February 6, 2007
It is evident that investment decisions can have a wide range of significant impacts on personal situations.
If it is considered that adults (who can vote and drink alcohol) are not necessarily able to invest knowingly, it is appropriate to improve the ability of investors. And possibly as an intermediate and temporary measure while investors abilities are improved, restrictions might be agreed, as are now in place eg minimum net worth requirement.
However, it is duplicitous to allow sub-prime lending in disadvantaged communities while also restricting access to the most highly remunerated money managers to the very wealthiest - not necessarily the most sophisticated. The wealthy are often also naive investors since their wealth came by other work than investment management, or came by chance.
The more open the market the better. The more ethical the market, the better.
If these observations are close to the objectives of the regulator, significant revision of the proposal are appropriate.