Participants in any investment fraud at doing so out of greed. The whole bloody point of investment is greed. If I wasn't greedily chasing returns, I'd keep my money in my mattress.
That does not mean that fraud should be legal. Stealing from stupid people is still stealing. Stealing from greedy people is still stealing. I don't understand how this is controversial.
No I would say much investment is not about "greed". It is wise and prudent to invest in good things. A farmer invests in the seeds and time it takes to grow the crops.
But yes I agree fraud should be illegal and misleading advertisement is a bit of a fraud already, mis-representation of facts.
But informed people are hard to mislead, the question is who can you trust to give you correct information? I say that is best done by a democratically elected government.
The job of government is to protect us, not only from hostile foreign powers, but also from fraudulent information. Sometimes the two go together. Not all governments will protect us against fraudulent information, only the representative, democratically elected ones will.
The entire point of investment is that you believe that you will have returned to you more than you put in. Otherwise they'd just give the money to the organization as a donation.
That does not mean that fraud should be legal. Stealing from stupid people is still stealing. Stealing from greedy people is still stealing. I don't understand how this is controversial.