Did Porn Cause the Financial Crisis?

[Common Sense Party]

The above headline might seem like a joke. It isn't. Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission were surfing Internet pornography when they should have been policing the financial system. A deeply disturbing SEC memo to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) exposing this problem was reported Thursday night by ABC News. Here are some highlights via the Associated Press:

_A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

_An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet, he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense and received a 14-day suspension.

(snip)

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/did-porn-cause-the-financial-crisis/39414/

[truebrit71]

1. Yeah, if it wasn't for the porn the meltdown wouldn't have happened...

...and it is purely coincidence that the (bank-owned) congress goes after the regulatory watchdog with this embarassing story right after Government Sachs gets accused of fraud? Riiiiight...

[maxsolomon]

2. an indication of how much 'regulating' the SEC did under president cheney

as in, they had a lot of down time.

[YOY]

3. No, but it was enabled by a bunch of jaggoffs.

n.t.

[joeybee12]

4. The timeline: Bush-led to lack of leadership-led to lack of oversight-led to

too much time-led to porn.

[Common Sense Party]

6. In my experience, the SEC has long been filled with idiots and

incompetents. And my experience with them goes back to the Clinton era. Most SEC people I had contact with had very little understanding of the products and transactions they were supposed to be policing.

[HopeHoops]

5. I doubt it - Porn was the only thing to thrive during the Bush years.

[we can do it]

7. No Its Was Smoking

[edbermac]

8. Disgusted that some people can access porn at work.

They got a firewall on MINE. :mad:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Bosses want me to access work from home, at all hours

so it only seems fair.

:hi:

If you're stopped by a firewall, you're just not being creative enough.

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

10. NO..Didn't you hear:. Porn causes earthquakes...

:rofl:

[JCMach1]

11. Under Bush it was the only thing keeping the markets up....

ummmmmmm so to speak...

[Supersedeas]

12. the timing of this story is pretty well placed, doncha think?