CEI: The Corporate Gay Report Card

[qwerty]

Many of you likely know about the Humans Rights Campaign (which recieves funding from George Soros if that is of interest to you), but did you know they created the Corporate Equality Index (CEI)? The CEI essentially rates how inclusive a company is. Here are some examples of the rating system:

The CEI is also a part of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ethical investing. Blackrock CEO Fink is said to be the face of this movement. It would make sense that these companies essentially have to appeal to large financial/investment organizations.

What are everybody's thoughts on companies incentivizing this? Or more widely what do you think about companies taking political stances on issues largely unrelated to their products/services?

Here is my main source for this post. Inb4 >new york post

 

[Collision]

Broadly, I don't think there's an problem with setting standards about how businesses operate. Businesses aren't people and multinational businesses aren't mom and pop corner stores. If, for example, Pepsico could refuse to sell their products to someone just because they're gay (or have some other disagreeable characteristic) that could be a serious problem. The issue with these schemes isn't so much the surface level intent but the implementation. Are corporations going to be legally bound by these requirements? What counts as a violation? How will violations be adjudicated? Realistically, enforcement is just going to be a "boy's club" (i.e., Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street Bank) in a "smoke filled board room" deciding that this or that company isn't socially responsible. Doing things that way preferences large existing businesses and allows them to slide by with noncommittal surface level actions. To me, it smells a little like a cartel but what do I know?

Just look at the Human Rights Campaign's scale. "Workforce protections" is worth one quarter as many points as "corporate social responsibility" (i.e., public facing marketing). Twenty-five points of a possible fifty for "inclusive benefits" are awarded to companies that will pay for transgender medical care. Almost half of the points for "supporting an inclusive culture" are awarded just for having a "diversity council" with no description of what that means. At the end of the day this is, in my opinion, a fundamentally vague set of guidelines designed specifically to obfuscate why some corporations score high and others score low.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Doing things that way preferences large existing businesses and allows them to slide by with noncommittal surface level actions. To me, it smells a little like a cartel but what do I know?

This is exactly it - I work at a company that does this kind of stuff (no, I won't say which one) and it's profoundly disingenuous. It benefits large companies in two primary ways: the first is that it keeps Democrats nominally appeased (the group that historically advocates for antitrust measures and additional regulation) and therefore lowers the risk in terms of facing legal challenges to their M&A activity, monopoly lawsuits, soft power market manipulation, and so on. The second benefit is that only large companies can afford to have people whose job it is to police diversity issues (aka, contribute no direct monetary value to the company). So when a smaller startup without diversity officers begins to threaten the big company, the big company can take out a bunch of advertising in a newspaper like the NYT or WaPo. The newspaper will then just so happen to uncover that *gasp* the small tech startup company is almost exclusively recently graduated, straight, white and Asian men*, and some of them have Twitter accounts where they talk about their one night stands and unpopular political takes! This scares off investors and can kill small startups.

Before he launched his ridiculously cringe presidential bid, Vivek Ramaswamy wrote a really good book about this phenomenon. One of the stories from the book that always stood out to me was that of that "fearless girl" statue on Wall Street. The statue appeared one day, unannounced. It was commissioned by State Street and nominally is representative of their commitment to have more women in the boardroom. In reality though, the statue just so happened to appear on exactly the same day that a report was released showing that State Street has one of the largest gender pay gaps of any of the major financial firms. Yet if you were to search "State Street women" in Google on that day, guess which story would show up in the results? None of this is accidental, and to this day most openly left-leaning publications like The Atlantic refer to the statue as some sort of high art that is reflective of modern values.

---

*Because these are the only people who are willing to work 80+ hour weeks for very little money (compared to what they could get at an established company) in exchange for the promise of "getting in at the ground floor" of a tech company.

