Comment by Chirael

I think the idea of accredited investors is that those investments are very risky, and it limits them to people who can "afford" the risk. An accredited investor may be able to bear the brunt of 9 investments being a total loss, to get to the 10th that hits it out of the park, while a non-accredited investor may have her/his life savings (or a substantial enough part of it) wiped out on the first 1 or 2 deals. I'm not saying it's perfect - there's certainly an element of "the rich get/stay richer" too - but just that there's some kind of rationale for the rules (as I understand it anyway).