[sokoloff]

If you're talking about the "accredited investor" rules, I believe that those are both intended and have the actual effect of protecting poor and middle income people from scammers (by making the exploitation of them with some fantastical get-rich-quick scheme into a specific federal crime).

Does it also prevent them from investing in Facebook in 2004? Yes it does.

[tathougies]

> If you're talking about the "accredited investor" rules, I believe that those are both intended and have the actual effect of protecting poor and middle income people from scammers (by making the exploitation of them with some fantastical get-rich-quick scheme into a specific federal crime).

Yeah, so the thing is that the wealth of a lot of the people with inherited wealth was made via investments by ancestors for whom a similar investment today would be illegal.

It is certainly true that many people lost a lot of money through bad investments before the accredited investor rules. It's also true a lot of people made a shit ton of money. The issue now is that today, they have the effect of ensuring that only the rich can invest in the most lucrative investments.