A lot of “knowledge work” now (like consulting) is just a grift to justify high income because prior justifications - like front-line labor - got exported from “developed” countries to slave-wage “developing” countries due to the global hegemony of their currencies.
Yeah. That report shows data saying people want both to feel valued and belonging, and also want to make good money in a fair system. Not one or the other. Instead, they report that people care more about feeling valued than money so clearly money doesn't matter
I go to the gas station and there is gas. Food at the stores. Huge selection of everything everywhere. I have a world of libraries in my hand. Somebody is doing something right. They might be anuses, but they are smart anuses.
As far as I know they also surveyed employers and then compared the answers of employees and employers. And that comparison resulted in the matrix shown in the video. And I feel like many do not understand what that is saying. Example: Employees might value income twice as much as a sense of belonging. However, employers might think that employees value it three times as much. That would mean that employers overestimate the imporance of pay. But still, everybody involved knows that pay is more important. It´s just that, according to the emplyoee, employers thought pay would be even more important than it actually is. Just saying that McKinsey is in the wrong here is not right.
Got my a very good polisci degree, did internships and started as a government consultant for one of the big 4. TRULY THE EFFING WORST. 3 years into it, I made good money but I hated is so much. It's even worse than you might think. Now I am a political consultant for a union. Still well paid and I can finally look myself in the mirror again.
@Ruben. Good for you 👍 when you can look yourself in the mirror, and know your helping the little person stand up to a bully, that’s good. The Union is a good place to start. I belong to a Union myself also-Solidarity!!
I used to be a health insurance executive focused on maximizing the profits of the company, but now I work in healthcare consulting with lobbyists who make sure universal healthcare in the US will never get passed. I want to support the socialist cause, but these are my only skills and I don't want to be poor =\
I am absolutely not surprised. It has been a known fact that Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission President and former German Defense minister had/has very close relation to a certain consulting firm.
Thats crazy. I never realised europe was that corrupt. In the US we always hear about places more socialist in europe. We have such a huge problem here in the US that I am sure my country is beyond repair. Maybe a split between east and west maybe but that's best case scenario
@@kylealexander7024 Richard Wolff criticized a main stream media outlet for calling the new german chancellor a "socialdemocrat" instead of a "socialists" wich he is according to Wolff. The problem is Wolff obviously has no clue about the new chancellor "Olaf Scholz". He got criticized for having "memory gaps" about meeting with a bank which was involved in a mayor scandal during the time he was finance minister. When he was major of hamburg he implemented the use of Potential deadly laxative against suspected drug dealers which killed one person. Ursula Von der Leyen was the german defence minister before her office as Commision president.
@@muffinfighter3680 I mean, just looks at some of their ideas for anything kind of legislation concerning the internet. Article 17 anyone? That one reeked of corruption from far, far away. And it is just the tip of the iceberg in what has been happening over recent years. The problem is that due to how the EU is set up, some countries hold a disproportionate amount of power when compared to the rest, France chief among them. It is enough with just one of them being corrupt for the whole Union to feel the effects of that.
Consulting firms being so present in government functions is the best example of how neoliberalism is not about making a smaller state but actually making a state in service of the market and corporations
Are you aware that neoliberalism is the believe of Gouvernement inventions in markets? I think this video shows how little most people do understand of how the business world works
It always makes my head spin how someone who is struggling to make ends meet i.e. living with the constant anxiety of starvation or exposure to the elements is made to bend over backwards for the most meagre of assistance (in terms of paperwork) which is enough to make people give up, while when it comes to these big sums of money they just disappear into a black hole with no accountability whether the "service"/"contract" is fulfilled
They also force the poor to pay back any "extra" money or assistance received. Whether they used it or not. Whether it was their fault or not. They did it recently with the covid unemployment.
It makes sense though. The end effect supports dominant powers, by crunching the poor, so the steps leading up to it are shaped by that. At best they're ignorantly made, but more commonly made maliciously. There's no or often negative incentives to have people "do less" to get help, and the people who decide how much they need to do have no idea. The people making these policies have likely never even filled them out, let alone used them or will be using them repeatedly. So there's zero downside, to them, to add "just one small thing" or leave the parts that are "slightly confusing or tricky" and often the easiest way to do what their superiors want is to "just add it in". Those who make these processes also aren't anything like those who will be doing so. As a white collar corporate/government person you've spent thousands of hours doing paperwork and forms, in addition to countless work around this like making/adjusting forms for others. We're basically all masters of paperwork, and especially those in mid-high level government, so we take an enormous amount of the work for granted vs people who haven't spent several hours a day 5x a week doing random paperwork. Similarly the people getting this feedback, who aren't even the decision makers, are also paperwork experts so they naturally discredit it.
Sometimes, the goverment needs the input of lobby groups on some decisions because they can't be knowledgebale about everything. Lobby influence can get out of Hand fast. Transparency, oversight and boundaries are needed.
This is the 'Who's A Pretty Boy' Scam. It's very simple. 1. The government gives X amount of money to consultants or private sector provider. Which it splits into amounts A, B, and C. 2. The Provider spends A amount on doing the job 3. The Provider pockets B amount 4. The Provider hold C amount back as a future 'reward' for the politicians that got them the contract in the first place. Letting the private sector in will always result in this kind of corruption. Always.
@@gemmapeter7173 Yes. It's the one about Desmond and the parrot. There is however a subplot involving the Nag's Head's new landlord, Mike. He needs to get the place done up, and the brew has given him a two grand budget. He's already found a bloke that will do it for half that, but Del Boy has a better idea. He takes Mike to one side and makes him the following offer:- 1. You tell the brewer that I, Derek Trotter for do the job for £2,000. 2. You keep £500 of it 3. I keep £500 of it 4. We get that guy you've just found to do it for £1,000 5. Who's a pretty boy then? 6. Episode ends
I had a discussion with someone deeply impacted by consulting groups, the issue is that those are consulted by bypassing the country's professors/intelectuals and skilled workers, and the problem is those people then feel worthless and it makes everything worse for everyone but the pockets of those consulting groups. Edit: It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the consulting group says "look, we are private, we are so much better than national workers that you already pay, you should save money (and give it to us instead) by laying off people and cutting social funding." This makes these civil servants not work as hard anymore since their work is unapreciated, which then makes the consulting groups right.
Here in Brazil they learned something even worst, some services are practically impossible to cut, and undermining it won't work, so they got a brilliant idea, which is not to substitute the public services with private one, but to maintain public, assume the management and profit directly from the government contracts, to make it even better, they overpriced everything and do the worst service possible, doing the exact thing they say the state actually do, but the new narrative is not: "the state is inefficient" is: "better that than nothing"
@Bazin spot on. I work at a University, and what you stated applies so well. They’ve tried to privatize out, but failed, but still not given up. They deliberately give out bad performance evaluations to staff, and faculty, who politically oppose their consulting group ideas. The school administration, school president, the board, have sold out with the state politicians who are neoliberal, Republican, libertarian, who support billionaires, and also who have accepted Koch Bros. money. They have also hired 4 employees directly hand picked from the Koch Bros. In the political/economics department to consult/advise M-F. They keep hurling more work load, on fewer employees backs, for positions they don’t replace. And, the Koch Bros, bi-monthly have, anti-Socialism, anti-communist, lecture circuit speakers on campus. They always remind their employees of their station in work place, and of the university’s power to always win every dispute in the end.
As someone who is part of this industry, I feel a horrible sense of guilt all the time. I know we are being paid by big banks, corporations, and us federal departments to promote capitalistic ideals framed as social justice. I hate it, and yet, it’s the first job I’ve ever had that pays me a decent salary to support my family as a single mom. I am way down the totem pole, and most of my coworkers are true believers when it comes to ending poverty. But it didn’t take me long to see what we’re really doing. You can’t partner with the same places that are hurting the poor everyday and expect any real, tangible good to come out of it. Anytime you hear of a corporation giving a lot of money and energy into socially conscious initiatives, you should be very suspect of what they’re doing. Their true motives are only to benefit themselves, or worse, sabotage any real change that might hurt their bottom line.
There is a reason they way you well. Same reason why banks give such high salaries and bonuses to their peons. They can't steal the wealth from society and use it to steal more if they have no sociopaths to do the real work for them. Also, the more they hire the more momentum they get making it harder for them to stop precisely because of people like you who will take the easy money and look the other way. It's nice to trick yourself with the "ending poverty" while you are actually creating it. Yeah, sure, temporarily ending poverty for yourself while causing it for thousands of others. We used to call it theft but now it's "capitalism".
The outcome depends on who is hiring a consultancy firm. Consultants analyze the wants and needs of their clients. A right-wing government will get right-wing advice and a left-wing government will get left-wing advice. If they are worth their salt of course.
