4 ms·

Yet another person who wants to tell me I'm too stupid to decide what to do with my own property.

by thrill 15y ago

mirceagoia 15y ago
Yet there are enough people who are "yelling" that the government did nothing to stop Madoff from doing what he did. That's why it is so hard to be in balance. How to please everybody?
- thrill 15y ago
  There's no disputing that Madoff committed fraud - and he was prosecuted for it - and unless we want the government counting every penny we spend then there will continue to be fraud perpetrated till the heat death of the universe. All the whining about crowdfunding is telling people that they are disallowed to take any risk with their own property, but only for their own good of course. The laws against fraud do not go away because we've allowed adults to act a little more like they have some common sense. I have been the victim of fraud, and I spent two years pursuing the embezzler and collecting evidence out-of-county and testifying in federal court. The man ended up serving several years in federal prison for his actions. Oh, this was in a publicly traded company - you know - full of all those supposed protections. There will be fraud in the future, and there will be people who get away with it. It's always caveat emptor - but we prevent a lot of potential good trying in some misguided attempt to not let people act like the free men they supposedly are.
  - Gormo 15y ago
    My favorite Tacitus quote comes to mind: "The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise." Of course, the real winners when new systems of preemptive regulation are introduced aren't investors or entrepreneurs, but the regulators themselves, at everyone else's expense.
    - Drbble 15y ago
      You think the SEC staff enjoy making rules and enforcing them, for no profit and guaranteeing to make enemies of one side of every dispute they regulate?
      - Gormo 15y ago
        I don't know whether they enjoy it or not, but it certainly pays their bills. And it's not clear that it makes enemies out of anyone they have to deal with at all.
  - mirceagoia 15y ago
    I was victim of fraud myself earlier in my life. That won't stop me in funding or crowdfunding something.
    - antonej 15y ago
      That sucks. Presumably you have a better understanding of some of the risks now, though? "What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger."
  - antonej 15y ago
    Crowdfunding poses unique collective action problems. By definition nobody has put a large amount of money into a crowdfunded company, so no one investor has anywhere near the kind of strong incentive, bargaining leverage, or resources that a larger institutional investor would bring to bear in terms of oversight. Also, when you pursue a public company as you described, its own disclosures should offer up a mountain of evidence to use against it. I don't know the facts of your case, but in general, securities fraud actions are based on the company's inadequate or misleading disclosure. If a company doesn't disclose anything, it's much harder to hang it by its own rope, so to speak.
antonej 15y ago
Nobody is telling you any such thing. Did you actually read the article? I wrote nothing about stupidity or ignorance or lack of sophistication, etc. The issue is one of market failure based on massive information asymmetry, and I walk through reasons based on economic theory why these risks are far greater with crowdfunding than ordinary investing. The primary reason goes back to why the SEC requires registration in the first place: If most people's investments are small, none of us will have enough skin in the game to have the kind of negotiating leverage to demand true transparency and accountability from the company. If I invest $1,000, it would be lunacy to spend more than a couple hours on the whole thing, let along monitoring it over time. If a VC invests $10 million, you better believe it will conduct exhaustive due diligence and demand rigorous governance and information rights, including putting someone on the Board of Directors. Those are really the two extremes. Read the article. Really read it with an open mind, and you'll see the challenges posted by principal-agent problems, moral hazard, adverse selection, and potentially the ability of crowdfunding issuers to require a waiver of class actions, collectively make it an incredibly risky proposition.

Yet another person who wants to tell me I'm too stupid to decide what to do with my own property.

by thrill 15y ago

Yet another person who wants to tell me I'm too stupid to decide what to do with my own property.

Yet there are enough people who are "yelling" that the government did nothing to stop Madoff from doing what he did. That's why it is so hard to be in balance. How to please everybody?

thrill 15y ago
There's no disputing that Madoff committed fraud - and he was prosecuted for it - and unless we want the government counting every penny we spend then there will continue to be fraud perpetrated till the heat death of the universe. All the whining about crowdfunding is telling people that they are disallowed to take any risk with their own property, but only for their own good of course. The laws against fraud do not go away because we've allowed adults to act a little more like they have some common sense. I have been the victim of fraud, and I spent two years pursuing the embezzler and collecting evidence out-of-county and testifying in federal court. The man ended up serving several years in federal prison for his actions. Oh, this was in a publicly traded company - you know - full of all those supposed protections. There will be fraud in the future, and there will be people who get away with it. It's always caveat emptor - but we prevent a lot of potential good trying in some misguided attempt to not let people act like the free men they supposedly are.
- Gormo 15y ago
  My favorite Tacitus quote comes to mind: "The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise." Of course, the real winners when new systems of preemptive regulation are introduced aren't investors or entrepreneurs, but the regulators themselves, at everyone else's expense.
  - Drbble 15y ago
    You think the SEC staff enjoy making rules and enforcing them, for no profit and guaranteeing to make enemies of one side of every dispute they regulate?
    - Gormo 15y ago
      I don't know whether they enjoy it or not, but it certainly pays their bills. And it's not clear that it makes enemies out of anyone they have to deal with at all.
- mirceagoia 15y ago
  I was victim of fraud myself earlier in my life. That won't stop me in funding or crowdfunding something.
  - antonej 15y ago
    That sucks. Presumably you have a better understanding of some of the risks now, though? "What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger."
- antonej 15y ago
  Crowdfunding poses unique collective action problems. By definition nobody has put a large amount of money into a crowdfunded company, so no one investor has anywhere near the kind of strong incentive, bargaining leverage, or resources that a larger institutional investor would bring to bear in terms of oversight. Also, when you pursue a public company as you described, its own disclosures should offer up a mountain of evidence to use against it. I don't know the facts of your case, but in general, securities fraud actions are based on the company's inadequate or misleading disclosure. If a company doesn't disclose anything, it's much harder to hang it by its own rope, so to speak.

antonej 15y ago

Nobody is telling you any such thing. Did you actually read the article? I wrote nothing about stupidity or ignorance or lack of sophistication, etc. The issue is one of market failure based on massive information asymmetry, and I walk through reasons based on economic theory why these risks are far greater with crowdfunding than ordinary investing. The primary reason goes back to why the SEC requires registration in the first place: If most people's investments are small, none of us will have enough skin in the game to have the kind of negotiating leverage to demand true transparency and accountability from the company. If I invest $1,000, it would be lunacy to spend more than a couple hours on the whole thing, let along monitoring it over time. If a VC invests $10 million, you better believe it will conduct exhaustive due diligence and demand rigorous governance and information rights, including putting someone on the Board of Directors. Those are really the two extremes. Read the article. Really read it with an open mind, and you'll see the challenges posted by principal-agent problems, moral hazard, adverse selection, and potentially the ability of crowdfunding issuers to require a waiver of class actions, collectively make it an incredibly risky proposition.