We need to make short selling easier not harder. Wouldn't it be great if someone like Jim Cramer routinely recommend shorting a stock?
Great? It would be brilliant! Can you imagine the reaction if a prominent TV analyst had been urging people to short Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, et al. in the spring and summer of 2008? And don't tell me "no one could have known." People were loudly and openly shorting Lehman stock precisely for the reasons that caused it to tumble into bankruptcy. The W$J, alone among all major media outlets, was vigorously reporting on, and editorializing against, the abuses at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Countrywide.
Short sellers are the financial equivalent of muckrakers and investigative journalists in that they bring abuses and frauds to light, even when such frauds are hidden in plain sight. I can only assume they are not mentioned more in the media because (1) the media would have to keep explaining what short selling entails and (2) they usually make management sweat. Also, they make the media look like idiots by finding and pursuing frauds a lot more quickly and aggressively than all the J-schools "truth to power" speakers out there.
GOOD NEWS!!! There is finally a movie out about market manipulation, the SEC, and short selling called: "Stock Shock." For those of us that want to understand some of the inner workings of the market, it is a must-see. Very easy to understand and entertaining. Amazon has it or stockshockmovie.com has a trailer.
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