I know how you feel. My wife is The Supreme Commander of The Washington Navy Yard; and she admits that she's working under the most horrid and most vile beings on Earth aka "The Military Industrial Complex". Even though she is completely against it, she knows that she doesn't have any other choice due to inflation, tax-hikes on the poor and poverty-stricken (like myself), and increases in rent and significantly higher eviction rates. She hates it with every single bit of her being because she's fully aware of the horrid practices that "The Military Industrial Complex" does; and yes, they are indeed the worst of the worst. They literally sabotage any real change that WILL inevitably hurt their own bottom line. At this rate, she says that "The Military Industrial Complex" is getting desperate because they KNOW that the people are beginning to open their eyes to the truth of our reality. This is why they're desperately trying to have BOTH a war with China and Mother Russia (soon-to-be "The Soviet Union"). They're trying to get every single dollar they can get out of these so called "Proxy Wars" so to speak. It's because she care for me dearly that she's stubbornly hanging on because she doesn't want me out in the streets with absolutely nothing. In a nutshell, if I was out in the streets with absolutely nothing, then I wouldn't be able to spread the word of truth and "rebellious disobedience against authority". So indeed, I know how you feel. T_T
There's a wider aspect of this that I feel was missed: consulting is more or less the praxis of the supermanagerial class. I think they're worth highlighting because they are the economic foot soldiers of neoliberal capitalism.
well, is it more, or is it less? it's indeed wholly ideological, but is it necessary to the ongoing concern, or would this continue without it? it's a legitimizing function for sure, but the neoliberal project would continue in even more brutal forms without it. it's a numbing agent, one that i think is beneficial to the neoliberal operation, but not critical to the point that it couldn't happen without it. this whole thing would obviously be less powerful without propaganda, but forcement mechanisms still work without propaganda, albeit are less effective. the praxis of the financial managerial class is police funding, and military funding. take that away, and their programs are less enforceable.
@@ethanstump not quite. The supermanagerial class has a unique but incredibly useful function under the neoliberal project: they prolong it. Without them, the project collapses into socialist revolution as the contradictions of capitalism spiral out of control. This isn't dissimilar to what JT was saying, but the thing I feel was missed was how they do it - and it's through carrot and stick. The SM class trades on their connections and experience in the business world promising access and expertise; the threat implied is that yeah, you could do this yourself... but do you really know what you're doing?
@@tbdaemon I totally agree, however what i am saying is that in this case, the show will go on even without the carrot. even without the vast manufacturing of consent, militarization still happens, and through numerous cases, such as in jakarta in the 60's, just the stick has been necessary to quell revolution. while the bourgeoise much prefer to use the carrot of manipulation and propaganda, it's not critical to use it, but the violence of militarization is critical. it's the generals that are the functional pillar of our jenga tower of a bureaucracy, and our bureaucracy couldn't be maintained without them, while our bureaucracy could be maintained without the ideological economic leaders. your totally right that propaganda is their praxis, using the carrot and stick method, however i am suggesting we focus on the more effective of their two tools, which is militarism. militarism is effective both when used on a passive and active population, while propaganda only works on a passive population. thus the praxis of the bureaucracy is militarism. focusing on limiting the effectiveness of the military and the police in quashing dissent will bear far more fruit than focusing on limiting the effectiveness of propogandists such as lobbyists and consultants. that's not to say that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, as it is to understand our priorities, and that we must be far more effective at anti militarism than we currently are.
This channel is strong, bitter medicine. A part of me feels it's not helping me but I must know how bad things are. We're in for hard times in many places.
I think being informed does help. Because the more informed we are, the more we can make others aware. Spreading class consciousness is one of the single most influential things you can do for the cause, and that gives me purpose.
Been confronting the issue of people telling me "You can't change the world so why do you even care about this?". They are correct. World change is not done by one hand. It is done by many and the direction is decided by what those people do. Keep educating yourself. This is helping, it will just never be at the pace we wish it to. KEEP GOING.
Whether or not you do anything to change anything even if you could, it's not a bad idea to at least know where you are. If you were riding on the back of a motorcycle with a mad person driving toward a brick wall, you might want to at least know you are on a motorcycle. Or maybe not.
*Did you know Mckinsey represented opioids AND the FDA at the same time? They were figuring out how to promote opioids while figuring out how to fix the opioid crisis at the same time*
I believe it. I had wrist surgery three years ago. I had no pain when I was released the next day. I had four different prescriptions for pain medication and in the massive packet of paperwork from the hospital was one page warning of the dangers of opioids.
There's a history of McKinsey called The Firm. Very dry stuff, but the author writes that the primary function of these types of consultants is to add legitimacy to a decision the c-suite was already going to take and then take the blame if it fails. Scapegoat as a service.
Thank you for covering this, this scandal didn't last long enough here in France. By the way, it's nice being able to put a face with the voice of the channel
@@Direblade11 Effectively there is a particular class of personality types motivated by the need to gain power influence and wealth which is drawn towards positions of power. The worst of them generally have little to no empathy only caring about their image and or their wealth and their role in facilitating the lording and abuse of power over others. This means that the people who want power are those which can never be trusted with it because they will be naturally inclined to use it to inflict harm for their self esteem justifying it with whatever flimsy arguments they can to get their way. These people naturally will never have any incentive to reform the system except as a lie to allow them to further break and exploit the system. They are in terms of the larger societal network parasites frankly it is a conundrum which is hard to conceive a work around for establishing a functional electoral government where people are elected to office as representatives. We need an alternative say an electoral system where votes are made by issues and more direct feedback is able to be input into the system. I'm not sure how such a thing would be able to be done but an iterative evidence based process that accounts for the internal tendency for closed systems to increase in entropy concentrating wealth into the hands of the few eventually maximizing inequality within the system.
Reading “The Privatization of Everything”, Cohen & Mikaelian. It hits on how much of our public goods have been left to contractors and consultants to manage, with mixed to bad results and far more priority on profit than providing a useful good or service to the public.
Hey second thought, I usually do not comment on your videos but this one hits too close to home. I work for Caf (the institution in charge of housing assistance in France, among other things) and the reform in january 2021 really hit us hard. In some cases, the financial help for housing was not paid and people had to pay back previously paid amounts because the new software didn't work. We had to regularise each situation manually, which is really tedious, and it only happened when people contacted us. This is why the processing delays have increased so much. The new computer system isn't really more technical, but it was put in place as it was not fully finished and functional. To this day, some demands do not appear on our program and this makes recipients lose the housing assistance for some months. Thank you for talking about that topic. The rise of consulting companies has real life impacts on poor families and should be taken very seriously.
Meanwhile in Australia, one of the Labor Party's policies is to get rid of the significant consultant glut and hire cheaper full time government workers. They are favoured to win the election this upcoming weekend.
If it is cheaper, I hope it’s not too cheap. Because if they aren’t paying full time government workers enough, nothing is stopping those same workers from moving to the private sector.
@@MajorPickleSwag "If it is cheaper, I hope it’s not too cheap." It's probably a lot cheaper, 'cause those consultants are really really expensive. Which is why the whole idea of outsourcing work to consultants is so utterly insane. Yes, it does look good on paper because those consultants aren't directly on your payroll and can, at least in theory, be hired or fired at a moments notice. But the hourly pay for the work you're getting done is much higher that if you had simply hired a full-time employee to do the same job. "Because if they aren’t paying full time government workers enough, nothing is stopping those same workers from moving to the private sector." Indeed, and that's a big problem. Many will, egged on by the idea that money is everything, be aiming for a high paying job in the private sector, thus leaving the public sector struggling to keep up. This, of course, becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Starve the public sector, see the best and brightest go into the private sector, then claim that this proves that the public sector simply doesn't work. Straight out of the hard-right no-holds-bared capitalism handbook.
I work in environmental consulting as an ecologist and our company hired a consulting company to poll us to see how they could be better. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of compensation increases, better healthcare, or anything like that. Turns out we all just want to hang out together more! Something that is completely meaningless to me.
@@alynames7171 my consulting company is not in the same vein as those in the video, but we identify ecological resources for construction projects and things like that, as well as coordinate waterway permitting.
"Turns out we all just want to hang out together more! Something that is completely meaningless to me." A smart consultant tells his client what that client wants to hear. And a CEO certainly does not want to hear anything about increased wages or other such nonsense.
I am graduating with an ecology degree and the one thing I don't want to do is consulting. It seems that, at least here in the UK, you just end up enabling corporations to build instead of conserving nature.
@@solarpunkalana I hope you find exactly what you want to do. The majority of my projects are for our department of transportation and bridge repairs since I do aquatic ecology.
There's some irony in the fact that these companies spend more money on 'union avoidance' consulting than they would actually providing a livable wage and good benefits to their employees. Another nail in the coffin of the "The 'free' market is more efficient!" argument.
I would imagine it makes financial sense for them. Worker organizing can lead to a whole lot more than just wage increases, so they probably figure it's better to pay someone to ensure there's no risk of militant workers struggle.
Yes, those controlling supply eg oil and food, making 100s of billions in windfall profits through this latest iteration of disaster capitalism while 100s of millions suffer. Never mind the instruments of death/ weapons industry. And what do our govts do...nothing. Incremental measures at most. They will not regulate. Who said neoliberalism is dead. It seems stronger, more rapacious than ever. Just because you name the devil it doesnt mean you kill it
this makes a lot of sense given how much our government (australia) has gutted federal departments and services "for cost saving" and then just outsourced it all to consultancy firms... which charge even more money? election tomorrow though :D
In Oz since the start of this fiscal year, July 1 2021, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, EY and McKinsey have a combined total of over $1.545B in Federal tenders. Over 1065 contracts with an additional 408 amendments. DoD has almost $700M in contracts alone, next closest is Health Dept with a lowly $112M. It's a revolving door here between Govt and consulting firms.
