Liek a lot of wealthy liberals, George Soros is a big fan of government regulations that don't affect him. Unfortunately, despite being one of liberalism and the Democratic Party's major financial backers, the Democrat-sponsored Dodd-Frank law has bitten Soros in a big way. Fortunately for Soros, the law does have a loophole that lets him stay oin business for himself and avoid regulation, as the WSJ explains:
George Soros is turning his legendary hedge-fund firm into a $24.5 billion "family office," a move that allows it to avoid a new level of regulatory oversight facing many hedge funds. ... Soros Fund Management LLC, told clients it will no longer manage outside investors' money. It will return less than $1 billion to investors and manage the remaining approximately $24.5 billion—including funds owned by Mr. Soros, his family and their foundations—through a family office.
A letter to his investors dated Tuesday said the switch takes advantage of "an exception" in the Dodd-Frank financial legislation. Family offices, regardless of their size, won't face the same regulations being imposed on hedge funds and private-equity firms. ...
The pending hedge-fund regulation was born out of the financial crisis and aims partly to help regulators keep tabs on risks to markets that could be mounting based on hedge-fund trading. ... The new rules require many hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission by March 2012. SEC-registered managers are expected to have compliance programs that meet certain standards and to participate in proposed systemic-risk reporting, which would require them to turn over more data about their strategies and trading exposures to the U.S. government on a confidential basis.
One particular concern of managers, besides the time and money spent on compliance, is that once the funds become registered they will be subject to more onerous reporting requirements, including public disclosures about their operations, personnel and the amount of assets they manage.
You'd think that as a good liberal, Soros would be happy to comply with new regulations. After all, his fellow lefties claim that "Soros believes that the public interest should always prevail over his own self-interest, a position that sets him far apart from contemporary neo-liberals who hold the common good (such as it exists in their way of thinking) can only be achieved through pursuit of self-interest and personal gain." If so, however. shouldn't the public interest in disclosure trump Soros' personal self-interest?
Indeed, isn't avoiding regulatory burdens and costs something only conservatives do? Or is it a case of do as I say, not as I do?
