The Atlantic: Did Porn Cause the Financial Crisis?

[RedHot25]

According to "the Atlantic"....

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-crisis/39414/

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.
_Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.
_The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.


AP News Story: SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...24EDQD9F8FSU81


Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.
....
California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse."

[Two Fivenagame]

Useless without vids...

[worth]

I don't really get the point of looking at porn just to look at porn. If i start looking at porn it usually leads me to want to rub one out. And I don't really want to do that at work. Therefore I don't look at porn at work. Although I don't work for the SEC.

[IliketoPuck]

I predict that the SEC will not win the Goldman Sachs lawsuit on account of being too distracted while on the job.

[Hack&Lube]

Why can't these dudes do this at home?

I guess with the salaries these guys were making, they would have their own private offices, tell the secretary not to disturb them for a few hours, etc.

But how could they do it for hours at a time?

[3 Justin 3]

The entire world went into a recession because 16 guys were beating off? Ok then.

[Jetsfan]

Porn is a billion dollar industry.

If anything, porn has prevented the economy from getting worse.

[Locke]

8 hours a day of porn??

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

The entire world went into a recession because 16 guys were beating off? Ok then.

16 guys were beating off to porn and forgot to police the 160,000 bankers who were beating off to greed and exploitation of the poor.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Locke

8 hours a day of porn??

[Locke]

Worst. IT Department. Evar.

[Jetsfan]

Just imagine how much the economy could be stimulated if you legalized prostitution!

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Locke

Worst. IT Department. Evar.

There's not an IT department in the world that can block porn.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

SEC the worst place to be a janitor...

[mykalberta]

Who can rub one out with just pictures, do they hire 12 yo to work at the SEC? Let me guess they also rent Pb softcore videos.

There needs to be video and audio minimum.

[SinceDay1]

Gotta be a Tiger Woods joke in there somewhere.

[Azure]

Why am I not surprised?

That they were doing it and that the government is too stupid to actually catch them?

How many IT guys here could easily catch someone watching porn on a company computer.

Its not THAT hard. Well unless you're the US government.

[Flames0910]

i suppose a scapegoat was necessary. but did it have to be porn?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Azure

Why am I not surprised?

That they were doing it and that the government is too stupid to actually catch them?

How many IT guys here could easily catch someone watching porn on a company computer.

Its not THAT hard. Well unless you're the US government.

You can block most things, but you can't block everything unless you cut off internet access. Even then they will probably find a way around that.

Although, if you tell me Bob down the hall in Accounting is a porn freak and going through 20 boxes of company tissues in a week, then catching him in the act is not very hard, doing so in a manner which isn't going to get you in hot water (privacy concerns) is a bit harder.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by Azure

Why am I not surprised? That they were doing it and that the government is too stupid to actually catch them? How many IT guys here could easily catch someone watching porn on a company computer. Its not THAT hard. Well unless you're the US government.

Well, #1, they did get caught. Otherwise this thread would not exist.

And #2, I have not done the Google search yet, but I'll wager $5 that I can find links showing private companies having employees surfing for porn.

Ignoring your responsibilities for, uh, personal gratification, is not just a "government issue".

Although not surfing for porn, just surfing the web and wasting time rather than doing your job is a huge workplace issue. I saw a poll last week where 75% of people admit to surfing the web when they are supposed to be working!!