As a French citizen I'm really happy that you brought this subject up because unfortunately it has not been mentioned enough over here in France and if it had, then Macron would not have been re-elected. To all the points you mentioned, I'm going to add one more : my government shared confidential informations about my country with an American firm and to me that is not acceptable. The ideologie probleme goes far beyond the only economical and social injustice, but also creates international manipulations and control (that's called imperialism and it is why Russia has entered war against Ukraine). How can I tell that the "counseling" Mac Kinsey gave to Macron isn't directly given from the white house ? Anyway this comment is addressing for you directly, thank you for covering the subject.
It's always bothered me... "What do you do?" "I'm a consultant." **insert vague, corporate, fake, ass fuckery here** Consulting is literally the most bullshit job that exists. At the end of the day, all they do is give advice and get paid gobs of money for it. Wow. Way to benefit society. I get legions more value out of the person handing me my Whopper. I hate that it's a profession, and I hate that it's the way for "an executive to look like they are employed" when they are between jobs. It's literally so stupid and so fake and I cannot stand it.
Whenever your company hires a consultant to review their business and management, best believe the consultants will recommend cutting labor costs to protect executives paychecks.
Sometimes i get so frustrated at all this, because, yes, we know this is happening, but also there's nothing we- the normal, powerless working class can do, to combat this. Like, how the heck do we topple these consulting firms? Yet, they can destroy my existence in a bill-bit. This makes me feel very vulnerable... Also, isn't adding 'gate' to any conspiracy, a Murican thing? Lmao
At a certain point, the solution is war if the oligarchs and their lackeys don’t end tyranny and represent their citizens general welfare. It really sucks, but a lot of people will probably have to die to strip power from the oligarchs, because the oligarchs are the state and the state has a lot of supporters. We may not even win when that day comes; there is no guarantees that humanity isn’t in store for another millennia of tyranny, state violence, and state sanctioned oppression. It will take a lot to make people snap back, but there is a point where that is exactly what will happen.
There is something we can do. Workers hold all the power in society, because it's we who produce everything that society needs to run. If we organize, and collectively decide to stop following the capitalists' laws, there's no way they can enforce them. Even though police tend to be very reactionary, they still needs cars, fuel, food etc.
As a current consultant and one of said mentioned firms this is pretty informative and accurate information and definitely food for thought on my industry
In my country South Africa McKinsey was intrinsically involved in state corruption or what we call state capture which has set back our social and economic development by decades.
Me who is french and follow the politics on the daily, im amazed at the topics second thoughts chose. Not only they are recents but also very relevant to the political debate we have in france these days. Great work
Ursula von der Leyen, former defense minister of Germany and current President of the European Commission used back when she acted as defense minister, millions of Euros on consultants and advisors with the supposed intention to help better the rather lackluster Bundeswehr. It was the same company named McKinsey. It didn’t help improve the military at all and so millions in taxpayer money were wasted. Specifically up to 20 Million Euros, if I remember correctly. It made some waves obviously, but it wasn’t enough to get her out politics entirely. Instead, I repeat, she is now President of the European Commission.
His annoyance about it described why "gate" is put on ever scandal. The "gate" informs people that this is about a scandal/some injustice. Blame humans for linguistics. I don't like hashtags or emojis, and I have to live with them
This is such an important and telling video - all of these Ivy League school grads going straight into consulting because that’s what “successful people” do - they literally make money by directly screwing over the labor class. Success in America is screwing over labor as much as legally possibly to extract surplus labor power
Consultancy may not be a scam through and through, but at the very least it can be said that these consultancy firms are very duplicitous in nature. Kudos for bringing awarenesses of this to the unsuspecting about consultancy firms' ultimate purpose.
Under the last US President, McKinsey also "helped ICE find 'detention savings opportunities' - including some that the agency’s staff viewed as too harsh on immigrants." Quote from a ProPublica headline.
We can make fire department also run by private companies just like Rome did in ancient time. Up coming Roman emperors had such private privileges. One owned the fire department who would not put out your home’s fire unless they were paid. After the fire the owner of the fire department would now bye your damaged house at a very low rate. In fact it was suspected the fire department was setting some of these fires. This made the best upcoming Roman emperor rich and powerful.
The free market isn't freeing. Casting things to the market just means profit matters more than people. Owning stuff is more important than the wellbeing of self, others, community, and world.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet its the same to how people forgot about the contreversy with nestle's milk campaigns that killed many babies in poor countries as they competed against mother's milk by selling their milk as a better substitute, by having fake nurses and doctors advertise their milk, they then made some weird advertisement campaign that erased it out of the public's mind, though its still going on, mroe subtle ofcourse
the "free market" only works to enslave the working class! if you let people who care about nothing except profit do whatever they want, they will steal rob and murder as long as it makes the line go up
Also our personal property is endangered: as common people gets poorer isn't going to afford houses, cars, toothbrushes... we can't even have full property of the value of what we directly produce.
I worked briefly at entry level in one of the largest consulting firms and I found that they're great with show and outside appearance but behind all of it, the operations, is as dirty or low as a small office/business, dependent on low wage remote workers but huge revenues on consulting/outsourcing/etc..
As a frenchman I'm so pissed that Macron got reelected despite this and all other scandals. It should have been a big deal but it hasn't. To further sour my mood, radical left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came super close to getting in the runoffs against macron (about 300k votes), and he definitely wouldn't have let this slide in the debates
Well like your last election, it was Macron or LePen…can’t believe those two somehow faced off again, but not much of a choice sadly. Same here in the US. Trump or Clinton? Clinton. Trump or Biden? Biden. I’ll take the indifferent, “not actively making the country burn” choice every time. Does that non-choice suck? Absolutely.
@@jenniferhiemstra5228 It is the insidious nature of the binary bad choice pair your desired corrupt politician up with an absolute monster so you can maximize the chance of winning to keep parasitizing the vestigial remnants of government funneling the wealth of the world into the few oligarchs at the top of the ladder (maximizing the economic entropy in the same way as black holes do funneling all mass into their horizons surrounded by the endless void as they evaporate to nothing). In essence it is the same process at play in both systems as entropy applies to any informational system and if you look at the consequences of path dependence on forcing internal consistency within the Einstein field equations the laws of thermodynamics can be seen to be equivalent to enforcing internal consistency of solutions. We need an equal and opposite societal force to oppose the economic concentration of wealth. This will always cost something more than you can get out of it i.e. it will never be profitable, that is enforced by the second law of thermodynamics but there are other metrics where other forms of "wealth" i.e. energy can be inputted into the system because the financial system is not closed (the Sun is a source of low entropy energy)
It's the same thing with hedge funds, sort of. Like how they buy out mobile-home parks only to raise the rents. Vice News did a short documentary on it.
I read Winners Take All before I heard of and subscribed to your channel. Glad you put it and him, Anand that is, in this video. You definitely do your homework bro.
What a coincidence! The city I work for just announced the consulting firm that will be selecting our new City Manager. I've learned that most big decisions in local government are made by consulting firms to give the perception of neutrality.
Wish i didn't have ADD and could sit there for hours without being distracted by something else more stimulating and create content to help spread the message. This shit is so debilitating. Its either that or i know what i have to do, have the ideas in my head, but literally cant get myself to do it, all while getting ever more anxious that im not doing it. I really appreciate what you do. Honestly.
I've got ADHD myself, yes it's really hard to absorb a lot of content, but I found it's best to watch this stuff while I'm relaxing, or listen to his podcast on a long car ride
@@pewpewentertainment6858 for me the listening part isnt hard, it provides the extra stimulation i need to function properly at work. Its the doing part that i get stuck on.
@@pewpewentertainment6858 oddly enough im a little better when it comes to organizing work. But making content is like a pipe dream for me because i just cant seem to get myself to do it.
I hate how consulting is a catch all for external assistance. I am a Consultant Inspector, as my firm hires us out to companies and entities who require inspection work to be done. We also do LEED Consulting, Risk Analysis, Schedule Analysis, Project Delivery, all things dealing with construction. We do not deal with the worker/human side, as that is the realm of the owner, but we deal with design, energy efficiency, sustainability and items like that.
yeah same here - im technically an IT/software consultant... but really im a software developer, im just doing work for whatever company hires our assistance
Hi SecondThought, wunderful video and nice new format! It's always nice to watch you disassemble neoliberalism. But do you also plan on covering the risk of opportunism and social democratic, keynesian reformism?
Thank you again for highlighting that problem. I was instantly reminded of Ursula von der Leyen the current president of the European Commission and former Defense Minister of Germany and her quite numerous scandals about hiring consultants for everything.
