Wow this is interesting "The creation of phantom
Post# of 96879
"The creation of phantom shares, by loans of existing shares to short sellers, boosts the float (number of freely traded outstanding shares) by artificial means even though no such increase in shares was ever authorized by the company or the SEC. For example, one company we have studied has 40 million shares outstanding and a 6 million short position. Thus investors think they own 46 million shares, even though neither management nor the SEC ever authorized the extra 6 million shares. In truth there are only 40 million shares outstanding and the extra shares have been created out of thin air by the shorts"
https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-627/4627-95.pdf