As someone with libertarian leanings I find puff pieces like this pretty frustrating. I generally sympathize with the idea of opening up private equity markets

As someone with libertarian leanings I find puff pieces like this pretty frustrating. I generally sympathize with the idea of opening up private equity markets to more participation, but I also recognize that there are reasons for these restrictions. The Senator's article doesn't bother acknowledging why those restrictions were put there in the first place. This sort of thinking give free-market policies a bad name and leads to bad results (like the financial crisis). Let's take this quote as an example: "Americans are allowed to gamble unlimited amounts at casinos, and can send donations to charities halfway around the world with one tap of a trackpad. Yet, we are legally prevented from making even modest investments in job-creating small businesses." This is a bad comparison: Casino's and charities aren't marketed as investments, so people shouldn't have the illusion they're going to get their money back. The article would be much better if instead drawing a false analogy the Senator would have explained just how the legislation plans to vet the crowdsourcing firms to ensure they're not scams. Personally, I support the general direction of this legislation, but I object to the pseudo-populist slant of the article. It really weakens the case for freeing up capital markets.