Amazing video , comrade! The Corporate Influence on socioeconomic and political life of people is very egregious to see. The powerful corporate entities are a major threat to structural foundations of Democracy, Liberty and Equality. The Regressive Oligarchs come to Third World Countries in the name of "investment" and "development" but they, in reality, they just come here to deprive the masses of resources. They have severely disrupted the environment here and due to them, the present right wing government has loosened India's labour laws leading to huge exploitation of the working class. In India, there's a huge cheap labour market, and people are ready to work at wages which are less than the minimum wages because there is an intense competition to get employment. The Unholy Nexus between the Statist Bureaucratic Cronies and Multinational Capitalist Bourgeoisie has emerged in India. The Ruling Class of the present Right Wing party uses ultranationalist hindu populist rhetoric to win votes of the Hindus and this has led to a huge division of Indian working class across religious and caste lines. I get a lot of hope from people like you. The Proletariats are the authentic representatives of the revolution. Viva'La Revolution! Long Live Leftist Ideology!
Bruh, you commies destroying kerala, west bengal. I am from west bengal and communism is the worst stuff that happened to WB, I am way happier in Tamil Nadu were I get to work in industries, While in Waste Bengal you can spend your time on killing political opponents or sucking up to CPI(M)(ML)(MLM) or TMC.
@@revolutionaryape7568 Look I get it corporates are upto no good, but saying capitalism bad makes shopkeepers, stall workers basically any work done in exchange for capital bad, even slavoj agrees that leftist haven't been able to come up with alternative system, if they come up with a good one, I will gladly become a leftist, till then I will stay in the classic libertarian.
The consultant rot is also prevalent in the UK. At almost every level of government in every department there are consultants and some of them are actually provided by one of the big consulting firms for free. These consultants are involved in drafting legislation and advise on contracts. Of course the fact that the stuff they produce frequently ends up directly benefiting the company they work for I'm sure is a complete coincidence.
Some things not touched upon but important to note is that, if politicians *listen* to these reports made by consultants, there's a good to fair chance that there's a seat waiting for them when they get out of office, not at all dissimilar to lobbying, big corporations, banking boards, you name it. There's an implicit incentive for people in the public sector who deal with consultancy firms to be agreeable to them, if they intend to get further ahead in life. Another thing, which is especially relevant in Europe, is the role of consultants and lobbyists in the EU. The EU has about 23.000 civil servants- about the same amount as the port of Rotterdam does. They are woefully understaffed for any and all policy making, so they rely heavily on information provided by think tanks, consultancy firms and lobbyist. Now, it has to be said that research has shown that the EU is far more likely to draft laws in accordance with the will of grassroots civil society organizations than it is in accordance with the will of corporations, but this is another place where consultants can exercise outsized influence.
I know it's been played out, but could you do a video on Melvan capital and Ken Griffin gambling away teachers pensions on shorting stocks then blaming retail for losing money? I know BCG is also involved.
Don't even get me started on the labor practice and pay theft in entertainment. There are union for acting and film acting. The ones for everyone else are too small to have power and they're often excluded from the larger body of unions. visual artists, (seamstresses, prop, furniture, costume designers, dancers, models, etc. ) Tend to suffer from these bigger social issues and people don't think we deserve to be legitimized as a profession ☝️🤔.
We have the same issue in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador on the most east coast of Canada. Wouldn’t be surprised if this is rampant elsewhere in the world too and we just don’t know about it yet
I really like that you started appearing more in front of the camera in your videos. Don't get me wrong, your videos and narrations have always been too good, objective, and unlike many who are just extended arms of propaganda on one side or the other, you have always been reliable, someone who will pour the truth in your face, no matter as it was, and against whose interest it is, as long as it is in the interest of the people. But like this, when we can see you, and look you in the eye as you talk to us, the video only gains in weight and credibility. Congratulations, you are doing a great job my friend, and you are still my favorite American political and social analyst. I wish you many more successes and subscribers. Best wishes from Serbia, Europe.
I want everyone to Search for Yanis Varoufakis, Former Greek Finance Minister and Noam Chomsky NYPL ( New York Public Library) discussion. Here Varoufakis mentions a Euro Group which consists of firms and businesses and mentions how it is the group which stamps EU policies.
That excerpt from the report says executives should listen to their employees more. Nothing is stopping them from asking to be part of a worker's co-op. Let's direct some culpability that way too.
dude, seriously, you guys shoud link your channels on the deprogram... I forgot what your channel was called and spent a lot of time searching for it, even though im subscribed!
This is the first time I hear of this. No public radio talked of this during the French election. At least they called out what La Pen actually believes.
I was working for a marketing budget review company (one of many different careers I’ve had) and somehow ended up in a meeting where one of the big consulting firms was being charged with reducing the national health bill by nearly 20%. The cost of their work was nearly 2% of the budget. That was supposedly a one-off but still. I was disgusted. Sure, this was all legal, sure the government was pushing an austerity schtick, but this was in the UK where the NHS is almost sacred and the plans were to use 2% of the NHS budget to cut the NHS budget by 20%. I was never invited to more meetings (perhaps my displeasure was obvious) but neither was I disciplined or anything like that. I suppose they didn’t want a fuss. My company wasn’t even moved on, it just went completely quiet from my POV.
A lot of “knowledge work” now (like consulting) is just a grift to justify high income because prior justifications - like front-line labor - got exported from “developed” countries to slave-wage “developing” countries due to the global hegemony of their currencies.
TayZonday omfg I can’t believe it, you’re a fan of Second Thought?! ❤️🖤
Middle management is the other titan of grifting like this, but spot on dude!
BasedZonday
the cultural hegemony imo is much worse than their financial or even physical hegemony. replica of US everywhere through mega corps.
Tay is based as fuck he's all over breadtube comment sections
I don't want to feel "valued" as much as I want to feel "fed, clothed, and housed".
Yeah. That report shows data saying people want both to feel valued and belonging, and also want to make good money in a fair system. Not one or the other.
Instead, they report that people care more about feeling valued than money so clearly money doesn't matter
that report was literally "makes them feel like theyre apart of the family"
I go to the gas station and there is gas. Food at the stores. Huge selection of everything everywhere. I have a world of libraries in my hand. Somebody is doing something right. They might be anuses, but they are smart anuses.
As far as I know they also surveyed employers and then compared the answers of employees and employers. And that comparison resulted in the matrix shown in the video. And I feel like many do not understand what that is saying.
Example:
Employees might value income twice as much as a sense of belonging. However, employers might think that employees value it three times as much. That would mean that employers overestimate the imporance of pay. But still, everybody involved knows that pay is more important. It´s just that, according to the emplyoee, employers thought pay would be even more important than it actually is.
Just saying that McKinsey is in the wrong here is not right.
Got my a very good polisci degree, did internships and started as a government consultant for one of the big 4. TRULY THE EFFING WORST. 3 years into it, I made good money but I hated is so much. It's even worse than you might think. Now I am a political consultant for a union. Still well paid and I can finally look myself in the mirror again.
Want to explain some of the, "effing worst," and name names? People should know which entities are fucking them over and how.
@Ruben. Good for you 👍 when you can look yourself in the mirror, and know your helping the little person stand up to a bully, that’s good.
The Union is a good place to start. I belong to a Union myself also-Solidarity!!
I used to be a health insurance executive focused on maximizing the profits of the company, but now I work in healthcare consulting with lobbyists who make sure universal healthcare in the US will never get passed. I want to support the socialist cause, but these are my only skills and I don't want to be poor =\
I’m trying to find myself a niche where my skills are used for good rather than evil. So far, not much luck. Good for you.
@@newbies1 go fc yr mthr
I am absolutely not surprised. It has been a known fact that Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission President and former German Defense minister had/has very close relation to a certain consulting firm.
Thats crazy. I never realised europe was that corrupt. In the US we always hear about places more socialist in europe. We have such a huge problem here in the US that I am sure my country is beyond repair. Maybe a split between east and west maybe but that's best case scenario
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
@@kylealexander7024 Richard Wolff criticized a main stream media outlet for calling the new german chancellor a "socialdemocrat" instead of a "socialists" wich he is according to Wolff. The problem is Wolff obviously has no clue about the new chancellor "Olaf Scholz". He got criticized for having "memory gaps" about meeting with a bank which was involved in a mayor scandal during the time he was finance minister. When he was major of hamburg he implemented the use of Potential deadly laxative against suspected drug dealers which killed one person. Ursula Von der Leyen was the german defence minister before her office as Commision president.
@@kylealexander7024 The EU is in many ways worse than the US :(
@@muffinfighter3680 I mean, just looks at some of their ideas for anything kind of legislation concerning the internet.
Article 17 anyone? That one reeked of corruption from far, far away. And it is just the tip of the iceberg in what has been happening over recent years.
The problem is that due to how the EU is set up, some countries hold a disproportionate amount of power when compared to the rest, France chief among them. It is enough with just one of them being corrupt for the whole Union to feel the effects of that.
Consulting firms being so present in government functions is the best example of how neoliberalism is not about making a smaller state but actually making a state in service of the market and corporations
aka oligarchy
Are you aware that neoliberalism is the believe of Gouvernement inventions in markets?
I think this video shows how little most people do understand of how the business world works
It always makes my head spin how someone who is struggling to make ends meet i.e. living with the constant anxiety of starvation or exposure to the elements is made to bend over backwards for the most meagre of assistance (in terms of paperwork) which is enough to make people give up, while when it comes to these big sums of money they just disappear into a black hole with no accountability whether the "service"/"contract" is fulfilled
They also force the poor to pay back any "extra" money or assistance received. Whether they used it or not. Whether it was their fault or not. They did it recently with the covid unemployment.
