BS: Economy crashed by PORN

Subject: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:42 AM

SEC employees surfed porn as economy fell

One senior attorney spent up to 8 hours a day downloading porn

By DANIEL WAGNER
AP Business Writer
The Associated Press
updated 9:54 p.m. CT, Thurs., April 22, 2010

WASHINGTON - 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.

The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained late Thursday by The Associated Press.

The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.

It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes findings of past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:

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.

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."

He said in a statement that SEC officials "were preoccupied with other distractions" when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.

An SEC spokesman declined to comment Thursday night.

[No comment]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 10:59 AM

What!? It would be interesting to know if there were any common denominators among them.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:11 AM

The lowest, kat, the lowest.

If true, it was dereliction of duty as the very least.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:30 AM

LOLOL!!!!!!!!!! Oh, man, just about rolling on the floor here! Gallows humour, yes, but it still hits me as funny in a way.

Am I surprised? Naw...it's exactly what I would have expected. Total derelictin of duty. It sounds so much like the decline and fall of Rome all over again to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:34 AM

...and there are HOW many other agencies?

I think the issue needs to be confronted openly. Agencies...(and other businesses)... should 1)utilize blocking software..1)explain IN A HANDBOOK issued to every employee that they WILL be monitored and punished for illegal use of company time, and 3)(possibly..for some situations) develop advice for how to safely find 'what they need' at home...away from the office.
   Yes, I know...some feel even more terrified to surf for porn at home, but it's better than losing a major job. The real issue is not with porn, but with distraction from the job and lost time.

Porn has always been with us...it always WILL be, and with new technology it is even easier to make and obtain. The Swedes and Danes and Dutch mostly understand this. So do the Japanese...with strange twists.

It's time for this silly society to have a reality check on its attitudes and put things in a sane perspective.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:45 AM

Hmm. Well put, Bill. I think you made some excellent points there in regards to how a mature society would deal with the situation. You're right....it needs to be confronted openly instead of suppressed because people are so damned afraid of facing their own impulses. The real issue isn't porn itself. It's fear of sexuality...and poor administration of the workplace.

I think the Swedes, Danes, and Dutch are on the right track. As for the Japanese, the only thing that bothers me about them is their peculiar penchant for sadism, which I find revolting.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:56 AM

The Japanese put up with almost anything...as long as they don't show details of human genitalia. Various cultures have widely different fetishes and standards.

As the old Quaker saying goes, "Everybody's crazy but me and Thee, and sometimes I think Thou art a bit odd."

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:58 AM

Bankers policed by wankers, busted by the SECs inspector general!

You couldn't make it up...

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 02:55 PM

Y'all think the same isn't going on at , e.g., Goldman Sachs, & most other private sector large businesses?

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 03:24 PM

Maybe... but the few people *I* know who work at businesses or state offices report that there are pretty strong filters in place, and they can't even use a chat program from work. It would be interesting to know what % of the various places are unprotected and not monitored.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:00 PM

The Securities and Exchange Commission, charged with investigation and regulation. Reminds me of the told song,

"Who's going to investigate
The man who investigates
The man who investigates
Me"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:25 PM

Imagine the mess we would be in if they had been paying attention.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:35 PM

The SEC can only enforce laws and regulations already on the books, and what was done that ruined the economy was, unfortunately, quite legal.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 06:50 PM

But the porn economy is doing JUST fine as they co-opt the iPad.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 08:14 PM

It's amazing what (a shitload of) money can do, isn't it, Bill? ;-)

The iPad is another one of those recent innovations I've been blissfully ignoring, along with iPhones, cellphones, iPods, X-boxes, BlueRay, Bluetooth, Cable TV, and God knows what else that I couldn't be bothered with lately.

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 08:34 AM

How can you possibly manage to SURVIVE, LH, without all that peripheral electronic crap? Get with the program & worship consumerism, will ya??

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 10:18 AM

Ha! ;-D   Do you see my middle finger being waved at the great consumer economy? (If I was from the UK, it would be the 2-finger salute.)

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 12:28 PM

I see you typing on an internet bulletin board which requires a computer and a modem. >:)

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 03:37 PM

I'm not perfect!

But I have resisted the lure of the laptop, and I have no wireless devices here.

N I dnt tk in ts knda shrthnd t sv time.

Aren't you glad?

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: Art Thieme
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 05:14 PM

It's a good thing the fellow didn't put the stuff he downloaded onto the old 78-revolutions per minute records.

He'd have a hard time finding an old type pornograph to play 'em on.

Just a thought I had...

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Economy crashed by PORN
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Apr 10 - 09:52 PM

Maybe Boobquake works...