“There are about 8,000 planes in the air and 100 really good pilots.”

Hedge funds probably don’t deserve all the scorn heaped on them, as an industry, every time the latest “index” data is posted about returns. But they also probably don’t deserve to be managing $3 trillion of investor assets.

But as Clint Eastwood says in response to a random killing in The Unforgiven, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

The truth is probably somewhere between “hedge funds are bullshit!” and “hedge funds are geniuses!” The longer I’m doing this, the more I see that the truth is always somewhere between the most extreme views on a given subject.

My colleague Ben Carlson knows more about the hedge fund world than most people spouting off about it on the web. He’s just written an incredibly insightful post on the topic that I want you to read:

My Thoughts on Hedge Funds (A Wealth Of Common Sense)