Paywall, didn’t read
Me either. Imagine a world where the poor have no news access, and instead depend on Facebook for news.
How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
31–40 of 230 posts
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#32If we had a justice system, that $10.8 billion would be recoverable, and used to try to rehabilitate the victims. But we don't have a justice system. We have a legal system, and a financial system.
> If we had a justice system, that $10.8 billion would be recoverable We’re in the midst of a series of lawsuits and criminal probes seeking to do exactly that. When public pressure rushes prosecutors, we get nonsense like Arizona getting rejected for original jurisdiction by SCOTUS. We have due process. Not mob rule.
Much of the money is diffucult to recover by being tied up in byzantine arrangements of LLCs and overseas accounts. That's generally how the rich avoid paying taxes as well.
We have due process for the privileged. Tell all of the poor defendants who have been held in Rikers for over a year without a trial that they have due process.
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#33Paywall, didn’t read
Silliest paywall ever:
1. Open dev tools
2. Delete the overlay element (id = graphics-paywall-overlay)
3. Disable 'overflow: hidden' on body
document.getElementById("graphics-paywall-overlay").remove()
document.body.style.overflow = 'inherit'Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#34I never understand why doctors are not blamed for prescribing these. Are doctors not supposed to be responsible for prescriptions? If they are not, should we stop allowing them to prescribe? Why don’t doctors unions throw out members who would claim to have been hoodwinked by pharmaceutical companies?
Why blame doctors when the makers of OxyContin told Congress for years that it was safe and non-addictive. It's a systemic issue with various actors/stakeholders whom all are partially to blame in various capacities.
Yes, I do blame law makers and manufacturers too.
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#35I never understand why doctors are not blamed for prescribing these. Are doctors not supposed to be responsible for prescriptions? If they are not, should we stop allowing them to prescribe? Why don’t doctors unions throw out members who would claim to have been hoodwinked by pharmaceutical companies?
> Why don’t doctors unions throw out members who would claim to have been hoodwinked by pharmaceutical companies? If the companies are lying about safety, how are the doctors supposed to know? The only ones with the data necessary to know the dangers of these drugs are the manufacturers and the manufacturers were lying and covering up the dangers.
They are supposed to have learned about it in medical school. If not, that's fine, maybe doctors shouldn't be allowed to prescribe and maybe only pharmacists should be allowed. My point is that it's a very valuable professional quality and we should put the responsibility where the quality is.
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we had a justice system, that $10.8 billion would be recoverable We’re in the midst of a series of lawsuits and criminal probes seeking to do exactly that. When public pressure rushes prosecutors, we get nonsense like Arizona getting rejected for original jurisdiction by SCOTUS. We have due process. Not mob rule.
Much of the money is diffucult to recover by being tied up in byzantine arrangements of LLCs and overseas accounts. That's generally how the rich avoid paying taxes as well. We have due process for the privileged. Tell all of the poor defendants who have been held in Rikers for over a year without a trial that they have due process.
> Much of the money is diffucult to recover by being tied up in byzantine arrangements of LLCs and overseas accounts
Yet this reporter was able to assemble the trail from court documents.
For every person creating Byzantine structures there are several adept at untangling them.
> Tell all of the poor defendants who have been held in Rikers for over a year without a trial
Not arguing that they aren’t getting an advantage. Just that there is zero evidence so far that they’re going to get away with it.
Also, New York has abolished cash bail. If someone is in pre-trial detention, it’s because they were deemed to be a flight risk. Not because they couldn’t afford bail. (EDIT: Never mind, we rolled back most of the changes in April after a purported crime surge)
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fighting battles through protests seems like it is mainly a case of who can afford better PR companies, win the war of attrition and has a whole lot of luck along the way. In addition, at least with a court case you can be sure public opinion doesn't just forget about it in a few months and moves on to the next hot item to protest.
Yeah, cuz that how every social change occurred in the world. Via two people talking in the room... Give me a break, legal system never changes itself. From Ghandi, Bolshevik revolution, Solidarity, French revolution to MLK. Change only occurs due to mass civil dissonance or armed revolutions. Never because you talk in a court and all people in power agreed you make sense.
You're arguing a different point than I made. Legal systems are as averse to change as the large masses of society (ie very averse). They do move eventually btw, but it's more on the scale of decades than months.
What I was getting at is that protesting is not a very reliable way to effect change either. The "other side" of any protest is also trying to change the narrative and can often just wait out the protests. Look at how the various Occupy movements eventually dissolved after a few months because they weren't getting anywhere. Even the "main" camp (if one can talk about such a thing with Occupy) was eventually cleared by the police and didn't bother reforming somewhere else anymore. The gilets jaunes in France are currently experiencing the same problem.
I'd be quite interested in a way to reliably bring about societal change in a reasonable amount of time and in a morally defensible way, but I have not found any yet. Since philosophers have been debating this since the days of the ancient Greeks I'm a bit doubtful that this is the time when we'll finally figure it out.
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m sorry but this is so naive. They were billionaires yesterday and they’re going to be billionaires tomorrow. Their reputation is going to be fine because we live in a society that absolutely worships money and those who have it. People with that kind of money can pay to scrub the internet.
> People with that kind of money can pay to scrub the internet. I'm sorry but this is so naive. Maybe true if you've got a bit of money and a little bit of notoriety, but I don't think that it would be possible to dissociate the Sacklers' name from the opioid crisis anytime soon.
> I don't think that it would be possible to dissociate the Sacklers' name from the opioid crisis anytime soon
Attention is short. I wouldn't rule it out; pr goes a long way. Spend a couple million on a completely unrelated but well regarded cause of charity and folks who don't have skin in the opioid-game won't associate them for the bad they did (but for their most recent memories).
What will keep the association alive for a while will be documentaries and those who watch them, but lets be real: that's not the public.
Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#39Re: How the Sacklers shifted $10.8B of an opioid fortune built on OxyContin
#40What this family did was pure evil, they should all be in jail not negotiating a settlement that will leave them financially secure and amongst the richest Americans. Imagine if this scenario played out in China.
I imagine a couple ways this would play out in china 1. nobody ever hears nor finds out anything because it's all kept within the party. 2. they are publically shamed and they are sent to a re-education camp never to be seen or heard again. my 2 cents...
Where would you likely get away with this crime? In a system where you must strike a deal with a party that must maintain loyalty to ideological principles most violated by your crime? Or in a system like ours, where you must strike a deal with some prosecutors? The chief concerns of these prosecutors is so often their conviction rates, public optics, and personal careers.
The political structure in the west encourage these kinds of crimes. If you can exploit millions to make billions then you can settle in the event of criminal persecution, hire a pr firm to take care of public optics, and donate generously to parties in power to ensure that the pesky prosecutor/attorney-general is sufficiently motivated not to attempt to make an example out of you.