"That's why it is so important, as the JOBS Act loosened the strictures on capital raising, for there to be at least basic investor protections built in".
"Wachovia caused significant losses to the Zuni Indians and other investors by violating basic investor protection rules," Robert Khuzami, the director of the S.E.C.'s enforcement division, said in a statement.
The site, which is easy to navigate, offers a basic investor education section and a decent glossary of investing terms.
Called Accelerato.rs, the application is a standard online form that asks founders basic investor-type questions, and lets them write one version then send it to any of the dozen or so participating programs.
As corporations make headlines for hiding expenses and furnishing execs with gilded trash cans, mutual funds keep even basic investor information secret, such as how much fund company executives earn and whether fund managers personally invest anything in the funds they oversee.
Last week, another bank settled a similar case with securities regulators who accused it of "violating basic investor protection rules".
In announcing the settlement, the SEC's director of enforcement, Robert Khuzami, said the lender violated "basic investor protection rules -- don't charge secret excessive markups, and don't use stale prices when telling buyers that assets are priced at fair market value".
"It's really hard to see how removing basic investor protections and exposing millions of Americans to ripoffs will spur 'jobs,' but it isn't hard to remember how it helped destroy the economy," Tyler Gellasch, a former Senate staffer and counsel for SEC Commissioner Kara Stein told HuffPost.
Some Muslim and Arab countries also fail to provide the basic certainties that investors receive from the rule of law.
The basic message to investors would seem to be: Give us your money and then don't bother us any more.