It makes sense though. The end effect supports dominant powers, by crunching the poor, so the steps leading up to it are shaped by that. At best they're ignorantly made, but more commonly made maliciously.
There's no or often negative incentives to have people "do less" to get help, and the people who decide how much they need to do have no idea. The people making these policies have likely never even filled them out, let alone used them or will be using them repeatedly. So there's zero downside, to them, to add "just one small thing" or leave the parts that are "slightly confusing or tricky" and often the easiest way to do what their superiors want is to "just add it in". Those who make these processes also aren't anything like those who will be doing so. As a white collar corporate/government person you've spent thousands of hours doing paperwork and forms, in addition to countless work around this like making/adjusting forms for others. We're basically all masters of paperwork, and especially those in mid-high level government, so we take an enormous amount of the work for granted vs people who haven't spent several hours a day 5x a week doing random paperwork. Similarly the people getting this feedback, who aren't even the decision makers, are also paperwork experts so they naturally discredit it.
There should be a French Revolution 2.0.
And yes, I'm advocating for violence: off with their heads.!!!!
SHOCKING FACTS EXPOSED ua-cam.com/video/JSECFCuqJOI/v-deo.html
Agreed
Consulting groups and lobbyists are just a way to launder capitalism.
I get the Porky's butthole joke, by the way. It's the origin story of the Boomhour character.
Sometimes, the goverment needs the input of lobby groups on some decisions because they can't be knowledgebale about everything. Lobby influence can get out of Hand fast. Transparency, oversight and boundaries are needed.
@@shotelco cia agent detected
They destroyed the USA
Buy a dictionary
This is the 'Who's A Pretty Boy' Scam. It's very simple.
1. The government gives X amount of money to consultants or private sector provider. Which it splits into amounts A, B, and C.
2. The Provider spends A amount on doing the job
3. The Provider pockets B amount
4. The Provider hold C amount back as a future 'reward' for the politicians that got them the contract in the first place.
Letting the private sector in will always result in this kind of corruption. Always.
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
Is that a reference to the Only Fools and Horses episode of the same name?
@@gemmapeter7173 Yes. It's the one about Desmond and the parrot. There is however a subplot involving the Nag's Head's new landlord, Mike. He needs to get the place done up, and the brew has given him a two grand budget. He's already found a bloke that will do it for half that, but Del Boy has a better idea. He takes Mike to one side and makes him the following offer:-
1. You tell the brewer that I, Derek Trotter for do the job for £2,000.
2. You keep £500 of it
3. I keep £500 of it
4. We get that guy you've just found to do it for £1,000
5. Who's a pretty boy then?
6. Episode ends
Start holding people accountable for C.
Yeah it's definetly the private sector's fault and not the government's for giving money to corrupt motherfuckers.
I had a discussion with someone deeply impacted by consulting groups, the issue is that those are consulted by bypassing the country's professors/intelectuals and skilled workers, and the problem is those people then feel worthless and it makes everything worse for everyone but the pockets of those consulting groups.
Edit: It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the consulting group says "look, we are private, we are so much better than national workers that you already pay, you should save money (and give it to us instead) by laying off people and cutting social funding." This makes these civil servants not work as hard anymore since their work is unapreciated, which then makes the consulting groups right.
Well said. I think your comment should be pinned.
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
Here in Brazil they learned something even worst, some services are practically impossible to cut, and undermining it won't work, so they got a brilliant idea, which is not to substitute the public services with private one, but to maintain public, assume the management and profit directly from the government contracts, to make it even better, they overpriced everything and do the worst service possible, doing the exact thing they say the state actually do, but the new narrative is not: "the state is inefficient" is: "better that than nothing"
@Bazin spot on. I work at a University, and what you stated applies so well. They’ve tried to privatize out, but failed, but still not given up.
They deliberately give out bad performance evaluations to staff, and faculty, who politically oppose their consulting group ideas. The school administration, school president, the board, have sold out with the state politicians who are neoliberal, Republican, libertarian, who support billionaires, and also who have accepted Koch Bros. money. They have also hired 4 employees directly hand picked from the Koch Bros. In the political/economics department to consult/advise M-F.
They keep hurling more work load, on fewer employees backs, for positions they don’t replace. And, the Koch Bros, bi-monthly have, anti-Socialism, anti-communist, lecture circuit speakers on campus.
They always remind their employees of their station in work place, and of the university’s power to always win every dispute in the end.
@@Rrgr5
Let me make a wild guess here...
You are not a public worker, am I right?
As someone who is part of this industry, I feel a horrible sense of guilt all the time. I know we are being paid by big banks, corporations, and us federal departments to promote capitalistic ideals framed as social justice. I hate it, and yet, it’s the first job I’ve ever had that pays me a decent salary to support my family as a single mom.
I am way down the totem pole, and most of my coworkers are true believers when it comes to ending poverty.
But it didn’t take me long to see what we’re really doing. You can’t partner with the same places that are hurting the poor everyday and expect any real, tangible good to come out of it.
Anytime you hear of a corporation giving a lot of money and energy into socially conscious initiatives, you should be very suspect of what they’re doing. Their true motives are only to benefit themselves, or worse, sabotage any real change that might hurt their bottom line.
You get a pass from me, if there is such a thing as value in the opinion of an anonymous person to you ofc
There is a reason they way you well. Same reason why banks give such high salaries and bonuses to their peons. They can't steal the wealth from society and use it to steal more if they have no sociopaths to do the real work for them. Also, the more they hire the more momentum they get making it harder for them to stop precisely because of people like you who will take the easy money and look the other way. It's nice to trick yourself with the "ending poverty" while you are actually creating it. Yeah, sure, temporarily ending poverty for yourself while causing it for thousands of others. We used to call it theft but now it's "capitalism".
The outcome depends on who is hiring a consultancy firm. Consultants analyze the wants and needs of their clients. A right-wing government will get right-wing advice and a left-wing government will get left-wing advice. If they are worth their salt of course.
I know how you feel. My wife is The Supreme Commander of The Washington Navy Yard; and she admits that she's working under the most horrid and most vile beings on Earth aka "The Military Industrial Complex". Even though she is completely against it, she knows that she doesn't have any other choice due to inflation, tax-hikes on the poor and poverty-stricken (like myself), and increases in rent and significantly higher eviction rates. She hates it with every single bit of her being because she's fully aware of the horrid practices that "The Military Industrial Complex" does; and yes, they are indeed the worst of the worst. They literally sabotage any real change that WILL inevitably hurt their own bottom line. At this rate, she says that "The Military Industrial Complex" is getting desperate because they KNOW that the people are beginning to open their eyes to the truth of our reality. This is why they're desperately trying to have BOTH a war with China and Mother Russia (soon-to-be "The Soviet Union"). They're trying to get every single dollar they can get out of these so called "Proxy Wars" so to speak. It's because she care for me dearly that she's stubbornly hanging on because she doesn't want me out in the streets with absolutely nothing. In a nutshell, if I was out in the streets with absolutely nothing, then I wouldn't be able to spread the word of truth and "rebellious disobedience against authority". So indeed, I know how you feel. T_T
stay strong, we all do what we gotta under this system.
There's a wider aspect of this that I feel was missed: consulting is more or less the praxis of the supermanagerial class. I think they're worth highlighting because they are the economic foot soldiers of neoliberal capitalism.
well, is it more, or is it less? it's indeed wholly ideological, but is it necessary to the ongoing concern, or would this continue without it? it's a legitimizing function for sure, but the neoliberal project would continue in even more brutal forms without it. it's a numbing agent, one that i think is beneficial to the neoliberal operation, but not critical to the point that it couldn't happen without it. this whole thing would obviously be less powerful without propaganda, but forcement mechanisms still work without propaganda, albeit are less effective. the praxis of the financial managerial class is police funding, and military funding. take that away, and their programs are less enforceable.
@@ethanstump not quite. The supermanagerial class has a unique but incredibly useful function under the neoliberal project: they prolong it. Without them, the project collapses into socialist revolution as the contradictions of capitalism spiral out of control. This isn't dissimilar to what JT was saying, but the thing I feel was missed was how they do it - and it's through carrot and stick. The SM class trades on their connections and experience in the business world promising access and expertise; the threat implied is that yeah, you could do this yourself... but do you really know what you're doing?
@@tbdaemon I totally agree, however what i am saying is that in this case, the show will go on even without the carrot. even without the vast manufacturing of consent, militarization still happens, and through numerous cases, such as in jakarta in the 60's, just the stick has been necessary to quell revolution. while the bourgeoise much prefer to use the carrot of manipulation and propaganda, it's not critical to use it, but the violence of militarization is critical. it's the generals that are the functional pillar of our jenga tower of a bureaucracy, and our bureaucracy couldn't be maintained without them, while our bureaucracy could be maintained without the ideological economic leaders. your totally right that propaganda is their praxis, using the carrot and stick method, however i am suggesting we focus on the more effective of their two tools, which is militarism. militarism is effective both when used on a passive and active population, while propaganda only works on a passive population. thus the praxis of the bureaucracy is militarism. focusing on limiting the effectiveness of the military and the police in quashing dissent will bear far more fruit than focusing on limiting the effectiveness of propogandists such as lobbyists and consultants. that's not to say that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, as it is to understand our priorities, and that we must be far more effective at anti militarism than we currently are.
