• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

SEC employees surfed porn as economy fell

The Giant Noodle

DP Veteran
Joined
Mar 22, 2010
Messages
7,332
Reaction score
2,011
Location
Northern Illinois
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
Sons of bitches!!!!!!!!!!! :beat

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:
  • <LI class=textBodyBlack itxtvisited="1">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. <LI class=textBodyBlack itxtvisited="1">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. <LI class=textBodyBlack itxtvisited="1">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.
CONTINUED: SEC employees surfed porn as economy fell - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com
 
Eh. Not surprising. Ever since Clinton took office, the SEC has kind of been a joke.

Clinton cut funding and Bush reoriented their purpose. Given how badly the SEC was understaffed, it's not that surprising that Madoff was able to do what he did. This is just another symptom of regulators asleep at the wheel.
 
Eh. Not surprising. Ever since Clinton took office, the SEC has kind of been a joke.

Clinton cut funding and Bush reoriented their purpose. Given how badly the SEC was understaffed, it's not that surprising that Madoff was able to do what he did. This is just another symptom of regulators asleep at the wheel.

Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, let's blame Clinton for the SEC employee's behavior. That is so ridiculous, it's laughable. :rofl
 
Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, let's blame Clinton for the SEC employee's behavior. That is so ridiculous, it's laughable. :rofl
He didn't, you're jumping to conclusions. He even said Bush reoriented their purpose and kept them understaffed. He was sincerely bipartisan in the blame and who caused what.
 
He didn't, you're jumping to conclusions. He even said Bush reoriented their purpose and kept them understaffed. He was sincerely bipartisan in the blame and who caused what.

Okay, you're right that he was bipartisan; however, I don't think one can put blame on either president when the SEC employees were not doing their job. One guy spent 8 hours a day looking at porn. Clearly HE was not doing his job.
 
I went to google how many people the SEC employs and I typed in SEX instead of SEC. Coincidence?

3500 people working at the SEC. Somehow I doubt internet porn caused the recession.

edit: If only 1% of my employees were knuckleheads I'd be thrilled.
 
Last edited:
The SEC did miserably fail to do its job, but I doubt porn watching was the cause. Any office is going to have a least a couple of fools watching porn on company time.
 
And this is the same government some of you want to regulate health care. :roll:
 
Incompetent public sector employees? The hell you say...

I know I'm not at the Secretary of State and the DMV for 2 hours a trip because of the great appetizers and lively jazz music.

Just another case of government employees being government employees.
 
Yeah, we definitely need these guys keeping track of the market. :roll:
 
Okay, you're right that he was bipartisan; however, I don't think one can put blame on either president when the SEC employees were not doing their job. One guy spent 8 hours a day looking at porn. Clearly HE was not doing his job.

Well, not sure you can say that without actually seeing his job description....:2razz:
 
He didn't, you're jumping to conclusions. He even said Bush reoriented their purpose and kept them understaffed. He was sincerely bipartisan in the blame and who caused what.

Thanks. Bush was pretty bad too. His reorientation of the SEC towards helping US firms remain competitive in the global financing market did not help. Rather then regulate, they went to a quasi-consulting form. Apparently, the SEC was so understaffed and so unfocused, they couldn't even get their own offices to cooperate.

Considering how ***ked up the SEC was/is, I'm surprised we don't have MORE Madoff scams.
 
And this is the same government some of you want to regulate health care. :roll:

I love how you guys use less than 1% of the SEC employees to say "ALL GOVERNMENT IS BAD" but when someone insinuates that Tea Partiers are right-wing lunatics who hate black people you freak out.
 
I love how you guys use less than 1% of the SEC employees to say "ALL GOVERNMENT IS BAD" but when someone insinuates that Tea Partiers are right-wing lunatics who hate black people you freak out.

All of it isn't bad, but most is. What scintilla of proof does anyone have to even suggest the tea-partiers are racist?
 
This is why it's a bad idea to rely on government bureaucrats to control our lives.
 
This is why it's a bad idea to rely on government bureaucrats to control our lives.

Yes, it is.

Relying on Wall Street to do what is right for the country is a bad idea, too.

Is there another alternative?
 
Yes, it is.

Relying on Wall Street to do what is right for the country is a bad idea, too.

Is there another alternative?

I don't recall anyone suggesting the rediculous idea that Wall Street take care of the country, either.

The alternative is to let Wall Street rise on fall on it's own and no, none of them are too big to fail.
 
Re: SEC employees surfed porn as economy fell

Sounds like our government.
Bunch of jerk-offs.

.
 
This is why it's a bad idea to rely on government bureaucrats to control our lives.

That's right. it's a bad idea to rely on government bureaucrats because they might be looking at skimpy schoolgirls. BE AFRAID!!!!
 
Back
Top Bottom