Hi Sinbob, I sure like Ted Butler's stuff. Makes me think. Makes me wonder what's really going on behind the scenes on the exchanges and in the offices of the regulators.

The regulators apparently see no problem with so few companies controlling such huge short positions. However, as Butler pointed out in one of his articles, they would not be pleased and wouldn't allow it, if such huge positions were held on the long side. What happened with the Hunt Brothers, going back to Applepie's post, was that they were approaching having control of between 1/3 and 1/2 of world supply, the silver price was rocketing and the regulators were very unhappy and probably being pressed by the shorts. So the regulators simply changed the rules and down went the Hunts and the price.

Now a handful of shorts have on the short side probably about the same percentage of silver as the Hunts had on the long side. What will the regulators do when, not if, IMO, one or more of the big ones goes under or cries uncle and pressures the regulators to bail them out before they do go under and freeze up the exchange. Or better yet, what happens if the cartel and the fed are bankrolling the biggest shorts and realize they've gone too far. The concern is, and I don't know if Butler or any of the others have really addressed it in depth, how will the regulators handle it.

Here's what happened to the Hunts when the regulators had enough of the big pile of silver the Hunts were building. When the time came, the CBOT simply changed the rules. 3 million oz of silver contracts were the max any investor could hold. Margin requirements were raised. When that didn't work as well as planned the COMEX changed their rules. 10 million oz. per trader with anything above liquidated. The fed supported both exchanges. I believe the Hunts were also hit with a 100 million margin call, since they couldn't scale down fast enough. And this really broke them.

The point made was that the regulators (part of the cartel/fed?) would do anything to stop silver cornering. The question is will they ever step in to stop the relentless building of the other side - these huge short positions which, according to Butler, I believe, may very well threaten the very existence of the exchanges.