hahaha mister nobrain, stick to what you know before giving comments ! knitting might be something for you
Bears were paid after they sold their calls or stock, and received a cash equivalent as proceeds of their sale. If the counterparty goes bust, who cares? You already got their money. Not to mention it would take the counterparty, their broker, and their broker's general clearing firm to all go bust before the OCC even has to pay out.
I'm talking about the OCC, who cares about shorts,almost no one is short GM. The counterparty of the puts are guaranteed by the OCC, look the the open interest, there is a lot of people who cares about OCC not going bust, including me