YOU EVER HEAR THE ONE

Looking for a fresh villain to pounce on?

Look no further than the latest media miscreant, hedge funds.

First there was Calpers, the humungous California retirement fund, exit and now the Securities and Exchange Commission has joined the fray. As every animal knows there's nothing like the fresh smell of blood.

Now truth be revealed--and it hardly ever is--Calpers was hardly a babe in arms when they decided to go the hedge fund route. They are not above their fair share of greed and chagrin about under performance.

 These boys and girls wanted exposure to assets that were seemingly beyond their collective expertise.We use the term collective here advisedly. Oh what a straight and narrow arrow hindsight is. One of the reasons Calpers cited for its exit is fees, usually understood by man, woman, child and God as 2 percent of assets and 20 percent of returns.

And that omits any deals or leverage these huge state retirement funds wield. Briefly put, it's a lot.

Enter stage left Andrew Bowen, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bowen's office "found a series of deficiencies at the roughly 185 hedge-fund firms in which it completed exams."

Bowen and his horde of bureaucrats claim they want to examine 40 percent of the reportedly 1,500 hedge funds out there.

Hedge funds are not new. They've been around much longer than ETFs. After all this time the agency is just getting around "to scrutinizing" their activities and large public pension groups like Calpers are noticing the high costs associated with investing in them.

And MSM, true to its code, picks up the critical baton. Have hedge funds been guilty of some questionable behavior? Here's the answer with another question: Have bureaucrats and politicians been guilty of the same?

The real question is which of the two groups have done the more damage?  Our money is on the b-p crowd.

 Did you ever hear the one about......
C. S. Green