By Neil Wilson
The extraordinary events of recent weeks have tested not only the mettle of hedge fund managers, investors and service providers to the limit, but also the creativity of headline writers. And by now you might be thinking all those "market meltdown" clichés must have been exhausted.
Maybe you should think again - because I have been musing on yet more clichés, ones that would most appropriately describe what has been happening to hedge funds in this tumultuous period. I have been pondering such clichés as: shooting the messenger, witch hunt, and of course, night of the long knives.
While all those expressions may well suggest where hedge funds stand today, I think another I heard recently sums up the situation most aptly. And that is? Collateral damage.
The term came up in a discussion I had recently with someone doing battle to uphold the industry's cause among regulators and...