"On the eightieth anniversary of the crash of 1929, we find ourselves peering backward through the virtual looking glass to a time when global markets were in free fall and venerable financial institutions were in tatters. Yet, here in the present, these same patterns seem to repeat, causing commentators, congressman, and commoners alike to scream the same refrain, "Blame the short sellers!"" "Certainly, short sellers make convenient villains: for one thing, they win only when others lose. But in Don't Blame the Shorts, Robert Sloan taps into a 200-year-old American debate to argue that short selling is not what ails our equities trading markets but what keeps them honest. To Sloan, short sellers' objectives are simple: find overvalued securities and bet against overconfident investors. It's an approach that uncovered widespread fraud at Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, and other failed outfits long before regulators ever set foot in the door." "Taking the long view of history, Sloan unearths the deep roots of the conflict over speculative investing and its role in our economy. Don't Blame the Shorts is an account that overturns conventional wisdom about short selling and the vital systemic (and symbolic) role it plays in making financial markets less opaque, more accountable, and, therefore, stronger."--BOOK JACKET.