Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 572 posts

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

#381

Post by throwawayboise »

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…

What do you do about unambitious people who live beyond their UBI means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

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

#382

Post by minikites »

bostonsre wrote: post #380
minikites wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>If big companies face no consequences, then our society will fall apart.

It currently is and I don't see any sign of it stopping. The foundation was laid in the 80s, the roof fell in on January 6th, and the Democrats don't have enough of a spine to actually fix the problem because Republicans keep calling them mean names.

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

#383

Post by lostcolony »

throwawayboise wrote: post #381
lostcolony wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What do you do about unambitious people who live beyond their UBI means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

What do you do -now- about the ambitious people who live beyond their salaried means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

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

#384

Post by ipv6ipv4 »

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.

You’ve drawn yourself a caricature of a hard scrabble borrower who’s just trying to make ends meet and has the best of intentions with regards to their debts.

In my Prosper experience that was the rare exception. The typical defaulting borrower bought themselves a shiny new toy and literally felt entitled to the money. As if their success in securing the loan was sufficient justification to have earned the money outright.

The drama on the Prosper lending forums, where lenders and borrowers could directly communicate with each other, was epic and educational.

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

#385

Post by throwawayboise »

lostcolony wrote: post #383
throwawayboise wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do about unambitious people who live beyond their UBI means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

What do you do -now- about the ambitious people who live beyond their salaried means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

So what problem does UBI solve, then?

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

#386

Post by omginternets »

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.

At least be upfront about what this is: preferring the justice system to fall apart.

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

#387

Post by pessimizer »

mumblemumble wrote: post #144
frankbreetz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>As part of the settlement, McKinsey admits to no wrongdoing. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963864747/consulting-giant-mc...

That's a pretty standard part of settlements, and very nearly semantically void. The more salient facts for someone who's looking to this as an instructive story are: they advised a company to do some things that had some pretty hefty consequences, those consequences came back to bite them, and it cost them $573M plus legal fees and damaged reputation. $573M is $573M, regardless of whether a court orders you to pay i…

That if anybody sues you for the same thing you've already been investigated and fined for, they had better have enough money to relitigate the entire thing is more than a small consolation, it's a public subsidy.

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

#388

Post by sammax »

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?

The whole point of UBI is that everyone gets it, unconditionally. There is no not using it or not staying on it. You just get the UBI, and it should be enough to pay for basic living costs, and most people also want to be able to afford luxuries so the incentive to work is not gone.

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

#389

Post by [deleted] »

underwater wrote: post #363
majani wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#390

Post by [deleted] »

leafmeal wrote: post #305
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.

From the New York Times article, "The amount McKinsey is paying is substantially more than it earned from opioid-related work with Purdue or Johnson & Johnson, Endo International and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, its other opioid-maker clients, a person involved in the settlement negotiations said" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids...

[deleted]
Post reply on HN