SHOCKING FACTS EXPOSED ua-cam.com/video/JSECFCuqJOI/v-deo.html
yes
This channel is strong, bitter medicine. A part of me feels it's not helping me but I must know how bad things are. We're in for hard times in many places.
I think being informed does help. Because the more informed we are, the more we can make others aware. Spreading class consciousness is one of the single most influential things you can do for the cause, and that gives me purpose.
Been confronting the issue of people telling me "You can't change the world so why do you even care about this?". They are correct. World change is not done by one hand. It is done by many and the direction is decided by what those people do. Keep educating yourself. This is helping, it will just never be at the pace we wish it to. KEEP GOING.
@@portender6938 I needed to hear that. Thanks.
@@818boy we didn't start the fire, it's always been burning since the worlds been turning 😢😂😂
Whether or not you do anything to change anything even if you could, it's not a bad idea to at least know where you are. If you were riding on the back of a motorcycle with a mad person driving toward a brick wall, you might want to at least know you are on a motorcycle. Or maybe not.
*Did you know Mckinsey represented opioids AND the FDA at the same time? They were figuring out how to promote opioids while figuring out how to fix the opioid crisis at the same time*
I believe it. I had wrist surgery three years ago. I had no pain when I was released the next day. I had four different prescriptions for pain medication and in the massive packet of paperwork from the hospital was one page warning of the dangers of opioids.
There's a history of McKinsey called The Firm. Very dry stuff, but the author writes that the primary function of these types of consultants is to add legitimacy to a decision the c-suite was already going to take and then take the blame if it fails. Scapegoat as a service.
See Boston Consulting Group
I love that term "scapegoat as a service."
Right, and to steal public money. Very sirious issue
Thank you for covering this, this scandal didn't last long enough here in France. By the way, it's nice being able to put a face with the voice of the channel
I was actually hoping for the cow. You'll know what I speak of if you watch the old JT videos.
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
Yeah no politicians care about systemic reform, it sucks
@@Direblade11 Effectively there is a particular class of personality types motivated by the need to gain power influence and wealth which is drawn towards positions of power. The worst of them generally have little to no empathy only caring about their image and or their wealth and their role in facilitating the lording and abuse of power over others. This means that the people who want power are those which can never be trusted with it because they will be naturally inclined to use it to inflict harm for their self esteem justifying it with whatever flimsy arguments they can to get their way.
These people naturally will never have any incentive to reform the system except as a lie to allow them to further break and exploit the system. They are in terms of the larger societal network parasites frankly it is a
conundrum which is hard to conceive a work around for establishing a functional electoral government where people are elected to office as representatives. We need an alternative say an electoral system where votes are made by issues and more direct feedback is able to be input into the system. I'm not sure how such a thing would be able to be done but an iterative evidence based process that accounts for the internal tendency for closed systems to increase in entropy concentrating wealth into the hands of the few eventually maximizing inequality within the system.
@@Dragrath1 I would love to hear more about your crafted electoral system when you have time of course. Interesting ideas to ponder on. Tag me then!
Reading “The Privatization of Everything”, Cohen & Mikaelian. It hits on how much of our public goods have been left to contractors and consultants to manage, with mixed to bad results and far more priority on profit than providing a useful good or service to the public.
Hey second thought, I usually do not comment on your videos but this one hits too close to home.
I work for Caf (the institution in charge of housing assistance in France, among other things) and the reform in january 2021 really hit us hard.
In some cases, the financial help for housing was not paid and people had to pay back previously paid amounts because the new software didn't work. We had to regularise each situation manually, which is really tedious, and it only happened when people contacted us. This is why the processing delays have increased so much. The new computer system isn't really more technical, but it was put in place as it was not fully finished and functional.
To this day, some demands do not appear on our program and this makes recipients lose the housing assistance for some months.
Thank you for talking about that topic. The rise of consulting companies has real life impacts on poor families and should be taken very seriously.
demand a reimbursement from Mckinsey, they are a private company, they should play by the rules
The efficiency of the free market at work I see.
I love that the guy at 10:40 from the stock footage drawing the graph was not only just drawing nonsense but also had his x and y axis flipped.
Meanwhile in Australia, one of the Labor Party's policies is to get rid of the significant consultant glut and hire cheaper full time government workers. They are favoured to win the election this upcoming weekend.
Oy that’s actually great to hear, when’s the election?
If it is cheaper, I hope it’s not too cheap. Because if they aren’t paying full time government workers enough, nothing is stopping those same workers from moving to the private sector.
@@josjos2203 today actually ha!
@@MajorPickleSwag they are more than compensated well. Australia is the direct opposite of the US wage law wise.
@@MajorPickleSwag "If it is cheaper, I hope it’s not too cheap."
It's probably a lot cheaper, 'cause those consultants are really really expensive.
Which is why the whole idea of outsourcing work to consultants is so utterly insane. Yes, it does look good on paper because those consultants aren't directly on your payroll and can, at least in theory, be hired or fired at a moments notice. But the hourly pay for the work you're getting done is much higher that if you had simply hired a full-time employee to do the same job.
"Because if they aren’t paying full time government workers enough, nothing is stopping those same workers from moving to the private sector."
Indeed, and that's a big problem. Many will, egged on by the idea that money is everything, be aiming for a high paying job in the private sector, thus leaving the public sector struggling to keep up.
This, of course, becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Starve the public sector, see the best and brightest go into the private sector, then claim that this proves that the public sector simply doesn't work. Straight out of the hard-right no-holds-bared capitalism handbook.
I work in environmental consulting as an ecologist and our company hired a consulting company to poll us to see how they could be better. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of compensation increases, better healthcare, or anything like that. Turns out we all just want to hang out together more! Something that is completely meaningless to me.
So what kind of recommendations does your firm tend to give?
@@alynames7171 my consulting company is not in the same vein as those in the video, but we identify ecological resources for construction projects and things like that, as well as coordinate waterway permitting.
"Turns out we all just want to hang out together more! Something that is completely meaningless to me."
A smart consultant tells his client what that client wants to hear. And a CEO certainly does not want to hear anything about increased wages or other such nonsense.
I am graduating with an ecology degree and the one thing I don't want to do is consulting. It seems that, at least here in the UK, you just end up enabling corporations to build instead of conserving nature.
@@solarpunkalana I hope you find exactly what you want to do. The majority of my projects are for our department of transportation and bridge repairs since I do aquatic ecology.
There's some irony in the fact that these companies spend more money on 'union avoidance' consulting than they would actually providing a livable wage and good benefits to their employees. Another nail in the coffin of the "The 'free' market is more efficient!" argument.
I guess rich people will rather pay more to other rich people than to workers.
That's because it's not about money, it's about control.
I would imagine it makes financial sense for them. Worker organizing can lead to a whole lot more than just wage increases, so they probably figure it's better to pay someone to ensure there's no risk of militant workers struggle.
@@DavidFilskov That's exactly right. They are afraid of the working class breaking free one day.
@@socialismandrevolution8299 slipery slope
"The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein is essential reading as regards privatization of public resources (among other topics). Incredible book.
Yes, those controlling supply eg oil and food, making 100s of billions in windfall profits through this latest iteration of disaster capitalism while 100s of millions suffer. Never mind the instruments of death/ weapons industry. And what do our govts do...nothing. Incremental measures at most. They will not regulate. Who said neoliberalism is dead. It seems stronger, more rapacious than ever. Just because you name the devil it doesnt mean you kill it
I was so depressed after reading the Shock Doctrine, but it is really informative and well written. No Logo was good too.
I like where the old lady told her, "They ain't blind, they're evil. They see just fine."
this makes a lot of sense given how much our government (australia) has gutted federal departments and services "for cost saving" and then just outsourced it all to consultancy firms... which charge even more money?
election tomorrow though :D
Let us know how to goes for you cutie.
Good luck to you guys
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
Good news
In Oz since the start of this fiscal year, July 1 2021, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, EY and McKinsey have a combined total of over $1.545B in Federal tenders. Over 1065 contracts with an additional 408 amendments. DoD has almost $700M in contracts alone, next closest is Health Dept with a lowly $112M. It's a revolving door here between Govt and consulting firms.
Please do a video on fraud, waste, and abuse of resources within the US Military Industrial Complex.
As a French citizen I'm really happy that you brought this subject up because unfortunately it has not been mentioned enough over here in France and if it had, then Macron would not have been re-elected.
To all the points you mentioned, I'm going to add one more : my government shared confidential informations about my country with an American firm and to me that is not acceptable. The ideologie probleme goes far beyond the only economical and social injustice, but also creates international manipulations and control (that's called imperialism and it is why Russia has entered war against Ukraine). How can I tell that the "counseling" Mac Kinsey gave to Macron isn't directly given from the white house ?
