Edgie,

Thank you very much for the link to that story. It did not make the headlines on the T.V where I am sitting (San Fran) today.

For those who missed it, here is the link that edgeiejones posted:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...

To those of the regulars on here that know what naked shorting has done to the market the past number of years, this completely unethical, immoral, and (no amount of bad words can describe my feelings on these monsters) practice has pulled dollars out of the hands of retails investors by dropping share prices and forcing companies to raise money at much lower SPs diluting the original investors investment. It has killed many good companies.

Noront was horribly naked shorted in December 2006 after the results of Windfall's Hole 100 came out. Noront's oustanding shares were 60 million back then and that amount traded within five days a week following the news. The price also was manipulated to keep it below $1, all so the funds could pick up 30 million cheapies at 50 cents which was the original PP.

How do I know this? I follow the web site buyins.net for info on naked shorting. While Noront trades as NOT on the venture, it trades as NOSOF on the OTC. Thus most never found the record of naked shorting during those months.

Regardless, this announcement today is extremely significant and will be looked back on as a historical moment. For the SEC to put in these rules tells me that the hedge funds almost eroded the entire US economy within a few short months. When you see financial institutions older then the country of Canada dropping like dominoes, something is up.

Sorry to say it is all not due to the subprime crisis. Those who have followed this crisis (since May 2007) know that the value of these bad loans was about 200 - 400 billion. Since that time, the world markets have lost significantly more than that just in market equity. Does this make sense? To write off all of the loans would have cost 400 million. Why the other losses? Shorting and the creation of a market of doom and gloom that resulted.

What I have suspected all along is that the vultures naked shorted even the largest institutions to scrape the last few pennies they could out of a market unprofitable due to the original sub prime crisis. When that money dried up, they went after the big boys and were successful. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, the Fannies, and a line up of others were affected as their stock price dropped, investor confidence fell apart, and the portfolios of every fund, investment bank, pension fund, and retail holder continued to drop.

Regardless of the price of Noront today, I am smiling because of this news. For the FEDS to put pressure on the SEC to clean up these scumbags levels the playing field for those of us who have put our hard earned dollars into the future of our economies. Think about it. We put in dollars so that people like Richard Nemis can hire crews to do surveys, drill, assay, and move land into production mines and sell commodities that the world needs. The naked shorters dump shares they do not even own, forcing the prices down by exaggerating supply, not covering those shorts, and in the end making it more difficult to for a company to raise any additional funds in the future (regardless of the FED rate). The sales are real, but the paper is never covered if the transactions are flagged as "failed to execute". A search on naked shorting on UTUBE will tell you all you need to know.

If the news today is followed through by the SEC and the rules are followed and the punishments for breaking the rules applied, then my faith in this market will be restored. I have always had faith in Richard Nemis and Noront, but not always the market that Noront trades in.

Now that the morgue is full on Wall Street and the autopsies have shown the cause of the carnage, things will improve. Especially for those in the commodities sector.

Keep the faith folks. The market needs to clean up itself first and then we will see the share prices we deserve. I accept the current chaos if this is what was required to bring the naked shorting fraudsters to their knees.

M1.