That sounds like a complete disaster. The general public isn't nearly sophisticated enough to make wise investments without audited public statements [1]. That's exactly why we have such regulations in the first place.
[1] And even then their capability is in question.
That's like saying, water is dangerous, lets require a swimming licence from anyone who wants to swim.
Besides, your [1] in a way negates your claim - if the availability of public audited financial statements makes no change in the investment capacities of the general average public, then it surely makes no sense to base the permission to invest on that variable.
The problem with your analogy is that a potential swimmer's total knowledge of the water, the difficulty of swimming and so forth isn't held by someone who materially benefits from their ignorance and could materially benefit from exploiting that ignorance.
Caveat Emptor is a fine base-line. But practical experience has shown us that in certain sectors it's not sufficient. Snake oil salesmen can ruin a market by destroying the public's trust.
So it is with investments. SEC rules are generally [1] built on the practical experience of how the market operated without them.
We threw Glass-Steagal away -- an expensively won bit of knowledge about the shortcomings of the 'invisible hand' when it came to people gambling with others' money -- on the assumption that intelligent self-interested experts wouldn't do exactly what they -- almost to a person -- then did. I can't fathom being so eager to repeat that mistake while we're still knee-deep in its debris.
[1] I won't dare use a universal; but I've yet to see a rule that wasn't created as a reaction to a problem in the market. That said, I'm far from an expert on the matter.
Consider this example: We have a nice beach. Part of this beach has huge waves, rocky, dangerous shore, and sharks. You, as the authority, have 2 options: 1) forbid swimming for everyone, and 2) warn about the dangers and let individuals decide.
I can see how different people might choose different solutions, but I, don't like others telling me what to do, for my safety.
Of course, if you just leave it like that, the public is going to loose confidence in that beach. But, if you put up warning signs, like "WARNING, very dangerous. Huge waves and sharks! 17 people have already died here this month alone!!!", which are probably going to deter anyone who isn't absolutely sure in what they are doing (or very drunk or very stupid), I don't see how the public might loose its trust. Especially if there is a very nice beach, perfectly safe, with a beach guard, quite near-by.
My problem with this approach is that I predict that many who would join you in these decisions are going to lose out. However, you all still retain the right to vote in the future for forms of restitution to be made to you by the government.
So Wall Street gets richer, some of you do well, and I'm at risk of helping support those of you who don't.
Find a way to guarantee that I won't be your insurance policy, then I'll more fully support your right to take risks.
The company raised $600,000 which was a huge amount of money in those days. It was done in a way that we can't do anymore. It was done on the street corner where people would stop by and say "Oh, what are you selling?" And you'd say "Oh, we're selling stock in a new company and its a dollar". And people bought a few dollars here and a few dollars there. There were no large investors in Control Data Corporation. I risked most of my assets. $5,000 dollars I invested which was a huge sum of money. It turned out to be a much bigger sum of money. It is interesting how our protective mechanisms over the years prevented such wild things from happening. Now it takes you six months to get approvals to do start any kind of an operation.
Oh, I guess the only people allowed to participate in high-ROI investments are the rich. We can't have little people competing! It might hurt their margins.