(Adapted from a comment thread in another thread)

Imagine (the hedies) shorting at $350 and covering in 4 months at $20. They'll not only recover their losses, they'll probably end up to the better.

Shorts don't expire, they pay interest. And they don't have 4 months, they likely don't even have 4 days.

Right now it's about 30% APY. Let's do the math using the current stock price of GME (~$300) x 115% the number of float shares (~50million) / 365 per day. (numbers approximate and rounded because math hard)

That's over 40 million in interest per day. Never mind that their positions are so below water they are walking dead. They have dug their graves so deep their only play is literally to keep digging and hope they come out in china. Remember that $3 billion injection that Melvin got from Citadel? It covers their interest for 75 days at that burn rate, ignoring all their other existing overhead. But that assumes the price stays at $300. If it hits $1,000 they run out of time before March. $2,000 and "Valentines day Massacre" will have a new meaning. It's why they are desperate to run FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) articles in press, pushing AMC and Silver as 'the new' targets to divert support away from GME. It's why they are literally committing crimes behind the scenes to drive down and halt further raises. It's why the >$320 closing price leaving tons of options in the money on Friday scared the shit out of them. All those in the money options exercising exhausts the brokerage stocks they hold in leverage. That means they have to buy more next week to cover the next round of expiring options if the price continues to rise. There are no new stocks at $300 to buy, shit is about to go parabolic unless they do something, anything!

3 billion only bought the zombie time. To repay their responsibilities at $300 would cost 15 billion. But before Robinhood and others removed the ability to buy new shares 3 days ago, there were multiple documented partial sales as high as $5,400. At that price it would cost 270 billion to repay their responsibilities. At that price interest exhausts their $3billion on Thursday. And that assumes that was the high. It's not.

They are sitting on TRILLIONS in duties and the most they could scrounge up were a few weeks (days) of life support. If they fold, the brokerages must pay out, if they fold the banks must. There is no escape.

They are going to ride their position into the dirt because it's the only play they have. They CAN'T repay, so they MUST ride to die. Their only hope is to stay solvent longer than you stay (classically) irrational. But all anyone has to do to break them is LITERALLY nothing. More new money comes in to buy rather than sell every day. And every time a "rational" actor sells, it is bought by another "irrational" one who simply likes the stock. The noose doesn't just tighten with every dollar of smart money leaving to be replaced by crayon eating autists, no, the trap door has already been released and the body is already in freefall. You can add more length to the rope, but there's no ground below you and you can't fall forever. There's no slipping the knot, your hands are tied. The story is written, the ending is a few pages beyond. Putting down the book doesn't change how this ends, it doesn't matter if you keep reading or not.

* this is not financial advice, I'm a deplorable dirty poor that lives in a basement and I have not showered yet today