More Hedge Fund Scrutiny... or something

I see that the Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on Tuesday to discuss regulation of hedge funds. Lately the debate has been hijacked by naked shorting conspiracy nuts, so hopefully the Senate will put the discussion back on track. Don't count on it.

I'm a little wary of SEC regulation of hedge funds, since the SEC is serially inept, captured by Wall Street, and generally mucks up everything it tries to regulate. The SEC rule mandating registration of hedge funds was a joke -- a meaningless requirement with massive loopholes. But it made the SEC look good, and I guess even better when a court tossed it out.

Certainly more scrutiny of hedge funds' use of leverage would be sensible. So -- at the risk of ending two paragraphs the same way-- I repeat. Don't count on it.

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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