Banter and General Comments, page-4757

You've nailed it!
All those loopholes around the rules are still in place and still heavily exploited.
And it wasn't just Cudeco. Cudeco, was just an example of wider practice.
But of course there was heavy lobbying by big financials and nothing came out of it...

The rules you've mentioned work well for mortals.
Not so much when you can't tell who's actually holding short interest in the stock.

For example:
People go nuts over Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse shorting but they don't know what these entities actually are.
Acting as a prime Broker on behalf of hedge funds like Blackrock,etc
They are the primary lender, custodian and the broker acting on behalf of the client, in the same transaction. And already have collateral in form of trade accounts they hold on behalf of the hedge funds.
By the end of the day with all the buying, selling, borrowing and shorting these transactions cancel each other out..
I assume you do know what the role of primary broker and relation to hedge funds is.

Anyway, you're right. It's pointless talking about it. As knowing about shadowy practice doesn't really help when you can't do anything about it.