[jyl]

Okay, time for a reality check.

1. Scottrade is a private company, a discount broker for small investors. It isn't the government and it isn't even a big player in the markets.

2. "Short sale fees" are nothing new. When you short, you borrow stock from investors who own the stock long. Those investors aren't going to loan the stock for free. They charge a fee, called "the borrow", and they always have done. The borrow can be very large for stocks that are in high demand by short-sellers, for some it is >10%/year.

3. The borrow, or what Scottrade apparently calls the short sale fee, is not a government charge and the government has no control over it. It is simply the price charged by the private parties who own the stock, to the people who want to short it, for the right to borrow the stock and sell it.

I have not read anything else in this blog. This particular article is utterly uninformed and amateurish.