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

501–510 of 572 posts

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

#501

Post by vmception »

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…

The government spends so much energy preventing monopolies that they don't want to be responsible for creating them.

I'm serious, this guides decisions with Attorney Generals.

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

#502

Post by s1artibartfast »

ashtonkem wrote: post #458
s1artibartfast wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on the the advice is. I don't see a big problem with "This would make you a bunch of money, but you should have your lawyers look at it" or "this will make you a bunch of money, but has a high legal risk". If the advice is: "this is illegal, and here is how to avoid getting caught" then I could see that being a crime.

You are adding requirements and escape clauses to the federal charge of conspiracy that are not actually in the law. Here is the relevant text of 18 U.S. Code § 371: > If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the cons…

Yeah, I agree with you. You would have to show intent to do something criminal at the core of it. I’m not sure that’s there for McKenzie.

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

#503

Post by Geminidog »

smabie wrote: post #484
Geminidog wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very possible for everyone to be guilty. We don't live in a world where if something isn't "useful" it isn't true. Your statement ends up reading sort of like "Is every Nazi guilty of the holocaust?" Technically maybe not, doesn't change the fact that of the matter that overall all Nazis are guilty. You can't run away from this with some garbage statement of "Not a very useful perspective." This incident literal…

I'm not unaware I have been very personally affected by the opioid crisis. And I don't think the pharma companies are responsible. I haven't met a single opiate addict (and I've met far too many for one lifetime) who blames pharma companies. They accurately place the blame on themselves.

And I know people who have been effected by big pharma. Anecdotal evidence doesn't fly in the face of a journalistic documentary. There's tons of docs on the crisis and the blame is squarely on big pharma.

Do some searching there's tons of articles/video interviews on addicts who got addicted because of pain killers. Here's one: https://www.healthline.com/health/doctor-addicted-opioids

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

#504

Post by leesalminen »

jessaustin wrote: post #487
nitrogen wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you're saying. There's a huge space of possibilities that are completely invisible to the current system. But I disagree weakly with the second to last sentence, and strongly with the last sentence. The system we have cannot be changed via the methods it allows, however. Not all at once, that's for sure. But the right small changes early on can lead to very large changes later. Some of those…

Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme. If that weren't the case, we would have found a way to accomplish them already. Your "conservative" aunt won't like the changes we need any more than your "liberal" uncle will. News media firms are owned by people who like and propagandize in favor of the current system. It isn't important that all Americans like each other. In our current situation, 95% of American…

> Changes for the better will necessarily be extreme.

It’s long been my loosely held belief that _extreme_ change to a political system will _necessarily_ harm the average citizen. I think history has shown that to be true fairly consistently.

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

#505

Post by minikites »

ergocoder wrote: post #463
gnulinux wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's allow all big companies to do whatever the fuck they want, because otherwise "our economy would fall apart"? This is the darkest comment I read on HN.

I don't think we should fine the company. It should be the execs who signed off serving time in prison instead.

I think we should do both.

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

#506

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Supermancho wrote: post #493
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the contrary, it would create opportunity for actually well-run businesses that benefits the customer to take their place

> it would create opportunity for actually well-run businesses that benefits the customer to take their place This assumes that you have a functional society after say...Chase or Nestle or Pfizer or Boeing or Disney, etc becomes insolvent. You will lose more than a decade in churn as the monopolies (enough that they can dictate legislative agendas) leave huge gaps that are inevitably filled with instability. The "goo…

They dont need to be good, they need to have real competition and realisation that is they break the law they will be slapped hard

Also, we wont have functional society without Dysney and Nestle? What, society will collapse if we run out of chocolates and movies? People won't have diabetes?

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

#507

Post by nitrogen »

minikites wrote: post #480
nitrogen wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you're saying. There's a huge space of possibilities that are completely invisible to the current system. But I disagree weakly with the second to last sentence, and strongly with the last sentence. The system we have cannot be changed via the methods it allows, however. Not all at once, that's for sure. But the right small changes early on can lead to very large changes later. Some of those…

>When I'm saying we need to bridge the gap between left and right, I'm not saying we need to preserve the status quo exactly as it is. The Democrats have been trying to bridge the gap for 30 years and the Republicans keep spitting in their face (Newt Gingrich in the 90s, the entire party vs Obama in the 00s). The Democrats seem to have finally figured this out and Republicans are now upset that it isn't working any m…

We have about as much chance of changing politicians by talking about their parties as we do of changing the outcome of a sporting event by yelling harder for our favorite team at the (30-second-delayed) TV.

Maybe we should be more interested in what people can do, than what politicians can't.

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

#508

Post by closeparen »

cycomanic wrote: post #412
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?

It's funny how these sort of questions are always being used to counter a safety net for the poor, but at the same time nobody does anything about rampant tax evasion and avoidance, which is much much more money.

It's an implementation question. It's one of the reasons we give people services instead of cash.

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

#509

Post by londons_explore »

m00x wrote: post #483
londons_explore wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem a rather gaping hole in our legal/finance system that it's possible for a company to do a risky thing where the upside will occur soon, yet the downside will be delayed many years. Then the shareholders of the company can take out all the profits of the upside, walk away with all the cash and declare the company bankrupt when the downside happens. I think the only proper fix would be to disallow companie…

This doesn't make any sense. If the investors got money on the upside, they must've taken their investments out before the bankruptcy. Then if the remaining investors pay the debts, they've also lost all the money they invested. Where do you draw the line for investors responsible? Anyone who's still in? Whoever was ever in?

It's a bit like taking over someone's lease for a house mid way through...

If there is damage when you take it over, you better ask the person you're taking over the lease from to pay for it, cos else it's gonna be blamed on you and you'll have to pay for it...

The same translates to buying shares with my proposal - you better inspect what you're taking on, because there might be costs associated.

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

#510

Post by AshWolfy »

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…

The planet was destroyed, but for a short time we made a lot of money for a few rich people
Post reply on HN