Gee, Todd, you didn't know that financial institutions and brokerages regularly let people sell stocks that they don't already own and they are trusting enough to allow this to take place without any evidence of the shorting individual having any collateral or means to fulfill the repurchase obligation?
It (getting burned by short sellers and hedge funds)happens all the time to these greedy capitalist pigs in the financial industry...they're pretty stupid people, ya know.
I heard that naked short sellers don't even have to buy the stock back. They just get to keep the proceeds.