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Congress mulls hedge-fund registration
Dollar bills in a hedge
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TEXT OF STORY
Stacey Vanek-Smith: And while we're cleaning up our current mess, lawmakers are scrambling to prevent another economic meltdown. This week Congress will consider new rules that would require hedge funds managers to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. John Dimsdale has more.
John Dimsdale: Wealthy people and institutions used to taking more risk invest in some 9,000 hedge funds holding about $2 trillion in assets.
David RUDER: There's no regulation of them.
Former SEC chair David Ruder favors requiring hedge funds to register with the agency.
RUDER: The registration gives the commission the power to inspect them, to find out what they're doing, and if necessary to bring enforcement actions.
Hedge funds have boosted spending on lobbying from a million dollars in 2006 to almost $8 million last year. The sponsor of the registration idea, Pennsylvania Democrat Paul Kanjorski, says the industry helped shape the legislation.
PAUL KANJORSKI: The hedge-fund people came to us and they assisted us actually in how we would handle it. It's not like its an adversarial relationship.
The industry is lobbying for disclosure exemptions for funds under a $100 million to cut the cost of paperwork.
In Washington I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
People who play hedge funds are idiots. If I want to gamble, I'll go to Las Vegas. If I want to invest, I'll find productive companies to invest in that provide returns.
Anything that makes it harder for these kinds of funds to operate will be good for the economy, IMO, because more of the money that's being siphoned off into these hedge funds will be going back into regular stocks to capitalize businesses and grow the economy.
(Provided, of course, they don't go into the stocks of banks that invest in derivatives)
