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Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an e

Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an enormous amount of influence in the financial sector in other western nations, so we could at least make their lives less lavish and comfortable. Throwing up our hands and declaring it an unsolvable issue just encourages others to misbehave and then escape the same way.

nickff 2y ago
The question is whether to allow a smaller settlement immediately, or pursue a less-likely and possibly larger set of judgements in the future. It's not clear that it is possible to get more money out of them.
- hyeonwho4 2y ago
  The EPA values one human life at $10M. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed by the Sackler family's companies (testified in court) was ~~245,000~~ Edit: probably at least 100,000, see below. So if opiates were environmental pollutants, the Sacklers would be on the hook for $1T in damages. Their immediate settlement was $6B. Roughly three orders of magnitude too small.
  - richwater 2y ago
    Attributing every single opioid overdose to solely the Sackler family is so laughably ludicrous it's hard to take this comment seriously.
    - ygjb 2y ago
      ok, so now you are just arguing percentages. What is an appropriate amount of the harm to be apportioned to the Sackler family?
    - hyeonwho4 2y ago
      The number of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021 was 645,000, according to CDC. Purdue Pharma brought in $35B in OxyContin revenue from 1995 to 2017. OxyContin was prescribed to 6.2 million people in 2002. I'll edit the number above to ~100,000 as an estimate of the number of victims, since it looks like I misremembered 645,000 as the number of Purdue-related deaths. Still, that's assuming only 1.6% of those 6.2 million people taking OxyContin in 2002 developed an addiction, which seems low.
dylan604 2y ago
If we can seize Russian oligarch's money, why could the US Gov't not seize assets of a US citizen even if living abroad?
- chii 2y ago
  Because US citizens have rights that are not granted to non-US citizens.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  Nit: the assets were frozen, not seized. There was recently hand wringing in the EU over using the principle or interest to fund Ukraine, and they settled on interest because seizing assets scares any foreign investors who might someday disagree with a government.
whycome 2y ago
Hey, it's not like they shared copyrighted movies on a server or something.
snapcaster 2y ago
We just need to convince people they leaked a couple videos of the war state doing bad stuff
tcmart14 2y ago
With that first sentence, I thought this might be doing down the road of, "boy, there sure is a lot of 'democracy' that needs to be spread."
soraminazuki 2y ago
Come to think of it, it's mind blowing when you compare the slap on the wrist of a punishment the Sacklers have received against what Julian Assange had to endure. One is responsible for the deaths of more than half a million people while the other is responsible for zero. The justice system really needs to get its shit together.

nickff 2y ago

The question is whether to allow a smaller settlement immediately, or pursue a less-likely and possibly larger set of judgements in the future. It's not clear that it is possible to get more money out of them.

hyeonwho4 2y ago
The EPA values one human life at $10M. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed by the Sackler family's companies (testified in court) was ~~245,000~~ Edit: probably at least 100,000, see below. So if opiates were environmental pollutants, the Sacklers would be on the hook for $1T in damages. Their immediate settlement was $6B. Roughly three orders of magnitude too small.
- richwater 2y ago
  Attributing every single opioid overdose to solely the Sackler family is so laughably ludicrous it's hard to take this comment seriously.
  - ygjb 2y ago
    ok, so now you are just arguing percentages. What is an appropriate amount of the harm to be apportioned to the Sackler family?
  - hyeonwho4 2y ago
    The number of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021 was 645,000, according to CDC. Purdue Pharma brought in $35B in OxyContin revenue from 1995 to 2017. OxyContin was prescribed to 6.2 million people in 2002. I'll edit the number above to ~100,000 as an estimate of the number of victims, since it looks like I misremembered 645,000 as the number of Purdue-related deaths. Still, that's assuming only 1.6% of those 6.2 million people taking OxyContin in 2002 developed an addiction, which seems low.

dylan604 2y ago

If we can seize Russian oligarch's money, why could the US Gov't not seize assets of a US citizen even if living abroad?

chii 2y ago
Because US citizens have rights that are not granted to non-US citizens.
dehrmann 2y ago
Nit: the assets were frozen, not seized. There was recently hand wringing in the EU over using the principle or interest to fund Ukraine, and they settled on interest because seizing assets scares any foreign investors who might someday disagree with a government.

whycome 2y ago

Hey, it's not like they shared copyrighted movies on a server or something.

snapcaster 2y ago

We just need to convince people they leaked a couple videos of the war state doing bad stuff

tcmart14 2y ago

With that first sentence, I thought this might be doing down the road of, "boy, there sure is a lot of 'democracy' that needs to be spread."

soraminazuki 2y ago

Come to think of it, it's mind blowing when you compare the slap on the wrist of a punishment the Sacklers have received against what Julian Assange had to endure. One is responsible for the deaths of more than half a million people while the other is responsible for zero. The justice system really needs to get its shit together.