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For quite some time, Overstock’s CEO, Patrick Byrne, has been on something of a… campaign against the practice of “naked short selling.” Byrne isn’t known for holding back his opinions on just about anything, and his complaints about naked short selling resulted in a rather massive Wikipedia edit war — with folks on every side pointing fingers and arguing with each other over supposed dirty tactics by folks on the other side. Now, with the whole financial collapse thing happening, The Register (one of few publications to take Byrnes’ side most of the time, often due to its irrational dislike of Wikipedia) is claiming that Byrne has been “vindicated,” first on the evils of naked short selling, and second on the Wikipedia edit wars.
If only it were so simple. As this excellent Alex Blumberg/Planet Money podcast makes quite clear, while naked short selling may be sketchy, it’s [...]