Goldman Sachs' view on short selling?

Matt Taibi, who famously called Goldman Sachs a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" in Rolling Stone, has picked a new fight with the bank. This time he's targeting the bank's lobbying efforts to keep regulation of short selling at bay. Taibi received a leak from some Congressional staffers, who voiced outrage that Goldman would lobby against restrictions on naked short selling.

Taibbi, based on what the staffers showed him, took the bank's lobbyist to task for using data on all short sales not just naked short sales. But Goldman responds that Taibbi has seen merely a portion of the presentation, not the whole thing, reports the New York Times. In any case, the presentation does note that "the necessity of additional measures to eliminate fails or 'naked' short selling are not supported by empirical evidence." It also states that "pre-borrow requirements would dramatically harm liquidity and market efficiency."

The issue is tricky. On one hand, the likes of Richard Fuld have complained that short sellers targeted his company to deleterious effect. Wall Street, however, has historically opposed this sort of regulation.

For more:
- here's the Taibbi report
- here's a portion of Goldman's presentation as leaked to Taibbi
- here's a New York Times article

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