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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, September 01, 2009 Posted by philgomes 8:53 AM Dear Government: The Venture Capital Industry Doesn't Need You Either Sorry... My Libertarianism has been showing the past couple of days. *blush* Fruit-smashing comedian Gallagher used to joke that "If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' then 'Congress' is the opposite of 'progress.'" I can hardly disagree, given how our legislators are considering applying regulatory burdens on venture capital. From the always-insightful Techdirt: In a recent Congressional hearing where venture capitalist Trevor Loy explained this to our elected officials, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky apparently told Loy that he didn't believe him that VCs invest in private companies rather than companies likely to be rated by the various ratings agencies.... And, yet, these are the folks writing the regulations. This is why some of us get nervous about gov't regulations. Yes, in an ideal world, perfectly knowledgeable regulators might possibly be able to divinely create regulations that work. But that's not what we have. To put things in perspective, the size of the entire venture capital industry is about $30 billion — not nearly enough to affect the banking system. If that were the case, Bernie Madoff would have been able to wreak extreme amounts of systemic financial damage (rather than personal or institutional), seeing as how his infamous Ponzi scheme was more than twice that size ($65 billion) after accounting for fabricated gains. With that $30 billion, however, the venture capital industry has created untold amounts of private and, yes, public wealth. In terms that our politicians can comprehend: By attempting to regulate something that 1) doesn't need it, 2) doesn't deserve it, and 3) legislators are apparently incapable of understanding, we'll never get the next generation of those Internet tubes! Here is the full text of Mr. Loy's testimony to Congress: Testimony of T Loy Final 7-15-09 Technorati Tags: venture capital, vc, congress, regulation HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.