Replies to post #50165 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[sama]

Paula, starting on 9/8 through 9/11 2001, there were 20 times greater shorting activity on United and American Airlines. The FBI used these accounts to do a lot of money trail tracking.

<<terrorist activity? God knows some of them have the bucks to do it.>>

It would not be surprising to me if that were in fact true, but you know, I don't believe they could bring down a few stocks, not more than 5 - 6 (just a guess). That would amount to no more than a small fraction of the hedge fund activities in this country. And we don't call them terrorists, we call them arbitageurs or investors.

[Public Heel]

They don't have the money to do any real harm. The terrorists may be able to put togeter a few million, or even ten's of millions of dollars, but it would take ten's of billions to make any real difference. For harming the U.S., their money would be far more effectively spent in other ways. That's leaving aside the very debatable subject of whether short-selling does, or even can, harm the Market.