There have been shorts since at least 2007 and possibly before, no "if" is required. Watch what is happening with Overstock. (OSTK)
Patrick Byrne is in the process of being vindicated for exposing naked shorting by the banksters. Goldman Sachs has already been exposed, lots more to come. Of course some folks would never believe that the largest banks in the world would ever knowingly give mortages to folks who they knew could not pay them and then package those bad loans and sell them to investors. Not only did they sell them to investors they then bet against those investors, betting that the loans would fail. Nah, the Wall Street giants would never ever do anything like that now would they? lol We have the rocks and we have honest management a combination that is going to make many longs very wealthy. Go SRSR!!!