When you look at what's going on at Lehman - yes, the company that went bankrupt two years ago yet has piled up a $2 billion bill ever since - it's hard to argue against the financial industries "innovation" as they like to call it. The industry will tell us how their "innovation" has generated billions or more but where is it? The public saw the price tag for their "innovation" while they saw bonuses. Remember, even though that money was all written off by the banks, they never had to pay back a penny. Try that in another industry and see how quickly the money is returned.
Even worse, despite not paying back anything for the obviously bad business, they were then given even more money by governments. That money was directly related to the recent financial success in the banking industry and yes, they will all receive bonuses on that too. If the bankers can't help themselves from going too far, they live with the results of a more regulated market. If they don't like it, tough.
Short-selling is a technique that sees investors borrow an asset, and then sell it on to the market.
Traders using this technique bet that the price of the asset will have fallen by the time they have to buy it back in order to return what they borrowed.
European single market commissioner Michel Barnier wants to enforce EU-wide regulations that will make investors disclose more details of their so-called "short positions" in shares - caused by short-selling - to a central database.
The suggested new rules are also expected to include a requirement that these trades go through a central clearing house so everyone can be certain the investors have enough cash to pay up if they lose the bet.
