Gary Kaltbaum: Just ban selling

Gary Kaltbaum is one of the best out there (http://www.garyk.com) . He has sidestepped the entire bear market thus far and provides a free radio show and weekly column:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/stocks/commentary/gkitermi/Just-Ban-Short-Selling-Altogether-78501.cfm

I always listen to his show and greatly respect his views on the market.

On his site today, he states (I have cut & pasted it word for word because it is excellent):

Sooooo... why not? Let's just ban selling. Let's just go all the way in rigging the free markets in order to raise the prices of bad companies. That's the goal isn't it? Since it is all the shortseller's fault, let's go all the way. No selling... just buying! Then, we all have no worries.

So let's tally it up... Countrywide was bought out by BAC at about $4 because of the shortsellers. They never did anything wrong. They never gave out loans to people who could not afford the first payment. They did not give out no doc loans. They did not have fake appraisals. Nope, they did nothing wrong.

Bear Stearns puked because of the shortsellers. They never lied about their financials. They did not provide 100-1 leverage. They did everything just right. Nope - they did nothing wrong.

Lehman went bye-bye because of the shortsellers. They didn't lie about their financials. They didn't move losses onto off-balance sheet entities only to be caught. They did everything right. Nope - they did nothing wrong.

Citigroup stock dropped 75% because of the shortsellers. They did not commit Enron-like offenses. They did not hide billions of losses, only reporting them when forced to. They had to raise billions at higher prices because they did everything right. Nope - they did nothing wrong.

Merrill Lynch had to sell because of the shortsellers. Again, John Thain did not lie to the public when he said he did not have to raise any additional bucks... only to raise $8.5 billion within a week. They were in perfect compliance. I trust their word! Nope - they did nothing wrong.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the government. Remember that one? That is when our government said no more to bailouts... for the 5th time. FNM and FRE's problems? Yup, all caused by the shortsellers. There was no fraud there. The fact they lost money during the greatest boom in housing and went out of business just 3 years from the top... darn those bad shortsellers. They too did nothing wrong.

AIG was bailed out because of the shortsellers. It is all their fault. AIG never used leverage... ok, maybe a little. They did not leverage their balance sheet several trillion times over. OK... maybe an exaggeration. They didn't insure several trillion in toxic caca... not an exaggeration. Nope - they did nothing wrong.

ABK and MBIA'S problems... yup, all caused by the shortsellers. They did not go outside their business of insuring munis... they were forced to insure caca by the shortsellers. Yup... they did nothing wrong.

The ratings services gave out AAA ratings to stuff that didn't even deserve ZZZ... all because of the shortsellers. Yup, all their fault. The ratings services who get paid by the people they rate, had no confict of interest and only had the best of intent. Nope - they did nothing wrong.

WAMU dropped 99% because of the shortsellers. They did not hand out money to anyone, any time, anywhere... just for the sake of fees. Nope, they did nothing wrong.

All these financial companies, and the many I left out of this report, well, they are victims of greedy shortsellers... or as one famous financial blowhard said: "financial terrorists!" You see, when you miss the bear market, when you tell everyone to buy financials all the way down, when you have called a market bottom on every up day, when you tell everyone to buy LEHMAN a couple of weeks back, when you have to come up with excuses for your incompetence... blame the shortselling "financial terrorists!". When you are best friends with all these slimebags who ran these companies into the ground, you have to have someone to blame. When you are the Treasury Secretary who came from Goldman Sachs, you have to blame the shortsellers even though Goldman is in a better position today because they short sold all this crap when it was going down. Anyone think of that hypocrisy? When you are the head of the Fed and you missed all of this, you have to blame the shortsellers. When you are the ex-Fed who created this problem with easy money and lax oversight, you have to blame the shortsellers. When you run the SEC and you came out on national TV to defend Bear Stearns a few days before they went belly up, you have to blame the shortsellers. Nope... it is all the shortsellers fault. That can only explain why the Bolsheviks (Bernanke, Bush, Paulson,Cox, Congress and all the financials) came up with the great idea to just ban shortselling in 799 financials. Just take it all the way. NO MORE SELLING!

Well said Gary!