Agreed. I was fairly irritated when I first learned about the opportunities available to accredited investors. I think it's a possible major reason for the growing income gap.
I hope crowdfunding can provide additional opportunities to small investors. Since crowd funded shares are not tradeable, I think it can be very different than pump and dump penny stocks. It will have it's challenges for sure, but nothing we need the government to protect us from.
I absolutely agree with you and appreciate your strong grassroot confidence, which can be rarely seen here in my country, mainland China where the majority of civilians just lean on the back of government like babies
. That accounts for a thousand-year-long slavery.