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From: David Barlow
Dear SEC: Please reconsider your choices and follow the European model. I believe that the restrictions should be in the decision-based structure of your restrictions and not net-worth. For a good example of what structures and how I take a quote from John Mauldin to congress: "It is my contention that the positive values that hedge funds offer to rich investors should also be offered to everyone, within a proper regulatory structure. The current two-class structure (rich or not rich) limits the investment choices of average Americans and makes the pursuit of affordable retirement more difficult than it should be. The rich have a considerable advantage in growing assets for retirement, in that they simply have more assets to begin with. They should not also have an advantage in better investment choices. Why should 95% (or maybe soon to be 99%!) of Americans, simply because they have less than $1,000,000 (or $2,500,000?), be precluded from the same choices available to the rich? Why do we assume those with less than $1,000,000 to be sophisticated enough to understand the risks in stocks (which have lost trillions of investor dollars), stock options (the vast majority of which expire worthless), futures (where 95 % of retail investors lose money), mutual funds (80% of which underperform the market), and a whole host of very high-risk investments, yet deem them to be incapable of understanding the risks in hedge funds?" David Barlow |