October 9, 2008
To whom it may concern,
Better late than never. There is an urgent need to stop abusive short selling in all its guises as it has become blatantly obvious what this greed-driven process has already done to fundamentally sound small and, more recently, large companies and to American capitalism in general. Today's market action puts to rest the notion that the resumption of short selling would not hurt the market. It is long past time for the SEC to launch a full-scale assault upon abusive short selling, and particularly upon the unethical practice of naked shorting. This assault should include an investigation of how this practice has been misused to nearly wipe out some fundamentally sound equities and an in-depth review of the pressure tactics that led to the suspension of the uptick rule.
This may begin to change the perception that the SEC is beholden only to big money interests and may the devil take the hindmost, i.e. the general public.
Sincerely,
Rolf J. Mehlhorn, Ph.D.