To muzzle the short-seller is to muzzle free speech

The market needs speculators who are willing to challenge the big battalions, says Patrick Macaskie. Don’t believe the hype: short-sellers were not the villains of this financial crisis

People everywhere have been grappling with what has befallen them. Like the closing stages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream we are waking from a reverie and human folly at its most extreme is being revealed. It is harder to see the happy ending but some things will be for the better. When I think of my children I will be glad to see sensible house prices and society getting a bit more serious and self-critical. But the adjustment will come at a huge cost to many people and whether anyone has a job or not may depend in part on how honest we are with ourselves in the ensuing weeks and months.

As a market practitioner, I feel compelled to try to contextualise what has happened and shed at least some light on markets, regulation and the destruction of human values that has accompanied every bubble in history.