Anyway this comment is addressing for you directly, thank you for covering the subject.
Men, this has been presented and debated in pretty much every tv shows for a few weeks...
"The only ones more useless than overpriced consultants are those who hire them." - Ryan Cohen
Consulting firms game is about to stop
It's always bothered me...
"What do you do?"
"I'm a consultant."
**insert vague, corporate, fake, ass fuckery here**
Consulting is literally the most bullshit job that exists. At the end of the day, all they do is give advice and get paid gobs of money for it. Wow. Way to benefit society. I get legions more value out of the person handing me my Whopper. I hate that it's a profession, and I hate that it's the way for "an executive to look like they are employed" when they are between jobs. It's literally so stupid and so fake and I cannot stand it.
It's a real job. It can just get really shady.
Whenever your company hires a consultant to review their business and management, best believe the consultants will recommend cutting labor costs to protect executives paychecks.
Sometimes i get so frustrated at all this, because, yes, we know this is happening, but also there's nothing we- the normal, powerless working class can do, to combat this. Like, how the heck do we topple these consulting firms? Yet, they can destroy my existence in a bill-bit. This makes me feel very vulnerable...
Also, isn't adding 'gate' to any conspiracy, a Murican thing? Lmao
At a certain point, the solution is war if the oligarchs and their lackeys don’t end tyranny and represent their citizens general welfare. It really sucks, but a lot of people will probably have to die to strip power from the oligarchs, because the oligarchs are the state and the state has a lot of supporters. We may not even win when that day comes; there is no guarantees that humanity isn’t in store for another millennia of tyranny, state violence, and state sanctioned oppression. It will take a lot to make people snap back, but there is a point where that is exactly what will happen.
Yes it stems from the Watergate scandle under Nixon. We apologize lol
ua-cam.com/video/oCzQGhqgUk0/v-deo.html Finally it's here.
There is something we can do. Workers hold all the power in society, because it's we who produce everything that society needs to run. If we organize, and collectively decide to stop following the capitalists' laws, there's no way they can enforce them. Even though police tend to be very reactionary, they still needs cars, fuel, food etc.
@@wehavebiscuits good luck organising everyone when the media is controlling the narrative
As a current consultant and one of said mentioned firms this is pretty informative and accurate information and definitely food for thought on my industry
In my country South Africa McKinsey was intrinsically involved in state corruption or what we call state capture which has set back our social and economic development by decades.
Was more KPMG but the sentiment is the same
Thank you so much for talking about this. It's a huge thing that should be spoken about.
Consulting Firms are just a synonym for Think Tanks where whomever can write the Bigger Check gets to truly influence people's lives.
I thought "think tanks" ought to be non-profits. Consulting firms on the other hand work for profit....and a lot of it!
Me who is french and follow the politics on the daily, im amazed at the topics second thoughts chose. Not only they are recents but also very relevant to the political debate we have in france these days. Great work
Hey JT, you should do a video on the injustices and staff shortages in DSP work. Direct support professionals are put through hell.
Ursula von der Leyen, former defense minister of Germany and current President of the European Commission used back when she acted as defense minister, millions of Euros on consultants and advisors with the supposed intention to help better the rather lackluster Bundeswehr. It was the same company named McKinsey.
It didn’t help improve the military at all and so millions in taxpayer money were wasted. Specifically up to 20 Million Euros, if I remember correctly. It made some waves obviously, but it wasn’t enough to get her out politics entirely. Instead, I repeat, she is now President of the European Commission.
"can we please stop adding '-gate' to everything?"
Yes, please. I still giggle at the term 'Zippergate', but every attempt after that is just pitiful.
His annoyance about it described why "gate" is put on ever scandal. The "gate" informs people that this is about a scandal/some injustice.
Blame humans for linguistics. I don't like hashtags or emojis, and I have to live with them
Protect this journalist at all costs. Sad to say but he is one of the few forces working to wake up the masses
This is such an important and telling video - all of these Ivy League school grads going straight into consulting because that’s what “successful people” do - they literally make money by directly screwing over the labor class.
Success in America is screwing over labor as much as legally possibly to extract surplus labor power
Consultancy may not be a scam through and through, but at the very least it can be said that these consultancy firms are very duplicitous in nature. Kudos for bringing awarenesses of this to the unsuspecting about consultancy firms' ultimate purpose.
Great video JT! Love the direction you’re going in!
I love your channel, the name is so fitting it really does make me think twice regardless of what you're talking about
Under the last US President, McKinsey also "helped ICE find 'detention savings opportunities' - including some that the agency’s staff viewed as too harsh on immigrants." Quote from a ProPublica headline.
We can make fire department also run by private companies just like Rome did in ancient time. Up coming Roman emperors had such private privileges. One owned the fire department who would not put out your home’s fire unless they were paid. After the fire the owner of the fire department would now bye your damaged house at a very low rate. In fact it was suspected the fire department was setting some of these fires. This made the best upcoming Roman emperor rich and powerful.
I: Shh, don´t give the bourgies more ideas /hj
This video and the latest episode of the podcast was very insightful, thank you JT, Hakim and Yugopnik.
Another great video, thanks Second though! Also I love seeing JT’s beautiful face these days in these longer videos❤️❤️🔥🔥
Loving the new style and format!!
The free market isn't freeing. Casting things to the market just means profit matters more than people. Owning stuff is more important than the wellbeing of self, others, community, and world.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet its the same to how people forgot about the contreversy with nestle's milk campaigns that killed many babies in poor countries as they competed against mother's milk by selling their milk as a better substitute, by having fake nurses and doctors advertise their milk, they then made some weird advertisement campaign that erased it out of the public's mind, though its still going on, mroe subtle ofcourse
the "free market" only works to enslave the working class! if you let people who care about nothing except profit do whatever they want, they will steal rob and murder as long as it makes the line go up
Also our personal property is endangered: as common people gets poorer isn't going to afford houses, cars, toothbrushes... we can't even have full property of the value of what we directly produce.
I worked briefly at entry level in one of the largest consulting firms and I found that they're great with show and outside appearance but behind all of it, the operations, is as dirty or low as a small office/business, dependent on low wage remote workers but huge revenues on consulting/outsourcing/etc..
As a frenchman I'm so pissed that Macron got reelected despite this and all other scandals. It should have been a big deal but it hasn't. To further sour my mood, radical left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came super close to getting in the runoffs against macron (about 300k votes), and he definitely wouldn't have let this slide in the debates
Macron is basically French Trudeau at this point lol
I really hope reformists will some day actually get attention in politics
Y'all need to pack up the yellow vests and make the bourgeoisie afraid of the guillotine again.
Well like your last election, it was Macron or LePen…can’t believe those two somehow faced off again, but not much of a choice sadly. Same here in the US. Trump or Clinton? Clinton. Trump or Biden? Biden. I’ll take the indifferent, “not actively making the country burn” choice every time. Does that non-choice suck? Absolutely.
@@jenniferhiemstra5228 It is the insidious nature of the binary bad choice pair your desired corrupt politician up with an absolute monster so you can maximize the chance of winning to keep parasitizing the vestigial remnants of government funneling the wealth of the world into the few oligarchs at the top of the ladder (maximizing the economic entropy in the same way as black holes do funneling all mass into their horizons surrounded by the endless void as they evaporate to nothing).
In essence it is the same process at play in both systems as entropy applies to any informational system and if you look at the consequences of path dependence on forcing internal consistency within the Einstein field equations the laws of thermodynamics can be seen to be equivalent to enforcing internal consistency of solutions.
We need an equal and opposite societal force to oppose the economic concentration of wealth. This will always cost something more than you can get out of it i.e. it will never be profitable, that is enforced by the second law of thermodynamics but there are other metrics where other forms of "wealth" i.e. energy can be inputted into the system because the financial system is not closed (the Sun is a source of low entropy energy)
Well, there's still a chance the leftist coalition gains a majority in the French Parliament.
Your channel has grown and I love the style
Updated logo and you're putting yourself in front of the camera; I'm loving the new look! Always informative videos, keep it up dude!
It's the same thing with hedge funds, sort of. Like how they buy out mobile-home parks only to raise the rents. Vice News did a short documentary on it.
I read Winners Take All before I heard of and subscribed to your channel. Glad you put it and him, Anand that is, in this video. You definitely do your homework bro.
What a coincidence! The city I work for just announced the consulting firm that will be selecting our new City Manager. I've learned that most big decisions in local government are made by consulting firms to give the perception of neutrality.
Wish i didn't have ADD and could sit there for hours without being distracted by something else more stimulating and create content to help spread the message. This shit is so debilitating. Its either that or i know what i have to do, have the ideas in my head, but literally cant get myself to do it, all while getting ever more anxious that im not doing it.
I really appreciate what you do. Honestly.
I've got ADHD myself, yes it's really hard to absorb a lot of content, but I found it's best to watch this stuff while I'm relaxing, or listen to his podcast on a long car ride
Ad some level of chronic depression and you have me...
@@pewpewentertainment6858 for me the listening part isnt hard, it provides the extra stimulation i need to function properly at work. Its the doing part that i get stuck on.
