McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by Matticus_Rex » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #346

ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a very early P2P lending participant in the early days of Prosper Lending, I've seen the other side of this. Many borrowers adopt a mindset that they have earned the money they borrowed and don't feel that they need to pay it back. I came in to Prosper with a distaste for the apparent predatory lender tactics and came out with an appreciation that not everything that seems predatory really is. While there are plen…

> reasonably high APRs I think the disagreement may be on the definition of “reasonable”. Similar to utilities, I don’t think most people begrudge a company for making a “reasonable” profit. The problem sometimes comes when it starts to become unreasonable level of profit, predicated on lack of transparency and shady tactics

How do people have such a strong opinion on what level of profit is reasonable if they don't know the default rate?

The average person thinks companies make over 5x the profit they actually make, and they think the amount of profit correlates negatively with how responsible and good for the world the company is (when in fact there's very little discernable correlation, and it may be positive). What profit people begrudge is likely not particularly relevant, given how uneducated those opinions generally are.

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

#372

Post by Matticus_Rex » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #334

phrz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to be made to pay out and concede liability, why not simply go to trial and suffer the same legal fate? It's not there as a mere legalese recitation or to shield the defendant's ego. To finish your rhetorical question, the reason you pay out but admit no wrongdoing is in recognition of the risk of financial liability stemming from the litigation.

> why not simply go to trial and suffer the same legal fate? The same reason most people take a plea bargain. Punitive damages. "Prison for six months, or the risk of a jury sending you to prison for ten years" is a pretty strong incentive to plead guilty. If the punitive damages can be expected to be 10-20x of what you'd settle for, you'd probably just take the plea.

Yeah, but innocent people have to take pleas all the time because of it.

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

#373

Post by KoftaBob » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

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.

I don't even know where to begin with this comment.

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

#374

Post by Clubber » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

Sadly, I believe the money that will go to the states will help finance the incarceration of those very opioid users.

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

#375

Post by Judgmentality » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #225

Balgair wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: When this occurs, how do the C-suite look at themselves and think that they are the ones in charge? You'd think that they'd just have the ability to do it regardless, but an expensive whipping boy (almost literally) is the better fit. How political is your org such that this even becomes a possibility to contemplate? What terrible lack of communication and respect between layers causes this? (These questions a…

Imagine you're a VP, or even a C-Suite Executive... Your employees get to make decisions based on what they think is best, what feels right. You don't have that luxury. Investors, the board, other managers who are vying for your position all demand numbers-based decision making and justification. So what do you do? You hire a well known consultancy to produce documents and data that supports your position. You can no…

So the VP's job is to be disingenuous to everyone except the consultants? He's already made up his mind about what to do, knows he can't get buy-in from employees, so he hires an external firm to generate the data he has already decided is correct.

I feel like all the comments talking about a breakdown of trust seem even more poignant now after reading your comment.

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

#376

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #370

malandrew wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is in line with the results of Canada's early UBI experiments; substantially nobody left the workforce except to pursue liberal arts or stay-at-home parenting, both of which have intrinsic value. People are motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their social group at work, finding meaning in their lives through their work, and so on.

UBI and unemployment isn't provide enough for a lavish lifestyle, you can achieve that through work.

> 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.

Certainly true, and of course, automation will replace the missing labor in the pool, and the continued march of development will lead to even lower birth rates (already well below replacement rate of 2.1 is almost every developed nation), and there will be fewer and fewer of these folks in time.

Canada's most recent UBI experiment, cancelled recently (2020) by Ford & co, was showing excellent results [1], and so did the earlier one in 1974 [2].

[1] https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-exper...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgot...

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

#377

Post by throwawayboise » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

cmmeur01 wrote: post #309

ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a very early P2P lending participant in the early days of Prosper Lending, I've seen the other side of this. Many borrowers adopt a mindset that they have earned the money they borrowed and don't feel that they need to pay it back. I came in to Prosper with a distaste for the apparent predatory lender tactics and came out with an appreciation that not everything that seems predatory really is. While there are plen…

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

It ultimately comes down to what type of housing people have a "right" to. If I can't afford the house I bought, I'll need to sell it and downsize or rent a smaller/cheaper place. That's not because the bank is being a shitbag about my debt.

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

#378

Post by minikites » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

KoftaBob wrote: post #373

minikites wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't even know where to begin with this comment.

Name a big company or C-level executive that has faced any meaningful consequences for their misdeeds in the last 15 years. I can think of Bernie Madoff, but he was punished because he swindled rich people. If he swindled poor people he'd be on the cover of Fortune magazine.

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

#379

Post by bumby » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #371

bumby wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasonably high APRs I think the disagreement may be on the definition of “reasonable”. Similar to utilities, I don’t think most people begrudge a company for making a “reasonable” profit. The problem sometimes comes when it starts to become unreasonable level of profit, predicated on lack of transparency and shady tactics

How do people have such a strong opinion on what level of profit is reasonable if they don't know the default rate? The average person thinks companies make over 5x the profit they actually make, and they think the amount of profit correlates negatively with how responsible and good for the world the company is (when in fact there's very little discernable correlation, and it may be positive). What profit people begr…

I’m pretty agnostic in my opinion on this personally because I don’t know their profit margin, default rate etc. I also think these lenders fulfill a worthwhile service in some cases. Note that I didn’t actually define what reasonable should be.

People do get a say in the policies of their society in a democracy, whether educated or not. People also think NASAs budget is 50x what it is, but it doesn’t mean we should strip away their right to vote, it means they need to be educated (or their representatives, by proxy). Otherwise it’s just advocating for a technocracy

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

#380

Post by bostonsre » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

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.

If big companies face no consequences, then our society will fall apart. They have ruined millions of lives and are responsible for a large portion of the 450k overdose deaths from 1999 to 2018.

It amounts to literal gambling with people's lives and the individuals responsible face almost no risk. The worst thing that happens is that their company has to pay a big fine. Someone who steals a car will face a multi year federal sentence. Who had the biggest negative impact on society, the dude that stole a car or the people responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths?