The Real Reason for Six-Figure Consulting Fees & Other Colossal Wastes

When considering the world's biggest wastes of resources, the answers range from the colossal scale of war to the everyday tragedy of e-waste. A deep dive into these areas reveals fascinating and often counterintuitive reasons for systemic inefficiency and squandered value.

The Corporate Shield: Why Consultants Are Really Hired

One of the most insightful points raised is the true role of high-priced management consulting firms like McKinsey. While it's a common misconception that they are hired for their unique strategic advice, the reality is often more about corporate politics than value creation. A CEO with decades of industry experience rarely needs a recent graduate's PowerPoint presentation to inform their strategy. Instead, consultants serve a different, crucial purpose: accountability transfer.

Executives who want to pursue a risky but potentially rewarding strategy face a dilemma. If it succeeds, they are heroes; if it fails, their job is on the line. By hiring a prestigious consulting firm to recommend the very course of action they already intended to take, they create a win-win scenario for themselves.

If the plan succeeds: The executive takes the credit for their bold vision.
If the plan fails: The executive can deflect blame, stating, "We followed the recommendations of the world's top Harvard-trained consultants."

In this light, the exorbitant fees are not for advice but for a 'bulletproof vest'—an insurance policy against career-ending failure. As one former consultant confirmed, their job was often simply 'seat filling' to provide the appearance of due diligence.

The High Price of Perception and Inefficiency

Beyond the boardroom, several other major resource drains were identified:

Systemic Waste: War and the military-industrial complex were cited as monumental wastes of human life, material, and money. Closely linked is the fossil fuel industry, where an estimated 70% of potential energy is lost in the lifecycle of extraction, processing, and transportation before it even reaches an inefficient end-use.
Manufactured Scarcity: Luxury brands and other retailers intentionally destroy perfectly good unsold merchandise. This practice prevents goods from hitting discount markets, which would devalue the brand's image of exclusivity. It is a direct sacrifice of usable resources for the sake of perception.
Technological Dead Ends: The proliferation of e-waste is a significant problem, not just because devices break, but because they are often impossible to repair or repurpose. Manufacturers contribute to this through 'obsolescence by obscurity,' providing zero documentation for circuits and proprietary components, forcing consumers to buy new instead of fixing the old.
Speculative Bubbles: A significant portion of 'AI' applications are criticized for incinerating immense energy and capital for minimal real-world benefit and no clear path to profitability. Similarly, cryptocurrency mining is singled out for its massive energy consumption for the purpose of maintaining a digital ledger.