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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32867 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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Somewhat tangentiall, but at least one Canadian bank calculated an index for each employee which specifically included marriage / family status:

People with more obligations, more dependents, less flexiblity of job change are valued higher, because they can be used more effectively; you can work them harder without the risk of them quitting on your for greener pastures.

I had dinner the other night with a friend of mine, a former investment banker and derivatives jock for the Toronto Dominion Bank. He grew sufficiently wealthy to retire years ago — while still in his thirties — and has since been managing hedge funds for widows and environmentalists to make up for his past life of crime.

Actually, more of that is true than you might expect. I’ve only taken one or two liberties; for example, when I say “retired” I mean “forced out in a palace coup”, and when I say “sufficiently wealthy” I mean “had so much dirt on so many higher-ups that they gave him a shitload of hush money on his way out the door.”

He had, you see, a low “Vulnerability Index”.

This is not just a piece of banker’s slang. This is an honest-to-god numerical index that TD calculates for every one of its employees; it is used to determine how egregiously they can afford to fuck their people over. There is a list, with a series of check boxes. If you have children, you get a check. If you have a mortgage, you get a check. (If you have a mortgage with the Toronto Dominion Bank, you get a whole lot of checks.) The greater the number of check marks, the more tightly TD has you by the balls.

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