You can trade futures, even in many retirement accounts, sometimes with just a few thousand dollars in the account. Such futures can wipe out any amount of prin

You can trade futures, even in many retirement accounts, sometimes with just a few thousand dollars in the account. Such futures can wipe out any amount of principal in as little time as you could wire money to a sketchy private investment. Many of the people defending these 1930s-style regulations, as if these regs truly protected people from themselves, seem to also be stuck in a mid-20th-century view of what the investment & informational environment is like. If someone is truly gullible & risk-seeking, any amount of capital can be destroyed in any number of legally-approved investments/gambles, almost instantly. The 'Accredited Investor' rules just lock the less-wealthy out of one small and not even especially risky corner - a place where the less-wealthy could potentially better-deploy local knowledge. So this old rule is now just paternalistic friction, without any real personal or systemic wealth protection.