On the one hand, yes to all that, and shorts are equivalent to going long against everything else so must necessarily exist in some form. On the other hand, sh

On the one hand, yes to all that, and shorts are equivalent to going long against everything else so must necessarily exist in some form. On the other hand, shorts (at least as implemented) are prone to cascading in both positive and negative directions, and are also an "obvious" reminder of how the "stock-market" economy is utterly divorced from the "production" economy. "Price discovery" is a lie when it is also "price creation".