@@pewpewentertainment6858 oddly enough im a little better when it comes to organizing work. But making content is like a pipe dream for me because i just cant seem to get myself to do it.
@@dougjaffray-StMoP- well what content would you like to make?
JT: “What is a scam?”
*ad plays*
I see what you did there.
I love it when you open UA-cam and my favourite youtuber just uploaded
I hate how consulting is a catch all for external assistance. I am a Consultant Inspector, as my firm hires us out to companies and entities who require inspection work to be done. We also do LEED Consulting, Risk Analysis, Schedule Analysis, Project Delivery, all things dealing with construction. We do not deal with the worker/human side, as that is the realm of the owner, but we deal with design, energy efficiency, sustainability and items like that.
yeah same here - im technically an IT/software consultant... but really im a software developer, im just doing work for whatever company hires our assistance
Finally someone speaks out against naming scandals -gate! :)
Hi SecondThought, wunderful video and nice new format! It's always nice to watch you disassemble neoliberalism. But do you also plan on covering the risk of opportunism and social democratic, keynesian reformism?
Off topic, but I just want to say that I'm so glad you appear in your videos now!
Love all the videos lately. Good on you comrade.
JT asks "what is a scam?" then, on my end, an ad comes up for some career success hustle grindset bs, gotta love irony
Yesssssss breaking up the stock footage with some delivery to camera is great!
Thank you again for highlighting that problem. I was instantly reminded of Ursula von der Leyen the current president of the European Commission and former Defense Minister of Germany and her quite numerous scandals about hiring consultants for everything.
Amazing video , comrade!
The Corporate Influence on socioeconomic and political life of people is very egregious to see.
The powerful corporate entities are a major threat to structural foundations of Democracy, Liberty and Equality.
The Regressive Oligarchs come to Third World Countries in the name of "investment" and "development" but they, in reality, they just come here to deprive the masses of resources. They have severely disrupted the environment here and due to them, the present right wing government has loosened India's labour laws leading to huge exploitation of the working class.
In India, there's a huge cheap labour market, and people are ready to work at wages which are less than the minimum wages because there is an intense competition to get employment.
The Unholy Nexus between the Statist Bureaucratic Cronies and Multinational Capitalist Bourgeoisie has emerged in India.
The Ruling Class of the present Right Wing party uses ultranationalist hindu populist rhetoric to win votes of the Hindus and this has led to a huge division of Indian working class across religious and caste lines.
I get a lot of hope from people like you. The Proletariats are the authentic representatives of the revolution.
Viva'La Revolution!
Long Live Leftist Ideology!
Bruh, you commies destroying kerala, west bengal. I am from west bengal and communism is the worst stuff that happened to WB, I am way happier in Tamil Nadu were I get to work in industries, While in Waste Bengal you can spend your time on killing political opponents or sucking up to CPI(M)(ML)(MLM) or TMC.
@@anonymousinfinido2540 I just wanna say one thing i.e. cry harder.
@@revolutionaryape7568 bruh, everyone is going to cry because of communism not capitalism. I don't need to cry I am safe here in TN.
@@anonymousinfinido2540 Number of people who asked for your baseless argument : 0.
@@revolutionaryape7568 Look I get it corporates are upto no good, but saying capitalism bad makes shopkeepers, stall workers basically any work done in exchange for capital bad, even slavoj agrees that leftist haven't been able to come up with alternative system, if they come up with a good one, I will gladly become a leftist, till then I will stay in the classic libertarian.
Really loving the channel's new look!
Every day I get more and more convinced that capitalism -- or rather, the ruthless pursuit of power enabled by it -- is the Great Filter.
Don’t look up
Heeey, you are updating the channel. This is the first time we see you!!!
Love you mean, from Egypt.
As a worker, I can wholeheartedly say that pizza parties dull the pain of looking at housing prices. The pizza makes me feel valued. And indigestion.
That and also spin the wheel, you could win a mini bag of Nutter Butters
An excellent video, one of your finest yet. I will make sure to share this with every market-type I can talk sense to.
The consultant rot is also prevalent in the UK. At almost every level of government in every department there are consultants and some of them are actually provided by one of the big consulting firms for free. These consultants are involved in drafting legislation and advise on contracts. Of course the fact that the stuff they produce frequently ends up directly benefiting the company they work for I'm sure is a complete coincidence.
an absolutely amazing video. i can’t say enough how much i value your work, JT
Some things not touched upon but important to note is that, if politicians *listen* to these reports made by consultants, there's a good to fair chance that there's a seat waiting for them when they get out of office, not at all dissimilar to lobbying, big corporations, banking boards, you name it. There's an implicit incentive for people in the public sector who deal with consultancy firms to be agreeable to them, if they intend to get further ahead in life.
Another thing, which is especially relevant in Europe, is the role of consultants and lobbyists in the EU. The EU has about 23.000 civil servants- about the same amount as the port of Rotterdam does. They are woefully understaffed for any and all policy making, so they rely heavily on information provided by think tanks, consultancy firms and lobbyist. Now, it has to be said that research has shown that the EU is far more likely to draft laws in accordance with the will of grassroots civil society organizations than it is in accordance with the will of corporations, but this is another place where consultants can exercise outsized influence.
I like how you've started showing your face! Godspeed!!
I know it's been played out, but could you do a video on Melvan capital and Ken Griffin gambling away teachers pensions on shorting stocks then blaming retail for losing money? I know BCG is also involved.
Excellent video. You broke things down perfectly.
I liked the footage of a french press coffee maker while talking about the french press 😅🤣
GREAT video as always. Thanks
Hi, jt. I have a suggestion. Can you potentially investigate on what industries in the US would be most difficult for activists to unionise? Thanks
Don't even get me started on the labor practice and pay theft in entertainment. There are union for acting and film acting. The ones for everyone else are too small to have power and they're often excluded from the larger body of unions.
visual artists, (seamstresses, prop, furniture, costume designers, dancers, models, etc. ) Tend to suffer from these bigger social issues and people don't think we deserve to be legitimized as a profession ☝️🤔.
I would die 💀☝️ for him to discuss the entertainment industry , but of course we have much larger issues to deal with
Fabulous ! Consulting is under the radars ! No one notices the influence it has on society !
We have the same issue in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador on the most east coast of Canada. Wouldn’t be surprised if this is rampant elsewhere in the world too and we just don’t know about it yet
Great work, Tovarishch! Love your content. Keep up the great work!
Love the video! Keep up the good work
I really like that you started appearing more in front of the camera in your videos. Don't get me wrong, your videos and narrations have always been too good, objective, and unlike many who are just extended arms of propaganda on one side or the other, you have always been reliable, someone who will pour the truth in your face, no matter as it was, and against whose interest it is, as long as it is in the interest of the people. But like this, when we can see you, and look you in the eye as you talk to us, the video only gains in weight and credibility. Congratulations, you are doing a great job my friend, and you are still my favorite American political and social analyst. I wish you many more successes and subscribers. Best wishes from Serbia, Europe.
This video goes hand in hand with the most recent of Tom Nicholas about think tanks
Really nice video! Also, the lighting and everything looks really good :) Can't wait for more!
I want everyone to Search for Yanis Varoufakis, Former Greek Finance Minister and Noam Chomsky NYPL ( New York Public Library) discussion. Here Varoufakis mentions a Euro Group which consists of firms and businesses and mentions how it is the group which stamps EU policies.
Wooooah! Unexpected face reveal its unexpected! Good to see you comrade 👍🏾
That excerpt from the report says executives should listen to their employees more. Nothing is stopping them from asking to be part of a worker's co-op.
Let's direct some culpability that way too.
dude, seriously, you guys shoud link your channels on the deprogram... I forgot what your channel was called and spent a lot of time searching for it, even though im subscribed!
If I'm not misunderstanding. He's saying tax evasion is perfectly legal?
Shall we note that down?
No - ridiculous technical difference. 'Avoidance' is using bs loopholes like offshoring to legally avoid tax. Tax evasion is illegal.
@@davidcresterfallen6539 I think that is the best description one can come up with for this situation.
"Bs" 🐂💩
Frenchman here. Not that it matters much but we never used "McKinseyGate". It was always "le scandale McKinsey".
This is the first time I hear of this. No public radio talked of this during the French election. At least they called out what La Pen actually believes.
So grateful for this channel.
I was working for a marketing budget review company (one of many different careers I’ve had) and somehow ended up in a meeting where one of the big consulting firms was being charged with reducing the national health bill by nearly 20%. The cost of their work was nearly 2% of the budget. That was supposedly a one-off but still. I was disgusted. Sure, this was all legal, sure the government was pushing an austerity schtick, but this was in the UK where the NHS is almost sacred and the plans were to use 2% of the NHS budget to cut the NHS budget by 20%. I was never invited to more meetings (perhaps my displeasure was obvious) but neither was I disciplined or anything like that. I suppose they didn’t want a fuss. My company wasn’t even moved on, it just went completely quiet from my POV.
Been watching your videos for years, nice to see the face behind the voice. IDK why but it's cool to me haha....
You should also mention that McKinsey was one of the architects of the opioid epidemic in the US
Excellent detailed discussions and factual analysis.
Eye opening indeed.