Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/m...

The JOBS Act gave the SEC 270 days to finalize rules to allow crowdfunding. It’s now been more than 800 days. The previous SEC chairwoman never liked the law, which also drew fierce criticism from the North American Securities Administrators Association, leading to accusations of deliberate foot-dragging by the agency. But crowdfunding places two of the SEC’s core missions—the protection of investors and promotion of capital formation—on a collision course, trapping the Commission in a Catch-22. “The SEC was handed something micromanaged by Congress, and they had to try to make up rules to make it workable,” said Noreen Weiss Adler, a New York–based attorney who has written extensively on crowdfunding. She estimates that the earliest we could expect finalized rules would be early autumn of this year. But unless Congress reforms or repeals the law before then, equity crowdfunding is destined to do little more than separate mom-and-pop investors from their savings.