this. All this settlement achieves is 'a cost of doing business', as they say. It's not punishment or deterrence. McKinsey and other companies like them will do similar…

If big companies started facing consequences for their actions our economy would fall apart.

Why? Because people would actually be held accountable for their decisions? Shouldn't that be how it works to begin with? It would be painful in the short term but in the long term i think it would make people better off

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

#365

Post by Closi »

leafmeal wrote: post #337
Closi wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m downvoting it because it paints all management consultants with a broad brush of ‘being evil’ which clearly isn’t accurate. > While amusing, this attempts to humanize them and somewhat whitewash their abominable actions. Ouch - I’m a supply chain consultant (only one shade away!) is the implication that I am less than human and totally spineless? I know management consultants and most of them do in fact have a sp…

I was referring to downvotes on maybelsyrup's comment, not its ancestor from haltingproblem.

Ah apologies. That's totally my mistake!

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

#366

Post by mrosett »

vypr007 wrote: post #190

Approaching this from a cold math perspective, like a McK consultant would.. $573M settlement for approx 450k deaths, is a a little over $1200 per death if that is given away as compensation at all. Not bad for McK I'd say. The consultants really managed this well.

Your assumption is that without McK’s involvement nobody would have died of opioid overdoses during that window. That seems very questionable.

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

#367

Post by malandrew »

arcticbull wrote: post #343
cmmeur01 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asserting your debt as more important than someone's housing does seem like a pretty shitbag thing to me.

The reality is that this is a very difficult situation all around. 1) Lenders probably shouldn't be lending money to people they know cannot repay the debts. This is also why APRs are so high - most people simply don't. 2) People who know they can't repay the debts shouldn't be borrowing in the first place. This is also why lenders have to go to such extremes to collect their debts. This is a function of being poor i…

How do you design an unemployment/UBI system that provides an incentive not to use it unless necessary and not to stay on it any longer than is necessary?

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

#368

Post by sct202 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #134

It's really tiring to constantly hear how people or organizations with deep pockets can "settle" things by handing over money. Nothing will ever change until either some high level people go to jail or the company goes to jail (as in suspending its business for a while). Or make the fines outrageously high so it really hurts the company and not just as a small part of their profits.

I'm a little more hopeful. They've never been punished like this before for their work. In the future, they'll probably be more careful about who they work with and what they recommend. Not to mention, Purdue Pharma is already taking on the lion share of the blame for these deaths, and paid a $8b settlement and also turned into a public beneficiary company.

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

#369

Post by minikites »

omosubi wrote: post #364
minikites wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If big companies started facing consequences for their actions our economy would fall apart.

Why? Because people would actually be held accountable for their decisions? Shouldn't that be how it works to begin with? It would be painful in the short term but in the long term i think it would make people better off

I agree that it shouldn't be this way, but I remember 2008 and the fact that zero people were punished. The US government will protect corporate profits at all costs.

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

#370

Post by lostcolony »

malandrew wrote: post #367
arcticbull wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that this is a very difficult situation all around. 1) Lenders probably shouldn't be lending money to people they know cannot repay the debts. This is also why APRs are so high - most people simply don't. 2) People who know they can't repay the debts shouldn't be borrowing in the first place. This is also why lenders have to go to such extremes to collect their debts. This is a function of being poor i…

How do you design an unemployment/UBI system that provides an incentive not to use it unless necessary and not to stay on it any longer than is necessary?

You don't have to.

How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all?

I've met exactly zero.

The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless.

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