Powerful hedge funds present a dilemma for Congress regulators

Washington – This much they could agree on: Hedge funds are big, growing and increasingly influential in global financial markets.
    But at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee last week, lawmakers appeared uncertain about how even to precisely define the private, unregulated funds, let alone decide whether to treat them as major risks to the financial system and investors.
    Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., who last year seemed eager to impose new rules on hedge funds, suggested he now is unsure whether any regulations are needed to control the pools of money that often include average Americans’ pension savings.
    ”I personally have no preconceptions about this,” Frank said at the first of a series of hearings to examine the funds.

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