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

From what I've read CEI is just ESG on crack. Because from my understanding, initially ESG was supposed to simply be an indicator of efficient business operations before being co-opted into a way for giant hedge funds to dictate a company's politics. CEI on the other hand in no way, shape, or form even pretends to have anything to do with a company's bottom line.
I am 100% opposed to the push for diversity over merit in any work force/academic institution. The only exceptions I could fathom is if a civil rights organization only wants to hire from within their group, that I get, those are typically formal political organizations any how. This push for meaningless diversity jobs/hires that amount to corporate welfare is seemingly insane, until you realize Blackrock pretty much assumed control of the federal reserve after 2008 and can print/throw as much money as they want at this nonsense. That's why "go woke, get broke" doesn't exactly work. It's this weird cycle that promotes alienating the average consumer base to appeal to out of touch elites that control the real flow of money.

Most of those corporate jobs are at their core useless, and most of these companies have little impact on me directly, so it's easy to just disappointingly laugh at the clown world aspect of it. Most these jobs could be filled with any overly medicated dolt with half a brain, often the only thing that sets these people apart is that they know the right people. What's far more concerning is that I've heard they've been doing this sort of diversity based hiring in the medical field as well. I don't want the doctor who got in mainly because they checked off some boxes to fill quota, I want the best damn doctor on skill alone, I don't care what race/sexuality they are.

I wonder what Chick-fil-a's CEI score is?

 

[GhostBox]

Or more widely what do you think about companies taking political stances on issues largely unrelated to their products/services?

I will say that power always did social engineering. We are only noticing now, because we grew up with an older version of the control grid.

Even the white picket fence, suburban America Americans like to dream about is nothing but a fabrication of Hollywood. That was the "national" culture that was designed to supersede the regional and organic cultures. If you want something else that glows, just look at the 60s counter culture. You basically wrecked the family unit and as a coherent block, so you have parents and kids hating each other and thus atomized in the face of the mighty state-corporate complex.

All this diversity nonsense is about breaking down people into an incoherent mess, so 1) they can be alchemically be remade 2) they will have no "critical mass" to organize alternatives for themselves.

The greatest trick is that they have the looks of people being against the system ie. hating the state, cops and corporations etc., but in the end they are just alone, they alienated their family so there will be even less wealth and resources at their disposal (but hey good old banks are there to help). Nobody to turn to for help so you will need to call the cops for protection, rely on the state and corporations for everything.

This is the reason they break up all groups. No, you can't even have a hobby for yoruself because they are so colonially minded that they need to break up anything that could serve as a common bond for too many people.

 

[wearyinternettraveler]

Do you think most people who are big into ESG like that when they buy into ESG funds, they hold ExxonMobil? https://michiganross.umich.edu/news...sla-and-3-ways-fix-esg-ratings-meet-investors

 

[Collision]

Do you think most people who are big into ESG like that when they buy into ESG funds, they hold ExxonMobil?

Yes, actually I think this is the point.

 

[qwerty]

Vivek Ramaswamy wrote a really good book about this phenomenon.

I'll look into this. I didn't know about the specific story you discussed, although sadly it doesn't surprise me.

they've been doing this sort of diversity based hiring in the medical field

I work in health-related academia which prides itself on these diversity hires. My boss gave some grand presentation about how diverse our group is (essentially leaving me out since I refuse to take part in this). We've had weird changes in policies to appease people even though it makes our work harder, and the way we have to present any data has to be triple-checked so that it couldn't possibly offend people. I'm no genius but there is a woman I work with that has a PhD and didn't understand that to have an average of 0, if all the numbers you are averaging aren't 0, then you have to have both positive and negative numbers. She somehow thought average across hundreds of positive numbers would give her 0, and she has a PhD. The worst part is I don't even think she processed this explanation. As a tangential point one day I will get around to editing the bell curve meme where the midwits are all the people with PhDs, and the really low and high IQ people have high school diplomas or whatnot.

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

(essentially leaving me out since I refuse to take part in this).

How've you managed so far? When I was in academia not going along with the charade seemed like a career death sentence.

 

[qwerty]

How've you managed so far? When I was in academia not going along with the charade seemed like a career death sentence.

