Leaping to conclusions can have dire, sometimes even fatal consequences. ...
A perfect case in point is the huge outcry triggered by the revelation by the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general that staff members of the highly respected agency have spent a good part of their days over the past five years studying pornography on the Web, and doing so not only on Uncle Sam's dime but also on government computers.
The report was absolutely right. But the fierce and deeply negative reaction, we fear, was misguided. Far from exhibiting repugnantly lascivious behavior or lecherous inclinations, the stalwarts charged with ensuring the integrity of our financial markets and furnishing protection for investors big and small were diligently doing their job.
Among the younger, unseasoned ones, bereft of much experience of Wall Street and its denizens, there was the occasional failure of their superiors to adequately communicate. Thus, ordered to perform a thorough scrutiny of "bare sterns," they assumed the porno sites were the logical place to carry out their assignment. That misunderstanding led to a dictum that assignments would henceforth be conveyed in e-mails, rather than orally.
Similarly, when commanded to investigate "naked shorts," whose perpetrators bet this or that stock would tank without bothering to borrow the necessary shares to make the transaction legit, the SEC hound dogs quite reasonably concluded they would find an abundance of such rascals on sites devoted to sexual content. Their only sin here was not habitual prurience, but a regrettable lack of familiarity with street usage.
Copyrighted material
LOL.
