WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson didn’t have to ask the crowd of roughly 700 business and government leaders, college students and reporters to hush as he took the stage on Tuesday to begin a conference on US capital markets.When the guests include billionaire Warren Buffett, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt and JP Morgan CEO James Dimon, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the audience is ready to listen.

It didn’t seem to matter that the debate was more style than substance as the first panel discussed whether there’s too much litigation and too many regulations for US companies to be as competitive as they can.

Buffett set the lighthearted tone early on that this get-together was for sharing views, not solving real-world problems. The CEO of Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. admitted that his enthusiasm for analysing financial market and economic data was similar to that of a male teenager’s passion for reading Playboy magazine.

“At 76, you’ve got to get excited about something,” the “Oracle of Omaha” remarked, eliciting chuckles from those attending the Treasury Department conference at Georgetown University.

Buffett, who has served on at least 19 corporate boards spanning a 50-year career, quickly added that increased regulation following a wave of corporate scandals and the bursting of the tech bubble has made board membership more tedious and less productive, especially the audit committees that spend “hours and hours and hours on the process without much reality taking place.”

GE’s Immelt said independent auditors no longer provide assurances to corporate boards because the quality of their advice has been “downgraded” in recent years. He blamed complex regulations, such as the 900-page rule book for hedge accounting that he said five of his company’s Ph.Ds cannot agree on.

Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co., emphasised the hyperactive litigious environment for businesses by noting that when his company performed due diligence on a British firm, the litigation file requested included two lawsuits.

A similar request from a typical US firm would have returned a “busload” of files that could fill a small auditorium, Dimon added.

A book written about the rise and fall of America, he said, would reveal that “the fall will be because of the legal system”.

Buffett reacted with his own brand of levity, saying: “I’m going to sue Jamie because I think he’s ready to settle.”

Dimon made the only political plea of the conference’s morning panel, calling for nonpartisan policies on energy, the environment and pension reform that are based on facts, not opinions.

While some applauded that sentiment, Paulson later acknowledged that “no (topics discussed today) avail themselves to easy, quick fixes.”

The lack of concrete proposals didn’t seem to disappoint the audience.

Eric Estey, a 21-year-old GU junior majoring in international and political economics, said he was glad that the panellists, which included Charles Schwab, chairman and CEO of Charles Schwab Corp., and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox “bounced ideas off each other and didn’t give formal speeches”.

But he thought there was a little too much complaining about regulation and not enough focus on how businesses are doing.

A young woman wearing a Georgetown sweat shirt and carrying books walked by as the crowd left the auditorium after the first panel.

“Is this (for) Greenspan?” she asked Estey, referring to the former Fed chief. “Tell him I said, ‘good job.”’

Yet Greenspan, who rattled investors in recent weeks with comments about the odds of a possible recession, decided to keep his remarks to past crises. Predictions of, or fixes for, any present dilemmas remained unspoken.