Slashdot Mirror
Economy Tanked While Government Surfed Porn
unixan writes "In a report by the SEC Inspector General that smacks of fiddling while Rome burns, 33 recent ethics investigations all showed that the government employees responsible for keeping an eye on the economy were instead obsessed with surfing porn — while the economy was tipping over. One cited example: '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.'"
FTFA:
Anyone want to bet that certain right-wing news outlets are furiously trying to figure out a way to blame this on President Obama?
You are welcome on my lawn.
At least Dems spend the money on useful things.
Are you sure? If you believe that other people spend your money more wisely than you do, then why not donate even more of your income to the government by paying extra taxes. Surely, the wise Dems will spend your money in a way that pleases you more than spending (or saving it) yourself? Please. The average middle class tax payer is tired of working hard to move ahead while the government is continually pushing them back and standing on their shoes. It is not just the taxes we pay directly, but all the government interference and bungling, good intentioned or not, acting like a giant brake on the economy.
The housing crises, which most people agree was at the heart of the Great Recession, was largely precipitated by the cajoling and encouragement of the Federal Government in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They gave the snowball its initial push down hill by forcing the banks to lend to sub-prime bowers. Does anyone believe for one second that banks or Wall Street firms like Goldman Sacks would have loaned money on such a massive scale to sub-prime minority borrowers if the Federal Government was not backstopping those loans? Hell no. Does the government have total blame for everything that happened? No. There was greed enough to go around in the private sector too; but the crises would not have been nearly as bad or as large if not for the bungling interference of the government in a misguided attempt to use the financial markets as a tool of social policy for increasing the number of poor and minority homeowners. These people should never have been loaned so much money and if not for the interference of the Federal Government in the marketplace; they never would have been.