Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a speech yesterday in which he said that he thought the minimal regulation of hedge funds now in place was just fine. It might have been worth mentioning that his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, thought it was necessary for the Fed to intervene in 1998 when one hedge fund, Long-Term Capital, collapsed in 1998. Greenspan said that he feared the damage to the financial system. If Mr. Bernanke subsequently finds it necessary to act in the same way, his earlier comments about hedge fund should be noted.
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–David Dayen, Executive Editor
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