• Did the equity market short sellers cause house prices to decline?  Other than investors buying distressed homes at deep discounts in foreclosure how much demand is there?
• Did the equity market short sellers cause the Asset Backed Commercial Paper market to decline?  When the SIVs and other off balance sheet entities stopped buying, how much demand is there?
• Did the equity market short sellers cause the Auction Rate Securities market to disappear?  When the IBs weren’t there to backstop them, how much demand is there?
• Did the equity market short sellers cause the corporate bond market to slow down so dramatically?
• Did the equity market short sellers cause the demand for new cars to decline?

I want to know who is responsible for all that.  And I think they should be punished.  It is “unpatriotic” to not buy cars and not buy houses and on and on.  Of course I am being sarcastic.

We have lots of problems in this country.  It’s really easy to focus entirely on the shorts and once that has stopped, maybe we can start dealing with the root causes.