With the advent of the inverse ETF's (bearish funds that go up as their underlying indices go down), investors can easily short anything they like. The "nice" things about these ETFs are that they are safer than traditional shorts, in that you can lose only all of what you put down. There are even 2x and 3x bearish funds that supposedly go up much more than their indices going down (in the short term that is). Hurray!!!
So, bears like thesweetlife can even use these funds to short the market inside an IRA, which was not possible before. It is a free country, and we still have free speech and can invest however we like. It is great. I love it.