I just ignore it honestly. I'm mostly white and grew up in the same area I work now and most of my coworkers know it so they often leave me out of whatever conversations pertaining to diversity (thank goodness). While all my coworkers are circlejerking over visa paperwork or whatnot I just stay quiet. When my boss asks me to add a flag to some powerpoint to represent where I'm from I just ignore it and say I don't have anything interesting to add. Sometimes we'll have actual interesting conversations about whatever culture they are from, but most of the time it feels performative. Speaking out definitely is a death sentence though. I'm just good at holding my tongue and avoiding these things in the first place.

I'll share this tangetially related story. One time my boss noticed I had a book in a different language on my desk, and asked me about it and it eventually lead to my ethnicity. I humored her a bit and explained my mom was born in an Asian country and she immigrated here when she was a child. My boss then proceeded to call me Chinese about a week or two later even though I'm not which was hilarious.

 

[Mеченый Яков]

Many of you likely know about the Humans Rights Campaign (which recieves funding from George Soros if that is of interest to you), but did you know they created the Corporate Equality Index (CEI)? The CEI essentially rates how inclusive a company is. Here are some examples of the rating system:
View attachment 60016

The CEI is also a part of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ethical investing. Blackrock CEO Fink is said to be the face of this movement. It would make sense that these companies essentially have to appeal to large financial/investment organizations.

What are everybody's thoughts on companies incentivizing this? Or more widely what do you think about companies taking political stances on issues largely unrelated to their products/services?

Here is my main source for this post. Inb4 >new york post

As a bisexual person myself, i have to say.

Hell yeah bitch, anything that can make the process of getting a job easier for me is great and very gramophone, #hustlin'

 

[GhostBox]

Many of you likely know about the Humans Rights Campaign (which recieves funding from George Soros if that is of interest to you), but did you know they created the Corporate Equality Index (CEI)? The CEI essentially rates how inclusive a company is. Here are some examples of the rating system:
View attachment 60016

The CEI is also a part of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ethical investing. Blackrock CEO Fink is said to be the face of this movement. It would make sense that these companies essentially have to appeal to large financial/investment organizations.

What are everybody's thoughts on companies incentivizing this? Or more widely what do you think about companies taking political stances on issues largely unrelated to their products/services?

Here is my main source for this post. Inb4 >new york post

Actually what's up with the obsession of putting all the private issues publicly? It's not totalitarian or creepy at all to know everything about everybody. I mean my usually mantra is yada-yada power but I would be deeply concerned if somebody wanted to make a database about me. Like what do you want to do with it bucko?

 

[bnuungus]

My boss then proceeded to call me Chinese about a week or two later even though I'm not which was hilarious.

This reminds me of a diversity presentation that I had to go to in uni where they very blatantly made a disparaging remark about cajuns. Seeing as I am one and seeing how this was in a literal diversity seminar it kind of pissed me off but oh well, not worth bitching over. What is worth bitching over is just how badly cajun food is represented in the midwest but that's a rant for another time.

Back on topic though, I'm glad to work at a small company that literally doesn't care about any of this forced diversity stuff. IMO if your entire job is simply to make execs feel good about themselves and not contribute to what the company actually is in any way then you should be fired. What's funny too is that the company I'm working for is about to undergo massive growth (look out for Mr. Bnuungus CEO) but even with that growth we are literally too useful of a company to lose clients over issues like this. Working in the auto-industry supplying assembly-line products shows you pretty damn quick that the bottom line is always profit and nothing else. Ideals go out the window when a new car launch is happening and certain items are dangerously close to being late.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Businesses aren't people

What are everybody's thoughts on companies incentivizing this? Or more widely what do you think about companies taking political stances on issues largely unrelated to their products/services?

