And that interest can get very VERY high - the cost to borrow shares when no shares are available can run to $shareprice A DAY (see "hard to borrow").

...yes? That's all shorting. You have to pay the borrow costs as long as you're borrowing the stock.

But how is having short interest of 140% of the float different from having short interest of 80% of the float?

yeah, but how much can they bleed? Can they just give up, default and declare bankruptcy? And then all the people hoping for a short squeeze end up holding stock that is not worth much anymore?

They will get margin called, their assets will be liquidated and the stocks covered.

yeah, but how will the stock be covered, and by whom? If there is no enough stock to buy to cover the outstanding contracts?

GME can always issue more shares and that will give them a sizable injection of cash.

I thought that takes a lot of time though, because of SEC filings, after which the bubble could be over. Or are they allowed to hold on to a bunch of ready-to-go shares?

(Honestly asking and don't know, everyone please only answer if you have knowledge of how these kinds of things work and are able to identify and explain away the relevant confusions.)

What I know is basically just what I read in this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-25/the-ga...

However, it looks very clear that GameStop is allowed to hold on to a bunch of shares it can sell directly in the stock market, since it did exactly that:

> Happily, GameStop does have an ATM offering going. It put it in place on Dec. 8, 2020, when the stock was at about $16.35. The way these things work is that GameStop disclosed that its bank could sell stock—up to $100 million worth—“from time to time” at GameStop’s request “consistent with its normal trading and sales practices”; it did not disclose any particular schedule, and has not yet reported if any shares have been sold, or how many, or when. So I don’t know if GameStop had sold the whole $100 million before Friday’s wild run, or if it had any stock left over to sell; if it had any left over, I don’t know if it sold it all on Friday. I hope it did!

I am not sure either tbh.