From: Nicholas Contaxes
Sent: February 8, 2007
To: rule-comments@sec.gov
Subject: File No. S7-25-06

Dear Committee Members,

You asked for comments concerning restrictions on investors allowed to participate in hedge funds. My comment is that the restrictions should be removed. To quote from an investor's newsletter,

If you were to tell investors that they would be discriminated against because of their gender or race or sexual preference, there would be an outcry. To put it simply: it is a matter of Choice. It is a matter of Equal Access. It is a matter of Equal Opportunity. Congress should change the rules and allow all investors to be truly equal, at least as to opportunity.

I would go further, and say that it is not a proper role of government to protect people from themselves. Perhaps there is a role for government to ensure that all people have access to the information that enables that to make a sound choice, but not to make that choice for them. In investing, who is to say what is a sound choice, or what is an acceptable level of risk? Each person has to make those decisions for him/herself. The fact that some make bad choices is no reason for government to presume to make the choices for them.

Please take my views into consideration, and thank you.

-Nicholas Contaxes