1) they are i heard, under some conditions and shenigans laws
2) FEE (foundation for economic education - libertarians - some got beef/heat on them huh, but not me, i see nothing wrong yet) - see video (Hollywood hates you unless you agree with them, and in like 2/3 it starts - "any "be woke go broke" " and making everything an issue of politics...

here, take a break XD
https://www.tumblr.com/nutzo0001/714961412466917376/httpswwwcameronsworldnet?source=share (web designs of old)

 

[Orlando Smooth]

they are i heard, under some conditions and shenigans laws

They're not. The "corporations are people" line was an intentional misrepresentation of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that has been repeated so many times that now people believe it to be true. Basically the Supreme Court determined that the US Constitution exists to limit the power of the government, not as a comprehensive list of all rights and freedoms given to citizens. Since the government acted in a way that violated the restrictions placed upon it by the Constitution, and there had been no law granting them the authority to carry out such actions against a corporation, the actions were determined to be unconstitutional. Lefties get mad because that particular case resulted in benefit for a specific right-leaning cause, but what they intentionally don't realize is that the same protections apply to their preferred companies, nonprofits, political action coalitions, et cetera.

 

[Ataxtia]

I think a lot of this is really good talk and I wanted to bring up a point about ESG and BlackRock, specifically what's the POINT of the ESG system. BlackRock basically had this brilliant idea to determine how risky it was to invest in a company, as at their core they are just a massive investment fund conglomerate. To do this they realized that they could quantify how stable an investment is based on , among other factors, how well a company served a social purpose.

Now, what's the point of this? BlackRock doesn't manually trade assets; they own trillions in assets that would take years to sift through. Instead they rely on a proprietary software they developed called Aladdin, and Aladdin uses ESG data to help it make decisions about what to trade, what to invest in, and generally what is worth BlackRock's time. They also license this software out so you can also use it. After all, why not use the same tools used by the best? So the point of the ESG system is not necessarily to just support leftist agenda, or to make sure companies are being nice towards homosexuals, but instead to streamline the process of investing.

 

[ThyOde17]

1) they are i heard, under some conditions and shenigans laws

View: https://youtu.be/KlPQkd_AA6c


Not that I condone this thinking, the comment you made just reminded me of this clip.

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

View: https://youtu.be/KlPQkd_AA6c


Not that I condone this thinking, the comment you made just reminded me of this clip.

At least he was dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud back then, meanwhile Obama's cabinet was all Citigroup shills yet the man is still worshipped like a god.

So the point of the ESG system is not necessarily to just support leftist agenda, or to make sure companies are being nice towards homosexuals, but instead to streamline the process of investing.

As I said earlier, and agree with you on, ESG was initially envisioned as a score for trading based on market value alone. CEI doesn't even pretend to have that in mind. BTW thank you for bringing up Aladdin, on a forum that has it's claim to fame being dead internet theory, Aladdin is next level shit since it implies the entire market is fake! Yet so seldom is it brought up... But much like HR was idealistically envisioned as a means of bringing about an equal opportunity workforce, ESG was turned into what we're seeing now. Some can say it is deliberate, others can argue it is an extension of extreme elitist nepotism where the biggest companies with the worst ideas will never be allowed to fail because it would destroy both the market and their friends/family.
If digging deeper has taught me anything, it's that the supposed gap between the "free market" and those that run the US government is no better than what the US accuses it's most powerful enemies of. The real difference between the US and China/Russia is that the US seems more prone to foreign influence at the expense of its own people.

The powers that be can afford to put out subpar products that demoralize, sterilize, or kill the rest of us, because they ultimately control the monetary supply.

 

[№56]

BTW thank you for bringing up Aladdin, on a forum that has it's claim to fame being dead internet theory, Aladdin is next level shit since it implies the entire market is fake! Yet so seldom is it brought up...

I've heard about Aladdin before, but I still don't really understand it and it's hard to find more information about it online. All the official material makes it sound like just another piece of stock-trading software. The Wikipedia page is one of the most suspiciously vague things I've ever read and only refers to it as an "electronic system." Is this just because it's a trade secret, or are they trying to cover up something more sinister? And is Aladdin unique, or are other firms using similar pieces of software to make trades? My only knowledge of this area comes second-hand from my cousin, who's a developer for the Bloomberg Terminal. Is that something similar?

 

[Some_porcupine]

The powers that be can afford to put out subpar products that demoralize, sterilize, or kill the rest of us, because they ultimately control the monetary supply.

always could