SEC Forum Reports: Carleton, Priore / S.1791 Recommendations TK
William Carleton and Ken Priore both posted great reports on the SEC Small Business Forum last Thursday. A crowdfunding exemption was definitely on the menu, and a couple of people expressed astonishment that the idea had come so far so quickly. My favorite line is from Columbia Law professor John Coffee, paraphrased by Carleton: On crowdfunding: "A catchy, fashionable idea, tweeting for investors." As drafted now, should it pass, then we will see, every night in every bar in America, a Danny DeVito-figure hawking securities. "It would add some stigma to the securities marketing process." (This sounds good to me, on all counts!)
I haven't heard how the rally outside the SEC went, but suspect that in terms of media attention, Occupy Wall Street's declared day of coordinated global demonstrations unfortunately took up all the reporters covering the outside-demonstrations beat. It's too bad none dared branch out to learn about another grassroots revolution, but there was plenty of attention paid to crowdfunded securities inside the SEC that day.
Meanwhile, staff from the office of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) have been consulting on possible revisions to S.1791, hoping to appeal to "the other 99 Senators," as they put it. They are of course well aware of the overwhelming majority with which H.R.2930 passed the House. I hope to post some recommendations on S.1791 soon that I have read and am very excited about-- they're very well thought-through and inspiring. (I feel like such a wonk saying that.)
The Wall Street Journal and The Economist have articles; nothing new for readers of this blog, but good to see what's getting out there-- and the WSJ article has some lively discussion in the comments.
Here's a wonderful essay by Michael Shuman that I should have posted earlier (d'oh!): "Don't Occupy Wall Street, Ditch It."
And here's Steve Bradford's slide deck, from his SEC presentation last Thurs-- I linked to it before, but nicer to embed:
