Whether you think the JOBS act is a good idea or not ... people will get burned by it. Think Groupon minus the SEC disclosures and corrections they've had to make in recent weeks. Or a company pitching a flying contraption using that video that even Wired magazine couldn't determine whether it was real or fake as their pitch. That's the potential brave new world of investing this opens up.<p>Maybe it'll work. Maybe the intelligence of the masses will establish better oversight than the federally funded version that arguably does a pretty shitty job with listed securities. But people most definitely will get burned, and hopefully some amazing businesses will come out of it to keep things in balance.
News site whose primary audience consists of "traditional" investors runs article critical of law supporting non-traditional investment. Biased news at 11.<p>Yes, this act will allow various types of fraud that previously couldn't exist. It will also allow various types of awesomeness that previously couldn't exist. Seems like a net win to me.
So the concern here is that crowdfunding sites will allow scammers to sell shares of nonexistant companies to average people?<p>It sounds like the biggest worry is that us "average" earners (under 100k annual income or net worth) have never purchased corporate shares, and are more likely to get scammed.
I couldn't understand the point of the article other than they don't like crowdfunding, small investors shouldn't exist, and they don't like the JOBS act. Could someone lecture me on what I missed?
MF Global - 1.2 Billion or more of supposedly segregated client funds, commingled and then missing. Futures contracts disrupted, lots of other irregularities.<p>How many weeks has it been since this came to light?
"Investors with annual income or net worth of less than $100,000 will be allowed to invest as much as $2,000 a year in a company that offers shares via crowdfunding."<p>Even if someone only invests in scams and gets royally fleeced out of their whole $2000 one year, a lot of people waste a lot more money on much stupider stuff.